To celebrate Christmas this year, SkateMCR has arranged not 1 party, but 2! “Tell me more!” I hear you say…
The first party will also be the premiere of Dan Cintra’s new Skate Film “everyone” which probably features you. So make sure you get down to Joshua Brooks (as long as you’re over 18!) at 8pm on Tuesday 11th December after Skate Night at Central Skatepark. Buy your tickets for £2 from NOTE, or pay £3 on the door.
Dan is providing his video, and SkateMCR is providing free Mince Pies and Christmas Biscuits!
Here is the pretty flier to get you excited:
And here’s the trailer for Dan’s film “everyone” to get you even more excited!
We thought we’d share the proposal for the Skateboard Festival we are planning for next month, so here it is! Let us know your thoughts.
Proposal for SkateMCR’s Manchester International Skateboard Festival
7th November 2007
Introduction
This proposal, put forward by SkateMCR, is for the creation and staging of Manchester International Skateboard Festival.
The SkateMCR Festival Committee consists of:
Councillor Rosa Battle
Ben Gibbs (founder of SkateMCR)
John Haines (Manchester City Centre Skatepark Manager)
Vic McMahon
Ed Belvedere
Gregoire Chabrol
Tom Biddulph
History
Skateboarding has been popular in Manchester since the early 1980’s and has risen in popularity dramatically over the last 10 years. The skateboard community in Manchester is a thriving and tight-knit, friendly scene. Many of the UK’s best skateboarders live and skate in Manchester and are regularly featured in skateboard magazines popular in the UK, Europe and America.
There are many photographers, film makers, fine artists and graffiti artists in the Manchester skateboard community creating a firm sense of culture and identity.
Manchester’s skate community is focussed around the City Centre due to it’s easy accessibility and urban geography. There are 3 skateboard shops around the Northern Quarter and many more shops which sell skateboards and other accessories around the City Centre.
In 2001, Manchester City Council imposed byelaws which banned skateboarding in the City Centre. Since then, many skateboarders have been fined and at least 2 given ASBO’s for skateboarding in the City Centre. This approach, however, has not deterred skateboards from skating in the City Centre and, in fact, it is as popular as ever.
SkateMCR was founded by Ben Gibbs in 2006 with these aims:
Celebrate skateboarding in Manchester.
Oppose the byelaws banning skateboarding in Manchester’s City Centre.
Demand that any Council in Greater Manchester consults with us whenever they attempt to create future skate facilities.
See the skate scene in Manchester enhanced by gaining a concrete skate plaza and an extension to the Skatepark under the Mancunian Way.
As part of the aim to celebrate skateboarding in Manchester, we want to stage a skateboard festival in the City Centre.
Festival Aims And Benefits For Manchester
There are 2 main aims in staging this festival. The first is for skateboarders to enjoy and celebrate their activity, history and culture through a week long festival. The second is to educate the general public, and the local Government, that skateboarding is a fun, positive, exciting, creative, socially engaging activity which should be embraced.
Manchester International Skateboard Festival will:
increase social inclusion among skateboarders in Manchester,
strengthen the identity of skateboarders in Manchester,
promote and encourage the cultural activity within the skateboard community of Manchester,
educate the public about the true, positive nature of skateboarding in Manchester,
highlight Manchester’s City Centre as a vibrant, culturally engaging area,
promote a more positive image of young people in Manchester,
attract many more visitors to Manchester, particularly the City Centre,
promote Manchester across Europe and America as an important and attractive centre for skateboarding,
foster a more inclusive approach to skateboarding from the local government,
demonstrate the creativity within Manchester,
strengthen the connection with Sport which Manchester has,
be a lot of fun!
Festival Outline
Manchester International Skateboard Festival is modelled loosely on the Manchester Jazz Festival.
The festival will run for 1 week, from Monday 18th August 2008 to Sunday 24th August 2008.
From Monday 18th August 2008 to Friday 22nd August 2008, there will be skateboard related art exhibitions throughout the City Centre in places like URBIS, CUBE, The Cornerhouse and other art galleries. There will also be legal art exhibitions on the streets of the City Centre throughout this week. Local and UK based skateboarding artists will be used for the exhibitions.
Each evening from Monday to Saturday, The Cornerhouse Cinema will show a skateboard related film. These will likely range from documentaries to skate videos (edited footage of skateboarding), to fiction based films. They will be as Manchester focussed as possible. Manchester already has many locally filmed and produced skate video’s featuring local skateboarders, and these should be given high priority.
On Saturday the 23rd and Sunday the 24th August 2008, there will be a number of areas in Manchester’s City Centre dedicated to skateboarding.
St. Ann’s Square will host a collection of skate ramps, Piccadilly Gardens will host a collection of skate obstacles, and Albert’s Square will host a “Vert Ramp”, and an area at Cathedral Gardens have additional skate obstacles and will be available to be skateboarded. These will all be surrounded by crowd barriers for public safety.
Professional skateboard teams will be invited to come and skate each area at specific times over the weekend. These demonstration time slots will be publicised in a free guide to the festival, available to the general public. Outside of these demonstration time slots, the areas will be able to be skated by other skateboarders in a managed way. On each day there will be a number of competitions at each area to encourage great skateboarding and to provide an exciting atmosphere which onlookers will enjoy.
Each of these areas will have marquees with PA systems housing DJ’s or bands. The areas will be managed by local skateboarders, but security will be from an outside security group. There will also be food and drink stalls and stalls selling skateboard related goods.
On Sunday 24th August there will be a grand finale to the festival. There will be live bands, food, drinks, goods for sale, and a big skateboard competition with a large cash prize.
Moving Forward
The legalities of whether skate ramps and obstacles would be allowed in these City Centre locations (due to the byelaws) needs to be clarified. Only then can we confirm the size of the areas we will use which is necessary to design the skate area’s and get firm and accurate quotes from the ramp companies and security companies.
Once the locations have been confirmed and we have a budget, we can begin looking for sponsorship and funding. We aim to have all the money in place by the end of May 2008.
The next step should be to meet with all organisations who will be involved with the festival. These organisations will commit to their role in organising the festival, from sourcing the films, to booking the artists and exhibitions, to sorting out the marketing and organising the installation of the ramps.
Potential sponsors and funders should be approached as soon as the locations and go-ahead have been confirmed by the City Council and the City Centre Management Company.
Posters, fliers and guides should be produced and available from the beginning of July 2008.
SkateMCR was represented at “Breakthrough Manchester”, a conference organised by The Centre For Social Justice on the 8th November 2007.
I (Ben Gibbs) attended the conference and even got to ask David Cameron, leader of the Conservatives Party, a question.
The conference was aimed to highlight the report which outlines the social injustices in Manchester, and to allow David Cameron to announce his plans for schools run as co-operatives. After his announcement he took some questions and eventually pointed to me.
I said that I was from SkateMCR and asked “How do you propose to engage young people in Social Justice issues?” Dave either answered like a politician or didn’t understand the question and talked about a couple of projects the Conservatives support which are for young people. I wanted to know how they will encourage young people into social action, which is what SkateMCR is about. Nevermind!
After the initial session we were invited into small groups to chat about different issues. I attended the crime and disorder group to raise the issues skateboarders face in manchester. Skateboarders have been criminalised since 2001 because of the byelaws banning skateboarding in the City Centre. 3 young people have been given ASBO’s and many more have been fined because of the byelaws. The chap who ran the small group listened and took notes, but we’ll see if anything happens from it.
It was an interesting day and I felt glad to represent SkateMCR to high level politicians!
In this episode, DGK Danny talks about breaking his arm the first time he tried skateboarding, his best skateboarding memory, and his best trick among other things.
November 6, 2007 at 11:13 am · Filed under Manchester
Have you ever wanted to know if there were any nice skate spots nearby when you’re on holiday? Or do you want to share a spot because you think it will change lives? This new website lets you do just that…and more.
FreeYourSpot.com is a worldwide user-generated skatespots map.
You can post your favourite spots and share them with friends or others members.
FreeYourSpot.com is a simple concept.
Find a spot you like, organize your session & go skate.
Briefly, you can:
Add spots, comment them, get access infos, check the photos of the spots,
share spots with friends, discuss with other members & organise your
skate sessions.
Lets biggup Manchester on this website by marking all the great parks and spots we have.
Central Skatepark are celebrating their first birthday this weekend with 2 whole days of fun.
Sunday is the BMX day, but Saturday is the Skate day. It’ll be open from 12noon to 9pm and will be a big skate jam with the new eS video premiering at about 7pm-ish.
It’ll be £10 for the whole day and that £10 includes 1 years membership.
Get on down for a fun knees up! Here is the trailer for the eS video:
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