Chesil Youth Pride

Chesil Youth Pride
Saturday 29th June 2024.

Reports & pics below from Chesil Youth Pride at Weymouth College 2024 & 2023, Plus their Pride Parade along the Esplanade!

Date         2025 tbc. 2024:- Saturday 29th June
Venue:-    Weymouth College Cranford Ave, Weymouth DT4 7LQ
Phone      01305 761100 (Weymouth College)
email          [email protected]
website    ?
X (aka twitter) https://twitter.com/YouthInDorset #ChesilYouthPride #DorsetPride #YouthVoice

Chesil Youth Pride Saturday 29th June 2024.
12pm at Weymouth College 4:30pm group parade along the Esplanade

Back for its second year. Info stalls at Weymouth College and with the Parade along the Esplanade - which had over 200 people taking part this year.

This Pride is very much a young persons focused event, and provides information stalls supporting young LGBTQ+ people.
The theme for Chesil Youth Pride 2024 is Intersectionality and the tag line is See Me!

They said: -
Chesil Youth Pride is back! Join us on Saturday 29 June to celebrate Dorset's LGBTQ+ youth community.
Live music, Pride-based activities, a fun photo booth, key speaker, food and stalls. 12pm, Weymouth College
4:30pm group parade 6pm finish at Weymouth Pavilion

You can read a report about this years (2024) Chesil Youth Pride here -
https://www.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk/news/celebrating-dorset-s-lgbtq-youth-community

Dorset Echo report about 2024 Chesil Youth Pride see:-
https://www.dorsetecho.co.uk/news/24444607.celebrating-dorsets-lgbtq-youth-chesil-youth-pride/

You can read a report about last years (2023) Chesil Youth Pride here -
https://news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk/2023/06/22/chesil-youth-pride-2023-celebrating-dorsets-lgbtqi-young-people/

“Why have a Youth Pride? I don’t think it’s for adults?”
(posted first on our Dorset LGBT Community News page 29/06/2024)

“Why have a Youth Pride? I don’t think it’s for adults?”
We heard someone say.

Saturday 29th June was a lovely summers day, blue skies and plenty of sunshine as we walked upto Weymouth College, the host for the second Chesil Youth Pride. (Click on pic right to enlarge)

A beautiful rainbow crossing greeted us, along with the Rainbow flag flying high outside the college entrance.

Around 30 stalls arranged around the grounds gave visitors plenty to look at, and for young people lots of activities too. While inside Key Speaker Helen Gould, a Diverse, Equitable & Inclusive trainer gave a supportive talk about understanding your feelings to the young audience.

Click on above pic to enlarge

Back outside we were able to catch up with many of our LGBT+ friends running the stalls there. Our Dorset LGBT+ Family!

These included Mel with Pop n Olly, Charity with Space Youth Project, Anabelle & Debs with This is Me, Brian & Rich with NHS Sexual Health. So wonderful to see our Jonai back in action at Pride! With his NHS Mental Health stall.
Brill also to meet all the b-side arts team from Portland too!

Also present where stalls from The National Trust, Weymouth Town Council and various Youth focused groups

As we came away and walked down to Weymouth’s Jubilee Clock to see the Pride Parade along Weymouths esplanade, we kept thinking about how lucky we all are to have such a supportive Family - Dorset LGBT+ Family!

While we waited for the Parade on the Esplanade, a guy came and joined us, clearly also waiting for the procession to pass, dressed in rainbow colours. We got chatting – "I’m here to support my daughter who has transgender friends at school – they are in the parade. I am here to support her, and them. I am so happy to do so".

Thats beautiful we said to him!

….. and that is one answer as to why we have Youth Prides and supportive adults are invited too!

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A note about Pride events in Weymouth (posted here 25/07/2023)

Chesil Youth Pride - a new Pride event took place in June 2023 at Weymouth College, with a super first for Weymouth - a Pride Parade along the Esplanade! See below for reports and pics.

Pub Pride took place at a Wyke Regis Pub in Weymouth during 2023, and at The Waterloo Pub Weymouth during 2022. See our Dorset Pub Pride page here :- https://weymouthgaygroup.weebly.com/dorset-pub-prides.html

Weymouth & Portland Pride. It has been a dream of many locally for Weymouth to have a Pride event and this first became a reality in 2019. Organised by Jamie and his team from The Closet Bar, it took place in Radipole Park. It is unknown if it will return. See our Weymouth & Portland Pride page here:- https://weymouthgaygroup.weebly.com/weymouth--portland-pride.html

** Dorset enjoyed a record number of Pride events during 2023 - SIX in total! **
More Dorset Pride info - https://weymouthgaygroup.weebly.com/pride-events.htm
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If you like Youth Prides - you might also so like:-

Dorset Youth Pride - at Shire Hall Dorchester - was FAB! Did you go? Did you miss it? Please to say that Dorset Youth Pride will run again in 2024. It ran for the first time in 2022. See our Dorset Youth Pride page here: - https://weymouthgaygroup.weebly.com/dorset-youth-pride.html
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Chesil Youth Pride 2023

New for LGBT+ young people this year (2023) has been Chesil Youth Pride. Organised by staff from Dorset Council and Space Youth Project, with Weymouth College being a great hosting site. This took place on 17th June, a week after the Youth Pride in Dorchester. Like Dorset Youth Pride, this new Pride event was very much focused on providing a fun and supportive day out for young people. Several organisations offering support for today’s LGBT+ youth had stalls there.

The highlight of the day was the FIRST EVER Pride parade along the Prom! - Weymouth’s esplanade. This has been a dream of the local LGBT community for many years, so a HUGE thanks to all at Chesil Youth Pride for making this happen!

Unfortunately, as Weymouth Gay Group (WGG) is a very informal group (our guys like it that way) we could not have an info stall at Chesil Youth Pride as we don’t have public liability insurance – an issue that has cropped up at other events we would like to be embraced by and welcomed at within the local Dorset LGBT community. It would have been brill if two or more of our WGG guys carried our bannor in the Pride Parade. Perhaps next year?

Chesil Youth Pride - first pics (posted first on our news page 17/06/2023 updated 22/06/2023)

Here are a few pics from today's first Chesil Youth Pride.
(Note we asked all stall holders for permission to take a pic of their stall, saying we would like to use it here)

If you have pics of the day that you (and those in it) are happy to share particularly of the Parade, we would love to post them here. email [email protected]

You can read a very good Dorset Council report of the day here - https://news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk/2023/06/22/chesil-youth-pride-2023-celebrating-dorsets-lgbtqi-young-people/

You can see a short video of the day here (By Youth in Dorset) - https://www.instagram.com/reel/CtmucEno7QC/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet&igshid=Y2Q0NmNiMjc3NQ%3D%3D

(Photo above with thanks to Dorset LGBT+ Voices Forum)