Recently Jaz, Ann, Simon, and I met as the Events Team. The main topic for consideration was Pride this year. What do we do? Shall we hold a special Pride service as MCC Brighton did last year? Shall we march in the parade? Shall we have a stall?
After much consideration we realised that we were not in a position to march in the parade this year. Many of us have health issues that make it difficult to walk from the pier to Preston Park.
We could have an information stall at the park but very few people who go to Pride are interested in talking about Church. Twenty years ago Pride was often the ‘one stop shop’ for information, you’d go there to source information. But nowadays folks get all the information they need from the internet. Yes, it’s nice to meet people at pride, but invariably folks will join us at The Village MCC because they’re looking for a church that actively celebrates LGBT lives or they’ve received a personal invitation / recommendation from a friend or someone they trust. So, what do we do?
We did wonder whether we should do something educational, maybe a history of Pride or of MCC, but realised that very few people would take the time out to explore such an exhibit. And then someone had a great idea.
Lets run a free carnival game stall! The theme for this year’s Pride is The Carnival of Diversity. Lets have a steam punk carnival game stall! We can all dress up steam punk style! The great thing about steam punk is that it’s totally accessible to everybody. Use clothing you already have, or scour the charity shops for something special. ‘Steam Punk’ is best described as Victorian Sci-Fi. You can dress as a workman or a nurse, a minister or a scientist, a pilot or a soldier, whatever you fancy, and you can mix clothing up as you like. Check out the pictures online and you’ll see hundreds and hundreds of ideas. You can be as plain or wacky as you like.
We can have a ‘knock the cans off the shelf’ game, and decorate the whole stall steam punk style. Just have lots and lots of fun! Chris has already designed a banner, I’m busy collecting large cans, Jaz is looking at prizes, Keith has offered to help build something once we know what the sizes are.
Is this something you’d like to do? Do you like dressing up, playing a part? This year let’s simply provide a wonderful experience for pride goers. We’ll show them that The Village MCC is called to serve the community, and do it with style. Instead of telling everybody there that we’re called to serve the community – let’s just do it.
We’ve applied for a stall and should know quite quickly whether we’ve been accepted. Tickets for the event will be available at a much reduced rate (£9 each) but if that’s too much let me know and I’ll see what we can do to make it affordable for you.
This year’s Pride is going to be lots of fun – plan on joining us!
Love
Michael.