Stephen Richards aka Lola Lasagne

Having been involved with Brighton Pride since 1997, you'd think I'd be used to the way the board works, but even I was surprised by the events at the public meeting on Tuesday November 17 at the Queens Hotel.
 
I have never seen such defensive behaviour from a group of people, and especially the chair, Yvonne Barker, who spoke so much about transparency.

We were invited to pose questions which were then, in some cases, completely ignored or given such a spin that it was easy to forget what had been asked in the first place.

Ms Barker, mentioned near the beginning of the night, the new proposals for entertainment areas, which would see the loss of of Wild Fruit/Cabaret Tent/Womens Tent/People of Colour etc. She said, that Wild Fruit and Cabaret Tents, in particular did not meet the charity objectives set by Pride. I asked how exactly, and this question was ignored, despite my asking it a second time.
 
Having been present at the original feedback meeting, in October, I am still confused as to how the board developed the new proposals suggested for next years event. Although they gave us a comprehensive breakdown of the the results of the online survey, they kept telling us that other feedback told them that people wanted a completely different event. Who are these people? How many of them were there? Again, this information wasn't forthcoming.
 
It seems to me that the board feel a little put out about the park event. When you talk about it, you mention names like Wild Fruit, Revenge, the Paul Wilde line dancing tent, and maybe the board feel they're not getting as much or any recognition for their involvement. But by pushing aside the LGBT community and causing an enormous amount of distrust with the people they need to make this event work, we reached the stalemate, most people anticipated from the meeting.

Pride need to fully admit that they have mismanaged the event over the last two years when their financial worries started to become, at least to them, apparent. If they had asked for help then, there wouldn't be the mess that there is now.

They have been offered solutions to help save the event, which they pooh poohed, last night because they weren't submitted in the proper way. Maybe they have a point there, but given the amount of opposition to their proposals, the huge lack of distrust and lack of time to raise money for next years event, which ever form it takes, Pride's options seem limited, if they want to emerge from this with any shred of dignity.