It’s difficult to know quite how best to reflect on the Pride shenanigans last month.

I apologise now if anyone is upset by what I write, but having witnessed the ‘car crash’ that was the public meeting on Tuesday 17, at the Queens Hotel, and the attempts by Pride to play ‘victim’ to the carnage they had created, I think some hard home truths need to be told.

First it is important to understand one thing. Pride are in trouble because they made a bad strategic decision in 2007 to employ more staff and the income did not come in to pay for them over the next two years.

It’s that simple. Pride have lost money for the last three years, but used their reserves to bail themselves out each year. After this years event there were no reserves left and Pride called a press conference to announce they were going to a public appeal to raise money to cover a ‘potential’ £50,000 deficit in their budget.

One question needs asking - why Pride did not go public with the appeal before the event? They also failed to announce that the fundraising was to pay for staff wages and other core costs until Christmas.

Following the press conference, Pride called one of their annual Pride feedback meetings. This meeting happens every year after the event. Most years few turn up, but this year because of the announcement of the ‘potential’ deficit in the budget more people than normal turned up. After that feedback meeting Pride announced they were having a root and branch re-think of the event and what Pride was about.

The radical rethink took a day and Pride published their proposals to scale the event down in 2010, in the process creating opponents in all parts of the community. Not only were the business sector unhappy, but the voluntary sector were uneasy, and organisers of the Women’s Performance Tent and Calabash Tent made their views very clear, concerns were published on the Gscene website.

In announcing their proposals to contract the event, Pride made their first mistake. They did not consult with the community. They took for granted they had understood what people wanted from the feedback meeting and came up with their proposals. Many people at the community feedback meeting have complained to me the proposals were not reflective of what people remembered from the meeting, but more importantly all sections of the community felt that they were not involved in an ongoing dialogue with Pride.

The questionnaire that Pride put on their website reinforced this view and had been clearly designed to give credence to the various cutbacks Pride was proposing. It was a shameful tactic and for me provided further evidence of how the Pride board held the community in contempt. If Pride had run their questionnaire after the final acrimonious public meeting when people were told that the cutbacks were being made to help Pride achieve their ‘charitable objectives’, maybe they would have a completely different set of results on their questionnaire.

Pride made their second serious mistake prior to the public meeting of Tuesday 17. They issued a statement drawing peoples’ attention to the facts! A statement I personally think is very misleading and whose main purpose was to point the finger of blame at Paul Kemp and Aeon Events for too many of Pride’s problems. It was breathtaking in it’s arrogance and typical of how some people on the Pride board hold the efforts of local businesses in contempt. If Pride achieved one thing they brought all the businesses together in support of Paul Kemp who has historically been Pride’s biggest supporter and fundraiser. Instead of pointing the finger at one of the few friends they had in the business sector they should have been acknowledging their roles and responsibilities in their present financial situation. A little contrition might have been helpful.

The meeting at the Queens Hotel was an example of how a charity that ‘masquerades’ as a community organisation and then gets too big for their boots are held to account at a public meeting. It became clear to many in the room there was a clear anti business agenda attached to most of the answers Pride were giving. I think, maybe for the first time, Pride saw face to face how so many of the people who were lining up against them, loved the event. Something that seemed lacking from the Pride side of the room. In fact I felt they not only held their opponents in contempt but had developed a dislike for the event they had inherited.

Dean Parker from Wilde Ones who had been supplying the production to the park for the last 10 years was treated with contempt by some members of the Pride board when attempting to give a presentation of his rescue plan. And that is what it is - a rescue plan that was tabled to save the event in 2010, after the present board had failed to recognise the seriousness of the position they were in for the last two years. It was not a takeover plan. I personally feel safer with this rescue plan than the present plans being put forward by Pride daily to save the event.

Following the meeting, the chair of Pride resigned illustrating in her resignation letter why she was not suited to head up an LGBT community organisation and that is were the problem lies. Pride is far from being a democratic LGBT community organisation because it is not accountable to the community it is accountable to the charity commission. Pride’s charitable status has caused more problems than it has solved. A not-for-profit company with the community able to vote the board on maybe every two years would be more practical, and easier to hold to account at times of conflict.

After the resignation of the chair, Pride issued two statements, the first acknowledging mistakes had been made (if only they had started the public meeting with this statement the outcome of that meeting would have been different).

The second statement announced they had reconsidered their position and would be having a dance tent, cabaret tent and all the various community tents again next year. They also announced their intentions to set up a forum where the businesses work with Pride and a separate forum for voluntary sector organisations and social network groups, which would be facilitated by a completely independent person acceptable to everyone. This great idea was put forward at the public meeting by Jess Wood from Allsorts.

Which leaves us with the situation regarding the involvement of Wilde Ones, who have helped nurture the event for the last 10 years to what it is today. Wilde Ones felt they could not tender for an event that Pride had announced might be different next year or might not even happen. The tender document was 70 pages and it is still not clear to me exactly what companies have been asked to tender on. I will be asking Pride to identify the legal costs involved in drawing this tender up in next months Gscene.

Preoccupation with a tender process is surely only appropriate if you have no existing suppliers for the services you need. In this case, for example, both park infrastructure and the night security had long standing, able, reputable suppliers who had the best interests of Pride at heart. Why tender for these requirements if you are happy with them? If they were not happy with them an explanation should have been given by Pride. In my view Pride have effectively destroyed 10 years of community development work at a stroke. Pride has survived and developed over the years because the major suppliers who supported Pride love the event. From Bill Cole who owns the funfair to the man who runs the night security, they love Pride with a passion.

Gscene acknowledges that Pride have issued a statement saying they have made mistakes and that is appreciated, however, we are supporting the call from the openly gay Leader of the Lib Dems on Brighton Council, Cllr Paul Elgood to have an independent scrutiny of Pride’s tendering process, identifying why it was necessary and what exactly was the technical specifications they issued to be quoted on.

The only way forward for Pride is to re-establish the relationships that brought the event to where it is today. Only then will everyone who is needed to make Pride happen come back to the table and start fundraising once again.

If the Pride board are so sure they are acting in the interests of the LGBT community I suggest they put to a public vote through Realbrighton.com whether the tending process should be re-opened so that Wild Ones can tender on what the final specification is for this year’s event.

I have come to the position I have taken in this months magazine after speaking to local LGBT businesses, local LGBT groups, a former chair of Pride, Pride trustees who have resigned from the organisation over the last 12 months and reading the views expressed by people on the Save Brighton Pride As We Know It Facebook group.

I acknowledge that the Trustees give a great deal of time to Pride, but they need to remember that they are merely the ‘guardians’ of the event for the LGBT community at large, not the Charity comissioners.

One final point I think needs saying is that Pride has no paid LGBT workers. It should not make a difference, but in this case, in my view, it has and that is a shame for the present Pride workers involved.