Sunday, July 5, 2009

RUMOR MILL REPORT: Pride

Word on the street is...

...the Greater Cincinnati Gay and Lesbian Community Center, which has hosted Cincinnati Pride for the past five years, will be stepping down as the primary organizer of the event, allowing other local parties and organizations to take up the mantle and run the event. The Community Center will continue to support it, and help with the logistics of putting it together, but it will no longer be the primary spearhead.

Word is the announcement will come this coming weekend. No word on who is going to pick it up, but a few names are floating. I wonder who you guys should think should take it on.

Just to clarify: this is not the end of Cincinnati Pride, it's just being handed off...

..at least, that's what I hear.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Kudos for all their hard work these past few years. Time for the Center to focus on the Center though - pride drains half a year of energy from the place. There needs to be a self-standing Pride organization -- just for Pride, and only about Pride -- it will suffocate any other organization that intends to have another mission in life.

Jere Keys said...

I've seen communities where the local center handles Pride and it works really well, but those community centers have staff, office hours and drop-in facilities. For Cincinnati's Center to be devoting such a large portion of their resources to the parade and festival did seem a bit like putting the cart before the horse.

In the end, though, it doesn't really matter what organization absorbs the administrative duties (i.e. insurance policies, organizational structure, mailing addresses, legal permits), the really important qualification is that whoever Pride is "handed off" to has a vision for growing, improving and keeping Pride relevent in the 21st century.

The Seeker said...

Ahhhh so it really is happening... I heard the beginnings of the grumblings while at Pride and in the weeks prior... Let's see what happens here...
-Cody