On June 2nd, 2011, history was made when the Rainbow Flag was raised during York Region's first official Pride flag-raising ceremony. The Rainbow Flag was first flown in York Region by the Town of Newmarket in 2002, but then followed years without any sign of the flag in any municipality. As evidence of York Region's transformation into one of Canada's most diverse and tolerant regions, 2009 saw a dramatic change when the City of Vaughan and Towns of Markham and Newmarket agreed to fly the Rainbow Flag during our Pride Week. The Towns of Georgina and Aurora joined this new tradition in 2010. And in 2011, the Town of Richmond Hill has not only agreed to fly the flag, but also hosted the region's first official flag-raising ceremony.

For the third year in succession, we launched our 2011 festival on June 5th with a Pride church service at St Matthew's United Church in Richmond Hill. The service was delivered by Rev. Terry Thom of St Matthew's United Church, Rev Mark Kingham of St Mary's Anglican Church and Rev. Warren McDougall of Richmond Hill United Church, assisted by musical director Barry Peters. This ecumenical community celebration was followed by a social hour with light refreshments, hosted by PFLAG York Region.

On Tuesday 7th June we hosted an informal social evening at the Lone Star Texas Grill in Richmond Hill. The event was attended by many community members of various age groups as well as their families and friends.

On the evening of 9th June, we hosted a second social evening at Casey's Bar & Grill in Newmarket. This event, at one of the region's most popular LGBT social venues, was attended by a capacity crowd.

Youth from across the region came out to enjoy a social night of games, fun and food at our Rainbow Fusion youth event, held on Friday 10th June at Dave & Busters in Woodbridge.

At lunch time on Saturday June 11th, a brunch was held at the Play Pub and Pizzeria in Aurora.

Pride week concluded the following afternoon with our BBQ In The Village event at the Community Safety Village, within Bruce's Mill Conservation Area near Stouffville.

During the event, welcoming greetings were delivered by Chief Eric Jolliffe of York Regional Police.

In addition, live music entertainment was provided throughout the afternoon by local band 'The Wilma's'.

A community fair featured a selection of local businesses and community organizations offering information on a range of LGBT related topics.

A few weeks later, we participated in the Toronto pride parade on July 3rd. This was the fourth consecutive year that LGBT organizations of York Region had been represented in the pride parade. Our parade volunteers included representatives from many of those organizations, displaying banners advertizing York Pride Fest and GayYorkRegion.com, as they participated in the parade attended by more than one million spectators.

Throughout the Toronto Pride weekend we also operated a community booth on Church St, highlighting York Region, its LGBT community and related organizations.