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‘Lets Truly Make It A New Zealand Pride Parade.’

“Let’s face it, the Pride Parade in Auckland, should be renamed the NZ Pride Parade because it’s the only gay parade in our country and while some of the smaller centres celebrate ‘Pride’ in their own way, no-one really has the numbers to warrant a Parade like Auckland, so, in Rotorua, because we can’t beat them, we’re going to join them!

In an effort to pull the community together, I organised a special screening of the movie Pride at our local movie theatre. I set up a Facebook event, invited local people I knew and low and behold, 75 people showed up to watch it, most of whom I’d never even met before.

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It enabled me to get a whole bunch of like-minded people together in one room and watch a good movie, but also to reveal my ulterior motive, which was to create a working committee to put a Rotorua float into the Auckland Pride Parade in 2015.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’ve never done this before. As in, never even been in the Parade, but I’ve wanted to! It looks like fun. One night where we get to be lavish and outgoing and the centre of attention. We also get one night to feel how awesome it is to be part of our community.

If I’m honest, I’m unsure how our float is going to unfold, but filled with an amateuristic optimism I want to try. I also want to take the opportunity to put it out there to other places (South of the Bombay’s or North of Silverdale) to put on your organisers hats and see what ideas you and your friends can come up with for a float that represents your town or city. If I help by pointing out the preliminary steps, I’d say this;

  1. Get a group of like minded LGBT people and their friends and family together to discuss the idea.
  2. Come up with some ideas and get a working group together. Assign people into roles and get your most experienced people into senior positions.
  3. Work out a timeline with the date ending at the 28th of Feb (PARADE NIGHT!)
  4. Approach Council and some local businesses to see if they can help out with money and or equipment (keep talking about the pink dollar!)
  5. GET GOING!!

We are still in the process so can’t offer guidance past here but get things started and see how you go. The dream would be that one day, we have a NZ PRIDE parade that GLBT all around the country participate in and truly get excited about.”

 

Article | Tamati Coffey. | Photo | Tux Hika.

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