Dear Hull and beyond!
Over the years, several versions of our board of trustees have worked tirelessly to turn the charity from, in 2002, a small grass roots pride in Queens Garden, to the organisation it is today. This is something we are extremely proud of. We have seen our amazing Pride in Hull move across the city, taking many forms, growing in size and attracting larger numbers each year. We have held the prestigious title of first UK Pride, in 2017, more recently we announced our intention to bid to be Europride 2023 and not so long ago we won a Remarkable East Riding of Yorkshire Tourism award.
We feel that Hull, in comparison to other cities across the UK, is a safer and much more tolerant space for our LGBT+ community and its allies, but we know there is far more to be done. Our fight for equality, inclusion and fairness for the most simplest of things is far, far from over.
Like any organisation we have faced many challenges and successfully overcome them with dignity and grace. Covid-19 has made us think about things differently about our position in our community along with changes to our board. You may be aware by now we have had a few trustees step away for their own personal reasons. We thank those that have served as trustees and wish them good luck in their new ventures. With change brings clarity and we feel clear about our new direction and have launched our 5 year growth plan, with a simple goal of bringing the LGBT+ focus back to community.
At this time we feel that we need to connect much more with the people we serve as a charity in Hull and the surrounding area. Our circumstances have changed so we have decided, at this time, to withdrawn our bid to be EuroPride 2023 to help us focus on the needs of those in the city and come back to this amazing opportunity another year. We want to throw our support behind Belfast, another great UK city, to be Europride 2023. The decision to withdraw did not come lightly but we feel it is the right decision at this moment in time.
All this being said we have been extremely busy. We have appointed several new, experienced and talented volunteers to help us drive our support offer, particularly for our trans community and in education and family engagement.
2021 will be a special year for us, this will be our 20th anniversary of Pride in Hull, as you can imagine we have huge plans for our event next year. In the coming months we will be dropping more information on our social media channels about how you can get involved and what next year will look like! We know over the coming year there will be an even greater opportunity to work with yourself to ensure that we create the biggest Pride as seen to date.
As you know we don’t do anything by halves so watch this space!
Stay safe, keep being you and always have Pride in Hull!
