Meet your new co-chair Molly

I am absolutely delighted to announce that yesterday at our regular committee meeting, we voted unanimously to appoint committee member Molly as the co-chair of the Wellington Pride Festival. You might remember Molly from such roles as stalls coordinator for Out in the City 2025, and Out in the City Director from 2026. She is incredibly competent, great at small details and lovely to work with. Yaaaaaaaaaaaay! 

Now, if you aren’t involved behind the scenes, an additional chair might not mean that much to you. Ideally Molly will help make things run smoother below the surface where we have been frantically paddling away, but you will just continue to see a swan gliding elegantly along. But this is also part of a larger strategy to make the Wellington Pride Festival more sustainable in the long run. Too often in the past, the board/committee has burned out and not been able to provide a comprehensive handover to incoming board members, leaving them to essentially start from the beginning again. We want to make sure that doesn’t happen anymore. 

Alongside this, we want to provide better opportunities for our community to get involved in supporting the festival, without having to commit to the full-on fortnightly committee meetings. We’ll be forming working groups around our various events, and calling for help on specific projects soon - like maybe you’re a Xero expert and could spend two hours a month reconciling for us, or you live in Lower Hutt and would like to help with our cooking classes, or you absolutely love to lift heavy things any time you get the opportunity. Keep an eye out for these positions on social media as we start our plans! 

But for now, I’d like to give Molly some space to talk about why the Wellington Pride Festival is important to her, and where she’d like to see us going. 

Kia ora koutou, I’ll be honest - Jo’s really said it all! The Festival is such an integral part of what makes Pōneke, Pōneke, and I want to do all I can to keep it sustainable and going from strength to strength for years to come. 

Getting involved in Out in the City a couple of years ago showed me just how much sheer love and determination goes into bringing the festival to life. It’s a great team to be a part of, and an incredibly rewarding experience to give a little joy back to the community.

As the gayest city in Aotearoa, I’m sure that there are a tonne of people keen to get involved, so even if you don’t see a volunteer opportunity that’s quite the right fit, reach out anyway! What you’ve got to offer could be just what we didn’t know we needed.