CELEBRATING EQUALITY
AND DIVERSITY
Welcome to Bourne Free - A non-profit charity organisation that’s striving to make the world a more diverse and accepting place that has inclusivity as our backbone. So whether it’s Pride Month or any of our other fundraising events, you can join us in celebrating being human through entertainment and awareness.
£44k
Raised for the Community Fund
10k
Pride
Attendees
1k
Trees planted
since 2023
100+
Volunteers
Our story.
Bourne Free is a celebration of diversity, equality and inclusion. The organisation was built to showcase the beauty in all of us through events, and entertainment that help spread awareness of the wonderful differences in all of us. You were born free and so were we, and that’s worth treasuring and protecting.
Bourne Free was originally set up in 2004 when a far right organisation was due to come to Bournemouth and preach that homosexuality was wrong. Many prominent figures and active members of the gay communities in the area came together to organise an event in the Lower Gardens to protect the gay communities from the bigots and keep them together for a day of celebration, rather than of hostility.
The event included entertainers performing at The Bandstand to support diversity, a balloon release with a 2 minute silence for victims of hate crime and Bournemouth’s first Gay Pride march. By the end of the day those that had come together just a few weeks before the preachers came to Bournemouth, the Bourne Free Committee, felt that they could have done even more if they had more time.
Where we're going.
It was decided that the committee would get back together and repeat the event every year, but as an official charity with designated roles. Bourne Free would become an annual celebration in the heart of Bournemouth for everyone to see the diversities in the community and to enjoy a variety of entertainment. In 2006, the title of the event was changed to the Bourne Free Pride Festival.
Our Charity
Bourne Free is a charity which campaigns for equality and creates opportunities for engagement & participation. It challenges discrimination while simultaneously celebrating the uniqueness of others to enrich and empower the LGBT+ community in Bournemouth, Poole & Christchurch. This fundraising charity delivers and supports events throughout the year, including Pride, The Dog Show, Adult Panto, Drag Bingo and World Aids Day to name a few.