The Arklow LGBTQ Group and the Wicklow Pride Festival are delighted to congratulate Dave Thomas on his nomination and being short-listed for the GALAS 2016 Award. 
The GALAS have been set up by the National LGBT Federation (NXF) and GCN to honour lesbians, gay men, bisexuals and transgender people and organisations for their contributions to Irish society. The awards are also to honour politicians, employers and other allies who are committed to advancing equality and inclusion for LGBT people across Ireland.
The public were invited to nominate in the first sixteen categories which forms the basis of a long list. A group of diverse regional organisations considered one long-list each and produced a short-list of four in each category, using a supplied set of criteria. Dave Thomas is one of these short-listed nominees. The Board of the NXF considers the short-lists and chooses an award recipient. The award recipient will be announced on the GALAS night.
Dave has been nominated in the category of Volunteer of the Year.
Having been a LGBT activist for many years, Dave with this Civil Partner Patrick
cofounded
the Arklow LGBTQ Group in 2012. Dave has worked tirelessly on behalf of LGBT people in County Wicklow over the last number of years. Among his achievements were bringing the Irish Queer Archive Exhibition to Arklow for the very first time, co-writing the Play Safe pocket info booklet, creating the Arklow LGBTQ Social Drop-In Group, advocating LGBT Rights and Marriage Equality via local and national media, creating the first ever Arklow Pride event, then broadening that out to make it more inclusive by launching the first ever Wicklow Pride Festival 2015, which was a great success. And now currently working at organising the Wicklow Pride Festival 2016.
‘It is a great honour indeed to be nominated and to receive such recognition is humbling to say the least,’ says Dave Thomas. ‘There are always challenges when taking on such responsibilities, but as they say, “no man is an island” and I can’t do everything myself, so I have been very fortunate to have wonderful enthusiastic and dedicated people working with me to make our community more inclusive, far more understanding and accepting of diversity, and helping to promote equality for all.’
Five years ago Dave announced his three-part plan for County Wicklow.
- To create a Arklow LGBT Group that works with everyone in the county to bring full inclusiveness and acceptance of diversity into every community.
- To establish an all inclusive Wicklow Pride Festival that grows into a major event that brings people together to celebrate as one community.
- To establish the Pride Resource Centre with a café, that provides a significant amount of resources to LGBTQ people and to everyone in the community, along with a multi-media library, rooms for community groups to use for their own purposes, a centre that actively promotes inclusion of all while acting as a beacon of hope and a place to inspire others to play a positive role in their community.
We wish to congratulate Dave on this prestigious award nomination and whatever the outcome on the 27th February, we continue to support his ambition of making County Wicklow a place where we embrace and celebrate diversity.
The GALAS 2016 event will be held on Saturday 27th February 2016 at 7.00pm for a drinks reception with the ceremony commencing at 8.00pm in the Mansion House, Dawson Street, Dublin 2. You are welcome to attend by purchasing a ticket at www.galas.ie.
For more information: Wicklow Pride Festival is on Facebook and email wicklowpridefestival@gmail.com.
