Volunteer Committee Meeting: First Tuesday of the Month, 7:00 p.m., 1415 California

Parade: Pride Houston produces the largest Pride Celebration in the Southwest. Although many volunteers are needed to stage the event on Parade day, planning goes on all year. There are always opportunities available; block captains, banner carriers, planners, and many others produce and execute this world-class event. Working in the Houston Pride Parade is an energizing experience you'll never forget.

Festival: .The Festival Committee has numerous opportunities for planners, creative minds, and hard workers to shape this distinctive event. Planning the Festival is a year-round effort, culminating in a unique GLBT celebration everyone can enjoy. Festival volunteers book first-class entertainment, lay out the event, manage vendors, plan logistics and provide for security. All work together to make the Pride Festival a fun and educational showcase for GLBT entertainment, businesses and organizations.

Events: Dozens of events sponsored by a number of community organizations and businesses take place in June leading up to the Parade and Festival. A goal for this year is to put information for many of these events in PRIDE.08, the premier Pride Houston publication.

Volunteers: Without volunteers Pride would not happen in Houston. Volunteers drive this organization. Some work all year, while others only work one or two days. Pride Houston is made up of people from all walks of life. The Volunteer committee organizes interested individuals and places them into areas of need.

Merchandise: All of us can show our Pride with the T-shirts, hats and other items sold by the Pride Committee each year. The Merchandise committee chooses the items to sell each year and oversees sales at events and through retail outlets and the internet.

Outreach: Houston has over 100 GLBT organizations and our community is very diverse. The Outreach committee acts as an ambassadorial organization not only the the GLBT community, but the broader community that is Houston, Texas. Outreach organizes Pride in Action, recruiting volunteers to help at various charitable events. Among other things, this unique group has helped distribute toys to needy children for Christmas, plant trees on Arbor Day, and repair housing for disadvanged seniors.

Marketing: Pride Houston does a major marketing campaign throughout Texas to get our message out about Pride. The Marketing committee produces this message, designs advertisements and other materials and works with publications to let everyone know about our events and mission.

Public Relations: While the Marketing committee works to produce advertisements, the Public Relations committee gets our message into the editorial sections of the media through press releases and other avenues.

Magazine: Each year Pride Houston produces a 300+ page, full-color magazine that is distributed thought Texas and is part of a national Pride publication. The Magazine committee produces all of the local content, including choosing and writing the articles, placing photographs and designing the pages, and oversees distribution of the magazine.

Web: Graphics artists, web designers, website maintainers, HTML gurus and PHP coders create and maintain the Pride Houston website. In the near future, we plan to offer a fresh new look! If you'd like to help out, bring your creative talents to the Pride Web Committee.

Office: Pride Houston functions with a full-time office. Volunteers are needed to do general office work such as answer the phone, greet visitors, maintain files, data entry, and all the other exciting things that are done in a GLBT office. What exciting things, you ask? Office is the hub of activity where our collective efforts intersect; it's the place we have meetings, organize events, work, throw parties, and have great fun doing it!

Technology: The Technology Committee fulfills the IT functions of Pride Houston. Computer workstations, networking, software, email, and webhost administration fall within the domain of the Technology Committee. Talented computer geeks are always needed to help plan and maintain this infrastructure.

To find out how you can participate in this year's event, fill out a volunteer form, send an Email to volunteers@pridehouston.org, or call the PrideLine at 713-529-6979 to set up a meeting.