Monday, 16th May 05

On Sunday 15th May, Pride in Brighton and Hove hosted their launch event 'The Pride New Year Party' at Envy on Marine Parade in Brighton. The event was sponsored by Brighton Marina and Waverley TBS who supplied the champagone!

Organisers announced the Pride week festival that starts on Saturday 30th July - ending with the gigantic Pride Parade and party in Preston Park on Saturday 6th August 2005. Sponsors for 2005 include Barclays Bank, Amicus, Mazda Motors UK Ltd, Revenge, Co-Op, Unison South-East, E3 Entertainment Group, LRAPA, Nixon McInnes and Gaydar Radio. Media Partners include The Argus, 3SIXTY, Juice 107.2FM, BBC Southern Counties Radio, Southern FM, Bent, QX, Boyz and REALBrighton.com.

Over 200 attended the launch event including Brighton and Hove Mayor, Bob Carden, Des Turner MP, David Lepper MP, Councillor's Jeanne Lepper and Brian Oxley, Chief Superintendent Paul Curtis of Sussex Police and Council Chief Alan McCarthy.

The party was hosted by Rob Burlace of Pride and Sam Walker of Juice 107.2. David Harvey, Chair of Pride, gave a rousing speech that was greeted with cheers and enthusiastic applause. The event was very well supported by both Pride members and the Gay business Community.

Proud Awards were given to (in recognition of their services to Pride).

• Best Fundraising - Brightonbothways for Bi-sexual Speed Dating
• Best Write-up - REALBrighton.com
• Best Visual Representation of Pride - Betty Swollocks on front page of The Guardian
• Best Mixing - People of Colour and Spectrum
• Hero in a supporting role - Chris Holm of Brighton and Hove City Council
• Heroine in a supporting role - Ann-Marie Chebib of Select Security
• Heroine of the Year - Kes Samuelson, dedicated volunteer
• Hero of the Year - Stephen Richardson aka Lola Lasagne
• Most Significant Long-Lasting Relationship born out of Pride - Paul Kemp of Wild Fruit
• Honorary Proud Award - John Mead and Kevin Adams
• Over £14,000 of grants were given to groups within the Brighton LGBT voluntary sector (see below)
• Rainbow Families was awarded a grant of £1,000 for annual running costs and facilitating a space at Pride
• Pride in Whitehawk and Manor Farm was offered £1,500 towards the cost of a float and workshops for making costumes
• OLGMF was awarded £1,500 to cover some of the costs involved in organising social events and activities for the older LGBT community
• Mind Out was awarded £4,550 to extend their group activities programme, supporting LGBT's with mental health problems
• Lesbian Link Brighton was awarded £812 for ongoing, annual running costs of their organisation
• City of Brighton Gay Men's Chorus was awarded £500 towards the cost of staging a performance in Pride Festival week
• Bangshee Drumming Group was awarded £820 for annual rehearsal space hire and new drums
• Brighton & Hove Disabled Dykes was awarded £500 to fund a social event to raise the profile of the group
• Brighton Ourstory Project was awarded £2,000 to help relocate the archive to new premises and storage equipment
• Allsorts Youth Project was awarded £1,000 to fund an event for LGBU youngsters, producing workshops and booklets