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New York City’s Annual Leather Pride Night Fundraiser Ends Operations After Thirty-One Years

Posted by LPN - June 11, 2015 - Event
The LPN Committee

The LPN Committee

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Press Contacts:
J. Grant Anderson, 917-628-4248 or
Michael Barret Jones / Witti Repartee, 646-206-6360
Or leatherpridenightnyc@gmail.com

NEW YORK CITY’S ANNUAL LEATHER PRIDE NIGHT FUNDRAISER
ENDS OPERATIONS AFTER THIRTY-ONE YEARS.

NEW YORK CITY, June 11, 2015: On Thursday, April 2, the planning committee for the XXXII Annual Leather Pride Night — which had been scheduled for June 20, 2015, at the Eagle Bar on West 28th Street in Manhattan — voted to cancel the event and cease operations.

““We are proud of our legacy”,” said committee co-chair J. Grant Anderson. “”For more than three decades, organizations and individuals in the New York-area leather community have come together to raise more than $350,000 for organizations that serve LGBTQ, HIV, and youth organizations as well as supporting NYC Pride, the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom, and the Leather Archives & Museum.””

Leather Pride Night (LPN) began in 1983 as “Pride Night at the Spike,” one of the city’s two prominent gay leather bars at that time. It was pulled together hastily in response to a budget crisis at the Christopher Street Liberation Day Committee (CSLDC), the organization charged with producing the annual Gay Pride Day March and Rally. (CSLDC later became known as Heritage of Pride and currently as NYC Pride.) The funds raised that night helped ensure that the Pride events happened again that June, and it was decided to make Pride Night, now called Leather Pride Night, an annual event. For years thereafter LPN was one of the largest and most reliable funding sources for the gay and lesbian march and rally.

Early on, the focal point of the evening became a live auction of donated goods and services, with Jo Arnone, one of the founders of the Lesbian Sex Mafia (LSM), as the regular auctioneer. Other elements over the years have included a raffle, a silent auction, and a flea market for used leatherwear, books and magazines, and SM/fetish gear. Once the Gay Pride Day events had achieved a firm financial footing, LPN also benefited additional community beneficiaries ranging from the LGBT Center to the Anti-Violence Project to numerous HIV/AIDS charities.

LPN was founded and initially produced solely by Gay Male S/M Activists (GMSMA). Other leather and fetish organizations in the NYC metropolitan were later invited to help, and in the 1990s GMSMA formally turned over control of LPN to a coalition of community groups representing diverse gay, lesbian, pansexual, and heterosexual orientations. TES (The Eulenspiegel Society), LSM, and the Imperial Court of New York have been the most prominent and longest-running co-sponsors. Each organization listed as a sponsor was obliged to provide donations for the auction and raffle, volunteer workers on the night of the event, help with publicity, and other support as needed. In recent years, following the demise of GMSMA in 2009, LPN sponsors have also included, among others, Iron Guard BC, Jersey Amazons, Cinekink, MAsT Metro NY, MetroBearsNY, ONYX Northeast, and Pariah’s MC.

However, more and more the driving force on the LPN committee has not been the official representatives of the sponsoring organizations but rather a number of long-serving, self-selected individuals, including some GDIs (God-damned independents) with no organizational affiliation at all.

As 2015 LPN co-chair Witti Repartee explained, “”New York’s leather community has changed tremendously over the past three decades, and our city no longer has enough strong organizations willing and able to support this event. “While LPN XXXI turned out, against all odds, to be a big success in terms of both attendance and money raised — more than $9,000 net to four beneficiaries — this year’s committee members, almost all independents, realized that we simply did not have the resources to do it again this June. While some at the April 2 meeting argued for putting the event on hiatus for a year in order to search for new sources of support, the majority felt that Leather Pride Night has run its course as a broad-based community event. We look forward to seeing what ideas may emerge for a new project to bring the many parts of our community together.” He also noted that the name “Leather Pride Night” was deliberately never trademarked, so anyone who wants to carry on its tradition is free to do so.

Leather Pride Night XXXII was to have benefited the Trinity Place Shelter, Iris House, the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom, and NYC Pride. LPN’s remaining assets will be liquidated and distributed proportionately to these beneficiaries. The website, leatherpridenight.org, will remain up for six months, to the end of September, and then its contents will be turned over to the Leather Archives & Museum in Chicago.

The LPN Committee has one final event planned: Cruise Control 2: A Leather Pride Sea Tea on July 12, 2015. Featuring dinner, dancing, entertainment, and a cash bar, it is not a fundraiser but an opportunity to celebrate LPN’s long and proud history, and to start brainstorming what could take its place. Tickets may be purchased at www.seatea.com.

LEATHER PRIDE NIGHT is at a CRITICAL CROSSROAD

Posted by LPN - March 18, 2015 - Community

Dear Friends, Fans and Committee Members of Leather Pride Night,

We are in a conundrum.

As you may know, Leather Pride Night was founded as an expression of community interest and support by a collection of organizations that served the New York City Metro Area leather and fetish community.  The work of representatives from those organizations, augmented by a few “GDIs” made the event happen:  items were solicited, volunteers were recruited, ticket sales were handled and publicity was managed by those groups and their members.

Times have changed in the New York City leather scene.  It’s been almost a decade since the demise of GMSMA, Many of the other groups have come and gone.  Some still exist in diminished capacities, and those few that are still strong, are focusing their energies on their own activities. We mourn the lack of a leather community, but we appreciate that times are changing, new interests and venues have replaced old ones, and people are finding their way into the activities we celebrated without the formalized community that we once were.

These times, and the change they bring, are also affecting Leather Pride Night.  Over the last few years, we have seen participation by our founding groups diminish.  Our monthly planning meetings are now attended primarily by those GDIs (including ourselves) who had at one point represented groups, but have recently been working to preserve LPN and it’s legacy as members-at-large of the greater community.  Sadly, for the last six months, the numbers of people at the table has been dropping precipitously.  Those of us at the table can no longer produce Leather Pride Night by ourselves:  it has begun to feel like LPN, as so many of its founding groups, has outlived its role, if not its usefulness.

That being said, and because we have no wish to see LPN end or falter, we must ask of you now:  “Do you want to see LPN survive?”

We do, and will be at the regular LPN monthly meeting on April 2, 2015 at the LGBT Community Center at 8 PM.    For LPN to survive, not just in the future, but this year itself, we need you to show up.  LPN needs a committed core of 15-20 people to make it work.  If you are willing to be one of those people: to commit to showing up, to commit to helping sell tickets, to commit to helping to gather the more than 80 items we need to raffle and auction off, please show up on April 2nd.  Please bring friends, please tell your friends and please demonstrate that the Community still needs this event to exist.

Decisions will be made that night that will impact the future, and we hope you will join us to say “YES! LPN is important and I want to make sure it continues.”

Thank you for your commitment to the past, and we hope that you can join us on Thursday, April 2nd.

With highest respect,

J. Grant Anderson and Witti Repartee

Co-Chairs, Leather Pride Night Committee

 

LPN’s Monthly Planning Meeting resume tonight!

Posted by LPN - October 2, 2014 - Event

Our monthly planning meeting, held the first Thursday of the month, resumes tonight, at the LGBT Center, 208 West 13th St. (bet. w7th/8th Ave.), NYC; 8:00-10:00 PM.

We’re also seeking a committee Secretary, who will take and distribute monthly meeting minutes.

The Leather Pride Night Committee is a coalition of NYC-based SM/Leather groups, and a number of committed individuals:

-Imperial Court of New York
-Iron Guard BC
-Jersey Amazons
-Lesbian Sex Mafia
-MAsT Metro NY
-MetroBearsNY
-ONYX Northeast
-Pariah’s MC
-The Eulenspiegel Society

Co-Chairs: LadySabrina Sabrina and J Grant Anderson

Any individual or organization sharing an interest in the projects of the Leather Pride Night Committee is strongly urged to find out more by contacting us. Our planning meetings are open to all.

Leather Pride Night: Cruise Control – Call for Volunteers

Posted by LPN - August 13, 2014 - Event

We’re looking for volunteers to help out with the raffle and silent auction:

Raffle & Ticket Sales
-6:30-7:30 6 people
-7:30-8:30 6 people
-8:30-9 6 people

Silent Auction Staff
-6:30-7:30 2 people
-7:30-8:30 one person

Please email LPNNyc@aol.com, and include your first, second and third choices. Thank you for volunteering!

Buy Tickets for #LPN2014

I (heart) FetLife: BDSM & Fetish Community for Kinksters, by kinksters

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