On Monday, May 3rd, the Indianapolis Skatepark Advocates had another meeting. This time, the venue was Indy Cycle Specialists on east Washington St. in Irvington.
Here's part of the group that showed up for the meeting. The lady in yellow in the center is our fearless leader, Sarah Gore from The Project School. You don't know it yet, but she's your best friend ever. I mean, she's working her ass off so you can have a place to skate, right...? Show her how much you love her, and throw your trash away instead of leaving it all over hell and creation...
Here's an outline of what went down:
- The next "Support The Skatepark" day is May 22nd, between noon and five-ish, at the Greenwood skatepark. The idea here, is to get skaters from nearby communities to sign waivers, and to write "letters of support" for a new skatepark in Indy. Expect more of these "Support The Skatepark" days to happen throughout the summer, at skateparks all around the Indianapolis metro area (Carmel, Plainfield, Noblesville, etc).
- The Advocates will be at Greenwood on Friday, May 21st … and early in the morning on Saturday, the 22nd… to clean and tidy the place up before the happenings. You can help, as always, by picking up after yourself when you're leaving the skatepark…
- The overall goal is still to get a well-built, concrete skatepark that is between 5000 and 7500 square feet in size. Not a giganto park… but, a nice and fun little park. The consensus seems to be that a few of these sorts of parks, spread around Indy, would be the ideal goal to shoot for, long-term.
- Funding and logistics were discussed. Apparently, the neighborhood is totally open to having a skatepark… there's even a few sites available for such a purpose… so, it seems that the typical "roadblocks" of where to put it, and garnering the support of the immediate public, don't really exist here. Not yet, at least...
So, things are actually rolling along pretty smoothly. What can you, the average skater, do to help? Just a couple of things, really:
1. Remember that "pick up after yourself" bit…? Yeah, you're gonna be hearing that one until the day you die. Get used to it…
2. Show Up At The "Support The Skatepark!" shindigs, and Sign The Petitions.
3. Sarah Gore could really use some "Letters of Support" for the cause. Something that says:
- Why you think Indianapolis needs [another] skatepark,
- How a skatepark positively impacts your life,
- Maybe even outline what sorts of lame shit you'd be doing, if you weren't at the park all the damn time, learning tricks and stuff, and:
- How having a skatepark has positively affected your community.
You can send those to The Solitary Life at budstratford@aol.com, if you'd like. We'll pass them along to Sarah.
That pretty much covers it. The next meeting is on Monday, May 17th, at 6pm sharp. Stay tuned, 'cuz we're totally keeping you informed.
