The Weyburn Art Gallery hosted a Pride Planning meeting last night at the Spark Centre. 

City Curator Regan Lanning said they saw a great turnout for their first meeting, with all ages and a good cross-section of cultures and backgrounds represented.

"It was wonderful to see. We had well over 20 people come and join us from the community. It was great to see so many people turn out and who are interested in helping make our pride celebration even greater than it was last year. We came up with more than 20 ideas that we are exploring, and we also came up with some fundraising ideas."

They also have formed a Pride Council, which will take over the planning for years to come, with the next meeting planned for April 8th at 7:00 p.m.

"It is open to new members, so if you missed last night's meeting, you are still invited to come to our April meeting." 

Lanning said they had a strong brainstorming session. 

"It was rapid fire I wrote down so many ideas, and then the fundraising, just as quick and as furious," she shared. "Everyone was really excited at the turnout. I was almost in tears to see how many people came and that we just continually had to put out more and more chairs for everyone. It was wonderful to see we had people travel from other communities to join us. It was great." 

"We need to have a sense of community and we need to know who each other are," Lanning commented. "There are a lot of us here and we need to create a sense of agency amongst ourselves."

While the Weyburn Arts Council, the Art Gallery, and the Weyburn Public Library will continue to be involved in Pride events, to host more events, more sponsors will be needed to make a larger impact.

"We are looking for sponsorships from local businesses who would be interested in partnering with us who help us put on some of our events, or if you have a venue that you would be interested in allowing us to use, that would also be wonderful," she invited. 

She added that CUPE-90 will sponsor an event once again this year, and Meok Ja has committed to helping out with fundraising.

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