Agree with the above and the Maritime theme will be a draw for visitors. I posted a couple of weeks ago about how good the Trinity House tours are and I hope some deal can be done with those people to open it to the public because the stuff in there is spectacular. It is truly the best historic and most interesting guided tour I have ever been on, and I've been on a few. However, whoever has ruled on pulling the plug on funding for the Maritime Folk Festival has scored an own goal. It costs peanuts in comparision to the cash it brings in over the week end. See Pride is going ahead though.
What sort of money is required to set up the folk festival Urika? Would the people of Hull and surrounding areas be prepared to do some sort of crowd funder to support it?
I've no idea Ric, but it cannot cost that much to promote or stage, most of the artists perform for free. Beverley are organising a Folk weekend next week, even Cottingham can manage it. I attend the last two in Hull, over a weekend mainly around the marina area and it was packed. The Whitby one is fabulous and attracts people from all over Britain, you cannot get a room anywhere near Whitby twelve months in advance when it is on. You shouldn't need to do a crowd fund raiser to arrange events like this either, because there are plenty of people in well paid jobs employed to do just that, attract people to the city, we are not dealing with the Parish Council and a handful of volunteers. Perhaps it's the same mentality amongst some on the council who claim that Premier League football 'never brought a penny into the city'?
Cottingham always had much bigger acts for their folk festival, but they sell tickets to fund it. Beverley have three sponsors funding theirs, one is ERYCC, but the main sponsor is Risby Homes. It's a shame about the Hull one, but they threw all their eggs in the HCC basket and don't seem interested in trying to fund it by other means.
But as UP pointed out, HCC still have money to fund Pride? Do they really see Pride as more important? In Hull of all places, with it's maritime history. Utterly ridiculous if so.
I don’t know the amounts, and wish the Maritime one was funded, but the Pride example shows exactly OLM’s point. They don’t just rely on the Council to fund it. They go out and get sponsorship from a range of organisations.
I was surprised the Maritime Folk Festival didn’t get funding. I think it should have. I don’t know anyone involved, but did wonder whether there was an element of brinksmanship going on. You would have thought that next year when the ‘Yorkshire’s Maritime City’ is launched (I think it’s next year?) it’s exactly the type of thing they will want to fund. I wondered whether the Council have got similar but different plans for next year which is why they’ve let it go, or alternatively whether the organisers have let it go to prove a point to get more funding next year. Maybe neither, it just seems a bit odd (although I don’t know the money involved and that could be more than we think)
I don’t think that’s the case. I do think the way public sector organisations are inspected and reported on, with the need for them to ‘prove’ how inclusive they are to get a good rating means that it is one easy way for them to help the score in that element of the inspection. Whether that’s right or wrong is open for debate, but that gets much more action than a few moaning people on internet forums. Personally I think Pride is a good thing by the way, but I suspect not everyone who decides to fund it necessarily does, but they know it is an easy way to help achieve better ratings which might push them to support it.
My thoughts entirely,where's the fight?It just seems a bit lame and lazy.Surely there's a local businessman or two out there who could throw the necessary cash at this to get it back on? There's some decent publicity to be had out of this and an opportunity to stick two fingers up at the establishment for pulling the plug.The event organisers and those involved in the folk scene in Hull should be lobbying the local media,radio and television to make an issue over this.
Thanks I think. To be clear I do think organisations should be inclusive, and actually supporting things like Pride might be, depending on what is going on in your organisation at the time, a good way to show your own staff you want inclusivity. However I think action around actually being inclusive is much more important and that inspection regimes can encourage odd behaviour
I have no problem with Pride. It harms no one. I have an issue with pressure put on decision makers by the wolf packs which jump on them for not getting it “right”.
Marginalising any group or organisation to favour another doesn't appear to promote 'inclusivity'. I don't have anything against the pride movement either but a leaning towards accommodating one event and not funding another reeks of bias to me...
Personally, I don't have a problem with Pride, the only negative is it being highjacked by this Trans crowd, who really should have no place to be involved.
Trans have been a part of Pride since the start. The current politicising of Trans, from some for and against, isn’t something I feel I know enough about to comment on. Other than it shouldn’t be being used, particularly in the States, as a political tool.
Yes I know that, just all this negative stuff about them, particularly in the States is having a negative impact on the Pride movement IMO.
Agreed And actually although I mentioned politics it’s as much about money sadly. There’s no way, IMHO, that gender reassignment surgery should be done on children…however they will in the States because of the simple fact they can earn fortunes doing it. Someone is an adult and wants to get it done, then go ahead. A good friend transitioned from man to woman in her late 20s / 30’s (I think) after a career in the Forces and is in a great place as a result. But she could make an informed decision with the benefit of life experience .