The University and RUSU at Reading Pride 2018
Monday, 03 September 2018
On Saturday 1 September 2018, we were welcomed to Reading Pride 2018 by glorious sunshine!
The parade started at 11.15am in Queen's Walk, to Oxford Road and then into Broad Street. From there, the parade headed valiantly into Market Street before reaching Forbury Gardens and then along the river to the Pride entrance site!
It was truly lovely to see this supported by the LGBT+ staff network and student society, RUSU and nearly all its sabbatical officers, and many others from the University of Reading.
Sprocket, our LGBT+ staff network mascot, was joining in the fun as seen with Ann here!
The stall was set-up and looked fabulous! We had many rainbow freebies to give away, with very popular rainbow flags, lanyards, stickers and shoelaces as shown in this shot of our staff and student volunteers.
The stall was placed well with some breeze, which was much needed on such a warm and sunny day. We were next to Berkshire Unicorns RFC and there were many organisations also running a stall representing healthcare, political parties, commercial workplaces, and much more!
From 12pm onwards, the stall was very busy and there were many different conversations. It was nice to have many enquiries about studying at Reading and to see the enthusiasm about taking away a prospectus to read more! We also had a few conversations with current and past students of the University who wanted to know more about Lord John Wolfenden who was Vice-Chancellor between 1950 - 1964 and led on decriminalising homosexuality in the 1957 Wolfenden Report. Lastly, it was also great to see such happiness and joy in the faces of all that we spoke to as well as around Kings Meadow.
On behalf of the Co-Chairs of the LGBT+ staff network, Allán Laville, Alina Tryfonidou and Deb Heighes, we would like to thank all of our volunteers for ensuring the day went very well indeed. Thanks to your efforts, we gave out every single rainbow sticker, lanyard, flag and shoe laces! We are looking forward to next year and already have some new ideas on what we can add to our stall!