Gloucestershire Pride this Saturday

Gloucestershire Pride has fallen victim to a football league at Cheltenham, with the police asking that the march starts an hour earlier that originally advertised. We have to now start at 12 noon to avoid the expected football crowds for the game against Grimsby. The route is subject to minor change by the police on the day in the area of High Street.

The plan is still to assemble from 11:30am at Pittville Park, Evesham Road, Cheltenham -then from 1.00 after the march there will be plenty of live music including Bridget and the Big Girls Blues, Way Out West and Jaymi - see more at the website: http://www.gloucestershirepride.org.uk/

This year like previous years I've organised the flying of the Rainbow Flag on Ebley Mill at Stroud District Council in support of Pride - as some will remember I didn't manage to get it flown on IDAHO (see here) - somewhat understandable otherwise every day the Council could fly a flag for something.....anyway this Pride is number three for Glos - first year was 2006 in Gloucester then 2007 was cancelled due to floods - last year it was again in Gloucester and this year it is the first time in Cheltenham.

The logo above is interesting - the rainbow flag doesn't have that on but Glos Pride have adopted it - the symbol was originally chosen by the Gay Activists Alliance of New York in 1970 and became a quick way for the members of the gay community to identify each other. The reasoning was that the lambda would easily be mistaken for a college fraternity symbol and ignored by the majority of the population. Eventually though, the GAA headquarters was torched by an arsonist, destroying not only the building but all of the organization's records, and the movement never recovered from the loss. The symbol, however, lived on. Read more about the logo here.

Good luck to all the orgainsers and participants - let's hope some sun shines!