For Immediate Release

12 February 2010

Pride Toronto announces new Grand Marshal process

Pride Toronto last night announced a new strategy for selecting the Grand Marshal and other Honoured positions for Pride Week 2010.

The new selection process, one of several changes marking the 30th anniversary of Toronto's Pride festival, was delivered to a receptive audience of engaged community members at Pride Toronto's first general meeting of the year. The main change is that final selection will be made by a jury of peers, instead of a public voting process.

The festival, which attracts visitors from around the globe and brings $136 million in economic benefits to the GTA, has seen energetic growth each year while retaining local communities as the core of the cultural celebration. The most publicized and best attended event is the Pride Parade, led by the Grand Marshal and the Honoured Group. The Honoured Dyke leads the Saturday afternoon Dyke March, also followed by an Honoured Group.

"The honoured positions' selection process is one of community involvement and engagement, and we are committed to maintaining that tradition and connection," said Tracey Sandilands, Executive Director of Pride Toronto. "As part of Pride's 30th anniversary, we are revisiting a number of our processes to see how we can better advance our mission and vision, and the revision of this process was born out of feedback received from our community."

Nominees should have contributed significantly to the queer community of Toronto. Nominations must provide details and specific instances of nominees' contributions, as well as supporting documentation.

"The public nomination process will remain," says Sandilands. "The nominations will be screened by the Pride Toronto Board and a shortlist will then be sent to a jury of former Pride Award Winners who will make decisions in each category."

The annual Pride Gala and Awards ceremony honours leadership and service to the community in the fields of Human Rights, Youth Leadership, Arts and Culture, Spirituality, Sports, Science Medicine and Technology, Lifetime Achievement and the interpretation of the annual Pride theme. Since their inception six years ago, awards have been presented to luminaries such as Pastor Brent Hawkes of the Metropolitan Community Church, Olympic medallist Mark Tewkesbury, entertainer Nina Arsenault, writer Ilene Chaiken, well-known local activist Douglas Elliott and philanthropist Salah Bachir.

"The revised process will provide added credibility through the final selection by a group of persons that have themselves made important contributions to our community. All former Awards winners are being approached to participate in the jury for the 2010 selection process," says Sandilands.

Nominations are now open for the Grand Marshal, Honoured Dyke and honoured groups for both events. Nomination forms may be downloaded at http://www.pridetoronto.com/docs.

For more information, contact

Tracey Sandilands
Executive Director
Pride Toronto
.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
416.524.4554