ABC Pride in the Sydney Mardi Gras Parade

“It’s all going so fast”, I said to my colleague to the left of me.

We were walking / marching / dancing along Oxford Street, as part of the “ABC Pride” float in the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras.

Even though ABC Pride is a staff-led initiative (it was not an “official” ABC float), it was awesome to have Managing Director, David Anderson on the float, and ABC Chair, Ita Buttrose came along to meet and greet everyone, before making her way to the party at Taylor Square.

A photograph captured by a friend. Hopefully I wasn’t too uncoordinated!

For about eight months we’ve been fundraising – through morning teas, merchandise sales and donations etc – to cover the costs of mounting the float. There were no tax-payers funds involved.

Team Orange!

For the last few weeks, we’ve rehearsing a dance routine to an accompanying soundtrack made up of well-known ABC theme music.

And finally, we were there.

A number of well known ABC figures – Jeremy Fernandez, Nate Byrne, Annabell Crab, Fran Kelly and Patricia Karvelas – led the parade for us, while sixty others marched behind. That included staff who funded their own travel from locations including Brisbane, Darwin, Newcastle, Melbourne, Wollongong, Adelaide and Perth.

It was an awesome experience.

Group photograph in Moore Park at the end.

PS

The first time I was in a Mardi Gras Parade

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