Bee Corner

After a bee-utiful lunch in Manchester city centre, we made a beeline for Bee Corner, an urban beekeeping experience, tucked away bee-hind Islington Mill in Salford. As luck would hive it, a Bee Network bus came straight away.

Amber McCormack with a core team of committed volunteers have transformed a neglected concrete space into a haven for humans and honey bees called “Bee Corner”.

This is the place where you can come and observe the bees at work and explore the mysteries of the hive.

One of our favourite trips, if truth bee told. It was a bee-utiful sunny day. You won’t bee-lieve how relaxing it is sitting in the garden surrounded by bee-gonias and drinking coffee with chocolate bee-scits.

The bee experience is something un-bee-lievable if you hadn’t bee-n bee-fore.

More photos can be seen here.

Beacon of Hope

The newest plaque on the Beacon of Hope is up!

During 2025 George House Trust marked its 40^th anniversary and four decades of HIV activism in Greater Manchester.

Huge thank you to @eaglemanchester for their support in putting it up!

For the full story of the Beacon of Hope, please see here.

More than 35,000 people march in London for annual Pride parade

Britain’s first official Pride march took place in London in July 1972.

Tens of thousands of people marched through central London for the annual LGBT+ Pride parade on Saturday, 4 July 2026.

Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, joined the crowd as they proceeded through the capital on Saturday afternoon.

The event’s organisers said that more than 35,000 marchers from about 600 groups made their way from Hyde Park Corner to Whitehall via Piccadilly, many carrying rainbow flags.

The activist Julian Howes, 70, who was at the front of the parade, told journalists: “Pride is important because it needs to have an underlying level of protest, and you can see the freedoms that we have can so easily be taken away. We also always need to push further because there’s always somewhere where our rights are being taken away.”

Speaking prior to the event, a Pride spokesperson said: “The urgency is clear: NHS gender-affirming care waiting lists now exceed four years in some regions while a comprehensive trans-inclusive ban on conversion therapy remains uncodified into law despite a 2018 government pledge.

At the same time, the community infrastructure LGBT+ people rely on is shrinking – since 2006, 58% of London’s LGBT+ venues have closed.

Together, these gaps in care, protection and safe spaces are unfolding amid continued hostility, with Home Office figures showing that more than 18,000 hate crimes motivated by sexual orientation were reported to police in 2025.”

Rebecca Paisis, the event’s interim chief executive, said she wanted to oversee “the most inclusive Pride in London event yet”.

She said: “Our movement has always been built on many voices becoming one united front – from the people who marched in 1972 to those joining us for the first time this year. That’s where our power lies.

As LGBT+ people, we’ve never been strangers to adversity, but neither are we strangers to collective action. This year’s campaign is a reminder that while the community often faces challenges in isolation, it is by coming together that we can change history.”

Rainbow Lottery BIGGEST-EVER Summer Prize Returns!

The Rainbow Lottery is the UK’s first and only lottery supporting LGBT+ good causes.

How the lottery works:

• £1 per ticket (payable at £5 monthly).

• For every ticket you play, 80% goes to good causes and prizes.

£25,000 jackpot prize

• Match all 6 numbers and you win the JACKPOT! There are also prizes of £2000, £250, £25 and 3 free tickets for the following week.

• Every month there is a Super Draw. July’s Super Draw (on 25 July) is a £2,000 Luxury Holiday (or £2,000 cash alternative or go green and plant 2,000 trees!)

Out In The City now has 50 Rainbow Lottery supporters. Since the Rainbow Lottery began we have won £4,600 between us. In the last five weeks we have had 2 winners of £250, 3 winners of £25 and 11 winners of three extra tickets. 

If you don’t have tickets, you can buy here.

Stay true to yourself.

Open your heart.

Open up the possibility for even more love to come into your life.