Save our friend's home, Fleur the Houseboat.

Leeds Queer Film Festival and Rainbow Junktion are coming together to fundraise for X, a longstanding LQFF organiser’s poorly houseboat, Fleur.

X used all their savings and borrowed from friends to buy their first home back in August 2021. They made Fleur cosy and were excited for a fresh start and secure housing. But their small budget meant buying a boat that required some work. There have been a plethora of costly issues which X has had to get fixed (doing a lot of work them-self). It has been stressful but it seemed worth it for the chance at a lovely water-side home.

However when Fleur was taken out of the water for blacking it was discovered that she had multiple leeks in the hull. A survey found that a 10 foot section of the hull was added in the 1980s that was made from poor quality steel which has started to erode. The survey revealed a long list of work that needs to be done (overplating the steel, spot welding on other parts of the hull, a new stem gland, a new propellor shaft and two windows need replacing) but the work cannot start until X is able to raise the funds to pay for it which will come to around £7000.

Water also got in and damaged the internal floors of the boat, which X has pulled up to replace, meaning the boat is currently uninhabitable and so they are paying rent to the boatyard but having to live elsewhere.

X was planning to replace the floors with friends and was doing whatever repairs they could on Fleur when not working at Footprint Workers Co-op but now a frozen shoulder has left them both in a lot of pain and with an immovable shoulder (which could last for several months). The frozen shoulder has also scuppered the other ways that X was trying to make money to pay for the work such as tattooing and taking part in medical trials. They have no access to other resources to pay for the work and the situation is causing them immense stress.

We need to get Fleur canal-worthy as soon as possible so that X can again live on their boat. X is a beloved member of our community who is in crisis and we hope that we can come together to find a solution for them as quickly as possible.

We know that during the cost of living crisis financial donations are a big ask and X would never want people to donate who were struggling themselves. If you can put something towards saving Fleur, remember that every little helps and if you have some wealthy friends you could share this with, even better.

We also invite you to an all gender, queer cèilidh at All Hallows Church on Friday 10th March. We will have some delicious vegan dinner, a pay-what-you-can bar, a raffle with some amazing prizes and of course lots of dancing. Come along for a night that will put the FUN into Fundraiser!