The Flin Flon Pride Committee is preparing for a bigger event in its second year.
The first meeting for Flin Flon’s most prominent pro-LGBTQ group was held on Mar. 18.
After last year’s Pride event exceeded her expectations, committee chair Jordana Oulette has learned one big lesson.
“Always prepare for more. That’s a good thing to know,” she said.
“Last year we had a much bigger turnout than we were expecting. This year we want to go even bigger.”
Part of the strategy to increase attendance includes holding more events catered to families and teens. Last year, events like a glow night were more catered to adults. While those events will be held again this year, other plans, including a family dance, may be on the agenda.
“We want something that’s more family oriented, something that kids can come out to and teenagers can come out to,” said Oulette.
“We’ve played around with another couple of ideas, maybe getting a band up here or DJs to come up. There are things that are in the works but we still need to work on to make happen.”
Having learned from last year’s event, Oulette and the committee will change organizational tactics this year. Four new members have been appointed to the committee.
“We’re going to have certain people assigned to different tasks and give them a focus on just one thing, rather than the whole festival,” she said.
“It was definitely a learning experience. We learned to break it down a little bit more, instead of just thinking, ‘Oh, we can do this, we can do that.’ By breaking it down to each event instead of the whole festival, we can make sure we’re following guidelines.”
Meanwhile, plans for a repeat of last year’s major event – Flin Flon’s first-ever Pride parade, which attracted hundreds of revelers to Main Street – are in the works, more or less unchanged pending approval from the City of Flin Flon.
“We just have to run it by the city. It’s going to follow the same route, hopefully. We want to make it loud and big, hopefully have it feel like another Canada Day,” said Oulette.
“I was surprised at the amount of people who joined us. We want to do more floats, more spectators out and we want more people to join in. We’re definitely going to promote it more and be at more community events, now that we’re an established committee.”
The Pride committee will be looking for community support and volunteers for this year’s events. For more information, email [email protected].
