Wed 21 Oct 2015 In: New Zealand Daily News View at Wayback View at NDHA
The first Auckland Pride Community Hui was held yesterday, the initiative brought about by the Pride board was received well, with around 40 interested community members in attendance. The first of several Pride community forums to be held at Studio One Te Tui in Ponsonby, the evening was a chance for the community to offer their thoughts and ask questions of the board - the key question of the night being; ‘what is Pride’s definition of community’. A debate that a GayNZ.com source says raged throughout the evening, new Pride board member Kirsten Sibbit reiterated the boards dedication to the community saying; ”We want this to be the start of a relationship”. A white board that was intended to record the feedback from the forum is said to have only featured a single line under ‘strengths’ until late into the meeting. One of the biggest issues raised at the forum was the cost of Pride. A concern raised by a representative of No Pride In Prisons who said that they did not have the money to afford a float, after suggestions that should have had a float in the parade rather than a protest. They say that allowances for community groups to march in the Parade were not well advertised. Dovetailing into the complaints about the cost of Pride, community members at the hui raised concerns that young people felt excluded from previous Pride festivals due to both the cost of the events and the fact that very few events targeting young people, particularly young lesbians were featured or encouraged in the parade. Concerns were also raised by those who run theatre shows during the Pride festival that event organisers who do organise shows and ‘Pride preview seasons’ do not feel adequately supported either monetarily or otherwise by the Festival. Compensatory tickets to Board Members at several shows often resulted in empty seats. Controversial also was that the Festival has missed the August round of Arts and Culture funding from the Auckland Council – “turning down free money”. The new Pride board expressed a willingness to abandon a ‘reliance’ on public sector funding in order to seek greater money from the private sector and corporate sponsorships, such as the GAYTM initiative during last years festival. The new board also emphasised a desire to focus on multiple ‘work streams’. A bear community representative also reminded the new board and the festivals that Bear Week and Pride clash, and the bear community felt unsupported in their week by Pride, particularly as Pride would hold major events that clash with Bear Week. He noted that Bear Week was longstanding and had been around a long time before the Festival – and that coordination and communication had been lacking. It was raised that the Pride Facebook page had been promoting certain events a week after they had happened. The issue of communication was also highlighted during the evening, with many people in attendance feeling that the feedback forms after each Festival had been ignored, and that some had not been told their events would not feature in the programme. The Board took extensive notes during the evening and promised to act on the issues raised. The next community forum will be held on the 14th November.
Credit: GayNZ.com Daily News staff
First published: Wednesday, 21st October 2015 - 12:05pm