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12% of Manchester Pride income went to good causes in 2007

GS — Sun, 14 Oct 2007 23:20:50 +0000

Apparently this info appears on some LGF posters around the village at the moment. A friend has grabbed one for archive use, though I haven’t seen a copy of the poster myself yet.

Financial overview:

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Manchester Pride 2007 raised just £95,000 for good causes

GS — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 00:38:06 +0000

For a second year running, Manchester Pride has raised one of the lowest amounts in its 17 year history. Just £95,000.

This is despite the highest ticket prices ever (some people paid £18) and more than 40,000 tickets sold according to a report on the LGF website.

Help needed after the fire in Lever Street, Manchester on 30 April

GS — Sun, 13 May 2007 11:14:04 +0000

On 30 April, just four days after I wrote about the Basement Social Centre in Manchester city centre and said what a unique and absolutely spiffing place it was, a huge fire ripped through a building to the rear of it.
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Bye bye Operation Fundraiser

GS — Sun, 29 Apr 2007 18:38:27 +0000

The Manchester Pride website reports that Operation Fundraiser will be ‘will be hanging up its buckets’ this year.

Manchester Pride 2007 poster — no mention of gay, lesbian, bi or transgender (video)

GS — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 01:07:51 +0000

The poster for Manchester Pride 2007 is out and about. But nowhere on it will you see the words ‘gay’, ‘lesbian’, ‘bi’ or ‘transgender’. The nearest you’ll get is the phrase ‘LGBT charities’.

Low-paying employers

GS — Mon, 05 Mar 2007 05:09:51 +0000

The unemployed are a favourite target for government ministers and tabloid headline-writers. But, strangely, unscrupulous business-owners rarely get a mention.

Manchester Pride exaggerates Parade crowd figures by 500%

GS — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 23:37:53 +0000

250,000 do not watch the Parade as the organisers claim. The true figure is ‘tens of thousands’ and here is the proof.

How submitting your video content to the BBC could cost you money

GS — Fri, 10 Nov 2006 21:57:42 +0000

Quality content and creativity are valuable things. If you need proof, just look at the millions of pounds that businesses earn from back catalogues of music, films, TV shows and news footage.

An inconvenient truth: Gay Manchester was better 20 years ago

GS — Thu, 21 Sep 2006 06:08:26 +0000

I get tired of newspaper articles that make out that the gay 'scene' in Manchester used to be so seedy and bad years ago, but now it is so wonderful. It just isn't true.

Take this article from 2003 which appeared in The Manchester Evening News -- a newspaper that can be relied on to regurgitate hype about gay Manchester (just check out contradictory figures in the Evening News for attendance at Pride over the past eight years).

Here the Evening News quotes Iain Scott, owner of Taurus bar and restaurant in Canal Street who says:

"The last 10 years have seen the biggest evolution," says Scott. "It has gone from three, maybe four, venues to over 30 venues in the Village Business Association."

There may only have been a handful of venues around Canal Street. But if he is suggesting that there were only three or four in the whole of the city centre, then that is not true at all.

I moved to Manchester in 1982 and in the early to mid-1980's there were the following gay bars and clubs in Manchester city centre:

Stuffed Olives, High Society, No1 Club, Manhattan, Rembrandt, Dickens, Napoleons, The Union, New York, Heros, Archway, Thompson's Arms.

A quick look at a couple of issues of Mancunian Gay magazine from the time shows some others that I don't remember. The November 1983 mag lists: Why Not? on Ashton New Road and the Egerton Arms Hotel on Gore Street. The May 1984 issue lists Shadows on Union Street (later called El Cid). The June 1985 issue includes Paddys Goose on Bloom Street.

I make that 16 pubs and clubs. Not 'three or four'.

'Him Monthly' August 1983 issue lists a leather/denim night every Friday at the Wheatsheaf pub on Camp Street (would you believe?) and there was the Poly gay disco also on Friday nights. And let's not forget the Bloom Street Cafe and Gaze bookshop and Clone Zone which were also on Bloom Street.

There were two gay bars that we used to go to in nearby Stockport: The Baker's Vaults and the New Inn.

In those days, gay bars and clubs were almost entirely gay. There were no straight boys looking for a fight and no shrieking hen parties. On the whole, people were not on drugs and it was rare to see anyone drunk and incapable. It was really quite civilised and fun. You could enjoy a night out without worrying that you might have your face punched in or drink spiked.

Yes it's true you had to knock on the door to get into some places. But that kept out the trouble-makers. These days they are inside the pubs and clubs.

In the 1980's some of the places were in better parts of town: Stuffed Olives and Heros were on the other side of Deansgate to Kendall's department store. Manhattan was in Spring Gardens and No.1 Club was near the town hall. In fact, far less 'seedy' than Canal Street is now.

Many venues were gay owned and run (unlike today). There may be double the number of venues that claim to be 'gay' now. But I reckon there are fewer gay men and women out on the scene now than there were in Manchester 25 years ago.

This isn't just because everywhere is now 'mixed', but also because older gay people aren't welcomed by and don't 'fit in' to most places in 2006. Meanwhile, many gay youngsters reject what the scene offers and can socialise perfectly well without it.

Years ago, it really was like a family. You would see senior citizens in The Rembrandt and The Union alongside 18-year-olds. Out on the scene we had friends of all ages and some of the older ones were almost like aunt or uncle figures to us. We valued their experience and advice and enjoyed their company. They cooked meals for us (poor students) and threw the best parties in town.

But where do older people go in the wonderful gay village now, Evening News? Do tell... That public community has broken down and everyone is poorer now because of it. I would say, in general, there is more ageism, sometime bordering on age phobia (everyone aged over 35 is a paedo -- it's a well-known fact!) and perhaps fewer mixed-age relationships because those are less accepted ('what will my mates think?').

However, off the scene, mixed-age LGBT friendships are still very much around. Some of my dearest friends are aged in their twenties. But we rarely meet or doing anything on Canal Street. If the gay village, scene and Pride don't welcome everyone, what is the point of them? Are they a force for good or bad?

The old magazines also list a number of gay groups that met and there was the Gay Centre in the heart of things on Bloom Street.

The 1982 and 1984 issues list two clinics in the city centre area where you could get a sexual health check up. Compared to one today. In those days you could actually walk in and see someone immediately without having to wait up to six weeks for an appointment as you have to now.

Out, proud and very visible at the Pink Picnic 1990. It was held on a public footpath next to the Dovestones Reservoir at Saddleworth. No fences, politicians, marketing people, police or permission. All the money collected went to good causes.

And as for people not being 'very proud to be seen' until the gay village became over-commercialised and full of straight people in the mid 1990's, with bars like Manto... What a travesty of the truth: tell that to the thousands of men and women who walked around the city centre (not in front of friendly crowds) and then packed Albert Square for the Section 28 rally in 1988, the Liberation '91 march, or who took part in the Walk For Life every year.

They were out and proud on the streets. By comparison, how much courage does it take to go to a 'mixed' bar where you can pretend to be straight if anyone sees you there?

What is there is to be so proud of now? It's all about money, youth, alcohol and hairless gym bodies. Our (non-political) Pride event excludes people who can't afford to pay and the binge-drinking, drug-taking, self-destructive culture which it promotes results in many actually ending up with HIV and needing a lifetime of expensive combination therapy.

Above: raising money to help the fight against HIV and AIDS at a jumble sale on Canal Street, Manchester, August Bank Holiday, 1990.

Which makes a mockery of the relatively small amount that Manchester Pride raises for charity. In 2006 people with HIV were actually charged to walk in the Pride parade.

Currently, the gay village is something to be ashamed of, not celebrated. We have let big business and the City Council destroy the community that we once had.

Meanwhile the same people are behind this blatant rewriting of history because it suits them and their business purposes.

As for Iain Scott's suggestion that in the 1950's 'all' the buildings in the Canal Street area 'were derelict', this is just complete rubbish. In a recent episode of BBC's 'Who Do You Think You Are?', featuring David Dickinson, he revealed that in the 1960's he worked in a building on Princess Street opposite the New Union. There were lots of businesses operating in the area.

Here's a photo of the site where Clone Zone now stands on Sackville Street, taken in 1963. There are two neat little shops that are open for business. On the far right of the block is what is now Napoleons (then a restaurant) and beyond it a church which stood where the Bloom Street car-park is now.

Here's a shot of The Rembrandt from 1962, showing the shoe repair shop that was next door and which was still there thirty years later.

Here's a picture from 1973 which shows a restaurant in the building that is now Thompson's Arms.

Here's a shot of the junction of Sackville Street and Major Street in 1962, which shows a cafe and a couple of other businesses. This is the street that is between the CIS building and Bloom Street car-park now.

In all, a thriving area I would say and probably with a wider variety of different businesses than there are now.

UPDATES: small additions were made to this article on 5 September 2009.

There’s a £50 fee to be in the Manchester Pride parade this year

GS — Wed, 19 Jul 2006 00:08:46 +0000

If you want to take part in Manchester’s annual gay pride parade this year you will have to pay £50 + VAT. No, this isn’t a fee for businesses — they already pay more than £1000 to be in the parade.

It is a charge for every non-profit group and individual. Whether you are unemployed, disabled, poor, retired, have HIV, you will have to cough up more than fifty quid to walk through the streets of Manchester and celebrate being lesbian or gay.

When I saw the report in this morning’s Independent newspaper, it took my breath away.

It is bad enough that the cynical, money-focused people who run this event these days, fenced off the gay village and introduced an entrance fee back in 2003. In 2006 that entry charge is up 50% for many people, from £10 to £15.

But this latest stunt has to be the final straw. The signs are that they are selling fewer tickets each year. Money raised for charity in 2005 was the lowest figure since 2002. They seek to mislead the public over their costs.

It’s time for everyone to boycott Manchester Pride and force a change and go back to the roots of this event.

I believe that the biggest threat the gay community in Britain faces now, comes from the people who dream up schemes like this. Those who seek to make money from us at every opportunity. They are only interested in people who can pay.

The current organisers have completely lost sight of what Pride means.

How is it that other sections of the community in Manchester can hold parades and events that are free? But when it comes to the gay community we are told we must pay tens of thousands of Pounds in costs for security, street cleaning etc.?

Why is it that the gay village has to be fenced off with a high entry charge because it is serving alcohol, when alcohol can be served at other outdoor events in the city centre which are not fenced off?

If the City Council can tweak the byelaws to block off public roads in the gay village for a whole weekend, how come it can’t tweak the laws that relate to alcohol?

This is discrimination 2006 style. The gay community can be beaten and threatened into paying this money by businesses, the Police and Manchester City Council — all of whom say Pride won’t go ahead unless we agree to their terms (just look back to what happened in 2002 when the event was almost cancelled).

No other section of the community in Manchester is being hit in this way.