Belfast Pride Awards 2025

I didn’t see this coming — not even a little. But what a whirlwind 24 hours it’s been.

A while back, our group — The Mens Group — were nominated for the Community Group: Pride Ally award. We kept it relatively quiet. Honestly, we weren’t expecting much.

Maybe we’d get our name out there a bit more, and that would be reward enough.

Fast forward to yesterday morning. Andy, one of our committee members, gets a phone call Belfast Pride reminding us about the award ceremony tonight - noting that we are one of the community group nominations. Apparently they had been trying to get in touch, but our e-mail was having some technical problems.

That part’s kind of on me — our website had to be migrated and the mailing list wasn’t fully functional yet. Total tech fail. Somehow they managed to dig up Andy’s number, and thank goodness they did.

Cue mild panic. There was a mad dash to get ourselves ready. I ended up doing three separate trips to Next just trying to find something vaguely formal to wear. It’s been a while since I had to look sharp for anything, so it was a refreshing change, in a chaotic sort of way.

We all made it to City Hall, where the event was being held. And let me tell you — it was warm. Really warm. Apparently air con isn’t part of the City Hall charm. Thankfully I’d brought along a portable fan I got of Amazon, and we ended up passing it around the committee like it was a precious artefact.

Eventually, we were ushered into the banquet hall where the awards began. I was honestly just excited to be there, seeing so many familiar and new faces alike from across the community.

And then... our category was called. “Community Group - Pride Ally” - which we somehow won.

I had a speech all prepped in my head, just in case. But when the mic came my way, the words just evaporated. All I could really say was “thank you so much.” - Thankfully Andy was on hand to supplement my 'evaporated' speech with a few extra words.

To be recognised like that means more than I can really express. We put our heart into this group — planning events, creating safe spaces, bringing people together — because we love it. It gives as much to us as it does to our members.

On behalf of The Men's Group, thank you so much for the award, we are genuinely honoured and chuffed.

We're all about bringing people together - Gay, Bi, Trans-Men and their allies - for friendship, support and community. Its simple, but it matters.

A special thanks to Kris and Andy on our Committee for the unseen hours and dedication they put in. A big thank you to The Rainbow Project & Cara Friend - who facilitate our Games Night every month, which remains one of our more popular events.

Thanks to Belfast Pride for recognising us and to everyone who has joined us on the way. We're proud to stand with you.

Here's to more events, more connections, and a growing, inclusive community. And maybe, next time, I’ll actually manage to deliver the speech I wrote!