MANCHESTER PRIDE HIT BY PROTEST OVER LACK OF FUNDRAISING

Press release by Geoff Stafford

Protest will hit the city centre offices of Manchester Pride at 12:15 this Monday lunchtime (November 11).

Pride was expected to announce this year's charity figure last Friday, but didn't. It is rumoured to be below £29,000, making it the lowest amount since 1990 when the August event was little more than a jumble sale on the cobbles on Canal Street.

38,000 tickets were sold this year, despite the recession. In 2012 the registered charity had income of £991,656 and announced £52,000 for good causes. But it has since emerged that only £36,100 of that was raised during the financial year and the publicised amount had been topped up out of reserves.

Now concerned members of the public, charity workers, gay village business owners and their staff will stage a protest outside Pride HQ.
Their offices are in the Manchester One building on the corner of Portland Street and Sackville Street. The peaceful action starts at
12:15 and later will move to outside the town hall.

Manchester City Council gave Pride just £11,796 in 2012 and despite boasting that the Big Weekend brings in as much as £22 million of business across the city. In comparison, a recent concert by Alicia Keys received Council funding of £425,000.

Manager of VIA on Canal Street Tony Cooper is also a former Deputy chair of the Village Business Association (VBA). In a public statement this week he writes that he will "remove all my support for Manchester Pride until I see appointments on the board that represent business and the community."

"I have had dialogue with Manchester Pride for several weeks and I have not seen any change in the way they deal with issues and I find myself believing that they do not want to engage with the community at large and certainly not the businesses who support them to the tune of £40-60k every year."

Geoff Stafford the co-founder of the Facebook campaign group "Facts About Manchester Pride" points out that the planned protest isn't tied to any particular group. "This feels like a turning point," he says.

"We've been campaigning for two-and-a-half years, but now Pride has upset a lot of the LGBT community right across the board. From low-paid people who feel excluded by high ticket prices, to gay business owners and charity workers. In the current climate smaller charities in particular depend on this funding.

"We expect many of those people will join in the protest. Personally I think the board of trustees should resign."

This summer, village workers were told they would be prevented from going into the main arena during Pride. Performer Penny Crayon is one who was turned away by security when the area was half empty and caught the moment on video. This caused discontent amongst bar staff who work long hours and try to grab a brief look at the acts during their breaks.

And in another development after a decade of the gay village being fenced off, City Council officials have confirmed in writing that the public has always had a legal right to walk through the streets during Manchester Pride whether they buy a ticket or not.

Businesswoman Julia Grant was a key figure behind the successful and free-to-enter GayFest in both 2000 and 2001. Amounts of £105,716.77 and
£87,666.63 were raised and published accounts show that 75% of this was distributed to the Lesbian and Gay Foundation, BodyPositive NorthWest and George House Trust. The remainder going to smaller charities.

Julia says simply "Manchester Pride and the lack of investment in the village has ripped the heart out of the LGBT community."

The August Bank Holiday event started at the end of the 1980s to produce funds for HIV and AIDS causes. The Village Charity was formed in 1991 and raised £29,291 that year. The figure from the weekend was
£40,000 in 1994 which is equivalent to £64,000 today.