Welsh Pride organisations link online for a nationwide celebration
LGBT+ Pride events have been cancelled across Wales due to coronavirus restrictions.
In response LGBTQymru was created in an effort to connect Wales’ regional pride events through a free online event on July 24 and 25 which will be filled with performances and panel discussions.
“I went for a walk and started to see Pride events being cancelled,” said LGBTQymru chair Bleddyn Harris. “I thought ‘this is terrible, something needs to be done’. We need to make sure the community has visibility. Our biggest strength is visibility and being able to connect with people like us.”
The event promises to host an array of acts and performances from most regions of the country with an idea of linking LGBT+ community members in Wales with a safe space online.
The event will include multiple Welsh Pride organisations, including Barry, Bangor, Rhondda, Llantwit Major and Powys.
In a tweet from LGBTQymru, it was revealed funds made from the event will be donated back into LGBT+ charities. So far, more than £2,600 has been raised.
The event plans to host a BAME queer discussion panel.
“Never has this been more important for those of us living the LGBTQ+ life – especially our black, Asian, minority ethnic queer family fighting the Black Lives Matter battle,” said LGBTQymru as it announced the plans.
The discussion will look at the need to provide spaces, platforms and opportunities for the LGBTQ+ communities of different races, ethnicity and cultural heritages as well as a look at the history of drag, transgender issues and faith.
Organisers hope the event will connect people in rural parts of Wales who may not have been able to attend bigger pride events.
“If you’re someone who can’t afford to get to bigger Prides, you can literally log on from your computer and you’ll feel connected with Pride,” said Bleddyn.
“If one person in a rural area of Wales can put their ear-phones in for five minutes and see that there’s people like them, then we’ve done our job.”
THE main company run by the man behind the Exchange Hotel in Cardiff has collapsed into administration owing £113m to creditors.
Signature Living Hotel Limited is the parent company of an extended network of 60 hotels, residential developments and other ventures including the Coal Exchange, and fell into administration on April 21.
Signature Living Hotel Limited was the sole shareholder in Signature Living Coal Exchange Limited until March 20, 2020.
According to Companies House information, the shareholdings in the Coal Exchange were transferred to a new company called UK Accommodation Group Limited on this date.
Companies House shows that shareholdings in the Coal Exchange were transferred back to Signature Living Hotel Limited in May.
Signature Living Coal Exchange Limited, the company behind the hotel at the Coal Exchange building in Cardiff, went into the hands of administrators of financial firm Wilson Field Ltd on May 12, according to the London Gazette’s official public records.
A new report published by Duff & Phelps, who are acting as administrators for Signature Living Hotel, has laid bare the scale of the problems at the company, which now has at least six other companies in administration.
The administrators have estimated that creditors are owed a total of £113,331,594. Furthermore, their report also reveals that Lawrence Kenwright recently created a new legal entity and transferred all Signature group shares to it – before being told to transfer them back by the administrators, which he did.
Matthew Ingram and Michael Lennon, of Duff & Phelps, believe a going concern sale of the company is now unlikely as there are “insufficient funds and assets available to enable the company to be rescued”.
The report adds: “Despite the group’s significant property interests, the level of secured and unsecured indebtedness to which the company is directly and indirectly liable for significantly outweighs the initial expectations of the value of the company’s direct and indirect assets.”
The administrators anticipate that “the company will be dissolved once all outstanding matters of the administration have been dealt with”.
Earlier this year, Cardiff council offered Signature Living a £2m loan to