Pride Month takes place each year in June. It is a time when we highlight the struggles that members of the LGBTQ+ Community have experienced and continue to face, celebrate diversity in gender, sexual, and other forms of personal identity, and raise awareness for causes seeking to improve the lives of the LGBTQ+ Community.

The Dambuster Diversity Council organised a few things for the Studio to get involved with during Pride month. Here they are.

Pride T-shirts

Last year, we ran a competition within the Studio, which challenged everyone to create a Pride-related design to be printed on a line of t-shirts. We had two brilliant designs submitted that we felt really reflected the idea of Pride and our feelings towards the cause as a studio. In fact, they were both so brilliant that we couldn’t decide which was the winner and instead combined the two.

Thanks again go to Kyle and Leanne for your hard work and creative skills. We had a run of t-shirts printed featuring the design, which we are handing out to our Dambusters so they can show their support in style! You can see Nia from our Production Department rocking one below.

External Speaker: Chris Allan from Your D&I - ‘It’s Only Banter’

Chris is a D+I practitioner with a qualification in ‘Managing Equality, Diversity and Inclusion’. He is wholeheartedly committed to awareness, education, and equal representation, which has been inspired by his own experience with workplace discrimination.

Chris joined us to deliver a very important talk all about workplace banter and when it can cross the line. Chris shared his own past experiences, engaged us to think about what we consider to be banter or discrimination, and discussed the nine characteristics protected under the Equality Act.

It was a very insightful session, and we hope to welcome Chris back to the Studio for similar discussions in the future.

Colourful Cakes, Candy, and Quizzes

To celebrate Pride, we had a batch of cupcakes delivered along with a whole host of colourful sweets and goodies spanning the rainbow spectrum.

Each Friday afternoon, we have a weekly quiz where different departments and teams battle it out. This month, the quizzes covered subjects such as LGBTQ+ films, TV shows, games, and iconic moments in history. It was a great opportunity for some of us to learn more about Pride and other LGBTQ+ related topics, as well as flex our knowledge muscles.

Fundraising for Notts LGBTQ+ Network

During Pride, we’ve been collecting voluntary donations from the Studio, all of which will be going towards the awesome local cause Notts LGBTQ+ Network. So far, we’ve raised over £250, but we hope to have collected even more by the end of the month.

More Than Just a Month

It’s great to celebrate Pride and discuss issues affecting LGBTQ+ people during June, but we must keep these conversations and appetite for change alive all year round. At Dambuster, we have the Diversity Council: a group of eight employees from across various departments and levels of seniority who get together to work on initiatives relating to diversity and inclusion. They help steer the studio’s engagement with D&I topics both within the studio and in the games that we make. You can learn more about the Diversity council here.