Most of us have an opinion on what is wrong with the world or (y)our local communities, yet only some of us will finally do the work to improve (y)our own lives, leave their comfort zones or even invest time on their passions, beside for example the act of skateboarding itself. So if you are not happy with your local skatespots or community and maybe even if you don´t have a skatepark or local skatespot, you might want to start brainstorming about on how to start changing this today with some friends? If your town doesn’t have a public (skate) park, maybe it’s time to get together to start contacting local initiatives or finally to start your own movement with your homies?

The Sky is the limit: Dream big and never give up

Like in every project, starting with brainstorming to collect ideas and prepare your first steps is important. Do the research and get as much as information together as you can. If you aren´t familiar with certain topics, take your time to learn. There are many inspirational ressources out there in the web from various crews and individuals. In my case, I started skateboarding in the late 80s and for many years, i was able to start, support skateboarding friends and projects in (East-) Africa and in Europe, volunteering for several local initiatives and international organizations. After all those years, I thought, that i can share some lessons learned from projects, from which some took us decades, while others just took us a weekend as an example in order to inspire others and give some ideas on how to get started with your (skateboarding) community project.

Start by example — do it for yourself and don´t wait for others

Actually Skateboarding has always had a do-it-yourself ethos. The very first skateboards were cobbled together by off-season surfers from wooden boxes and roller skate wheels back in the 1950s. Even as skateboarding has boomed and boards have modernized in the 90s, skaters everywhere still build their own ramps and obstacles out of wood, metal sheets, concrete, mounds of dirt, and whatever they can find. Nowadays most skate parks are mostly a constructed version of street skating, which uses existing obstacles and components — like curbs, benches, staircases and railings — together with pool areas. While skateparks are a great and safe environment to practice skateboarding and your tricks — if you haven´t felt the freedom riding with a crew of skateboarders freely through concrete jungles and landscapes — it´s still one of the best feelings to just cruise around, hang out with like and open minded friends and mainly disconnect from everything outside. Travelling to other cities to explore the local spots, make new friends (with the local skateboarders) and to have a good time in general by building your own spots — are still the most amazing aspects of skateboarding for myself, being now 42 years of age. When we really got into skateboarding in the early 90s, it was usual that you had to build your own spots — so we mostly build jumpramps, ledges and wheelie tables out of wood or any other material, that was (free) available— because they were actually no skateparks around without travelling far. Back in the days, skateboarders didn´t had the cool image like today — so on the positive side, the popularity of skateboarding also created a lot of awesome skateparks around the world with numerous examples of people, crews and communities who letted their action speak way louder than their words.

That’s where you come in — it’s your town, it’s your (skate) community — and it’ll be your future skatespot — but not if it if you never get started

As they say, “every journey starts with the first steps”, so just get started. As Jackson, the founder of the Uganda Skateboard Union in 2004 from Uganda´s Capital Kampala always says “Slowly but surely”, its better to at least every day/week something in the direction of your idea, so you have already done more like the days/weeks before. Imagine every skater getting him- or herself getting (a little bit more) involved in giving something small back by preserving skateboarding culture through getting activer involved in their communities…

It does not matter, where you are —Start Small and build for example your own (transportable) ledge

You can buy the material for a basic grind rail for some small money, but if you have access to a friend with welding tools — or a helpful neighbor with a workshop — it’s easy and even more inexpensive to make your own with materials you can get. A grind rail has usuallu three main parts: the long metal rail, two short metal legs and two stabilizing metal bases. To find the steel for the rails, you might have to look beyond the big box hardware stores and look up local steel yards and steel fabricators. Outside of grind rails, there are other grindable components that you can build, like boxes, ledges, kickers and benches. There are endless possiblities, therefore check out the web for tutorials and manuals, which some great people are publishing (on a regular basis).

Start with a little bit bigger projects: Build some transportable wooden Ramps

Once you started working with wood and feel confortable with the process, probably you would like to build more, then again — just check out the numerous tutorials from great skateboarders out there, how to build your tables, ledges, ramps, miniramps and all kinds of stuff you can think of. I personally love to skate wooden miniramps and i think its really fun, so we for example build one some time ago with the organizers of East-Africa´s First Sports Expo in 2018 and organized a small weekend session and contest. In this case, the event happened together with the opening of this shopping mall with the opportunity to be able to skate at this new mall and maybe even build some additional skateboarding obstacles. From my experience, the bigger the projects are and the more official partners are involved — the operations are more and more complicated and the projects often loose their focus.

Learn to work with concrete to Build your own spots or improve exisiting skateparks

Some of the coolest skate parks are concrete jungles, undulating landscapes of ramps and bowls and unexpected curves. The very first skateboarders sought out empty swimming pools to practice their off-season surf moves. The rounded concrete pool bottoms and walls provided the perfect surface for nonstop “wave” action. A few bold amateurs have built concrete skate bowls in their backyards, but this is usually a task reserved for the professionals. Concrete is an unforgiving building material. It dries fast, which means that mistakes are made for eternity. If you’re going to attempt a backyard concrete bowl, spend some time working with concrete on smaller projects first. Get used to working with rebar, gravel, wooden forms and the concrete itself. Once you know that you have a good feel for all of the elements of forming and casting concrete, then you’re ready to give it a try.

Support existing projects and local (skateboarding) businesses

It should be obvious, but everybody is mostly trying to get a good deal their boards, shoes, etc. that we often forget, that its actually the local skateshops who is supporting the scene, your future event or even could become a partner in setting up and promoting your local initiative.

Build your own DIY Skatepark

This is probably easier said than done, but there are numerous examples of DIY Projects out there, started and run by locals, which prove, that there are actually no excuses. Check out the Confuzine, a dope DIY Mag. When i started skateboarding again more here in East-Africa, i also met Jackson Mubiru, the founder of the Uganda Skateboard Union, who started their own DIY Skatepark in April 2004. It´s always good to get started and when people/companies/organisations realize, that things are actually already happening, its much easier for you to get future (financial) support. Sometimes, there is also the chance to get a skatepark project funded by international organisations or even from skateboarding NGO´s like skateistan, skateaid, makelifeskatelife, concrete jungle foundations etc. together with local partner organisations. Over the last years, I have learned that it’s the best to have much independence than possible but this required that skateboarders run the projects mostly by themselves. It can be quite challenging as most traditional learning institutions like schools dont really get the benefits of skateboarding and its positive impact especially for the younger generation. Financial interests of stakeholders here in East-Africa are usually the main problem of official skateboarding projects, therefore i really recommend, to start and stay as independent as possible for as long as you can. I was involved building a skatepark, where i believed, that we will build an open skatepark, free to use for those who can´t afford it with little payments/donations from people who could afford it in order to maintain this skatepark for future generations. But at the end of the day, its just open for the public, if they are able to pay an entry fee. Therefore believe that your project and dream will come true, but already also have a plan on how to maintain and operate the park for a long(er) time.

Get officially organized & engaged with your Community and City to build a public (skate-) park

Find a name for your idea or project, try to summarize what you want to do as a vision on paper and write down your first steps. A cause is much easier to get behind if supporters know exactly what they would be getting themselves into, while the communities should learn about the enormous benefits of skateboarding and public skate parks. It’s also much easier to solicit funding if necessary, when you have a well defined plan. At this stage of the game, organization is key; you’ll need to keep track of your members’ names and contact information, feedback and advice from members and non-members, a timeline of significant milestones, etc. There are several things you can do today to launch your new skatepark efforts: Keep in mind that not every coalition needs to be formal; there are benefits to working with other organizations in a less publicized way. Whichever type of coalition you choose to build, realize that trust amongst members is invaluable. It won’t be your park, it’ll be everyone‘s. So get them all involved in the project. Start with your friends and parents. You’ll need skaters (who will actually use the park) and adults (who both vote and pay taxes) on your skatepark committee for it to be effective. Obviously, skaters know what they need (and they certainly know what they don’t want). And adults who have been involved with other public projects or who understand how the local government works are very valuable. It’s important to show that the whole community is behind the project, and not just the skaters. Plus, adults can handle some of the more boring — but important — organizational chores.

• Brainstorming: What could you do? What would be a dream/vision? Who could help you immediately? How could you get started?
• Make a Plan — develop a small Concept paper: Usually everything goes different than planned and expected — but it´s always good to have a concept paper at hand to have an overview for yourself and also documentation for potential partners and supporters, which you should update regularly.
• Backoffice — create an offical Email Account (i.e. Gmail). This will provide you with an official email together with access to shared documents, an online calendar, virtual meetings, and so on. These will be handy tools for you and your team(s) getting organized.
• Set up your mailing list and get in touch with friends and family that may be interested in helping with this effort to promote your idea. Most oroject will probably take several years to start and complete , but the more preparation you put in now, the more efficient this project will come together.
• Organize yourselves (officially) — create an official club, society or movement together with organizing regular meetings once every few weeks and do your homework: Organize a (community) skatepark meeting.
• Research — Check out your city or town’s website and find out when and where your next city council meeting is. It will probably be at City Hall or your local municipal building.
• City Introduction — Present the skatepark concept to city leadership
• Public Outreach — Nominate and elect the exact location
• Kick-off — Recruit the project fiscal sponsor (or form a nonprofit/fundraising).
• Partnerships — Launch fundraising campaign.
• Grassroots Fundraising — Reach 50% of funding goal. Money can be raised via traditional routes such as hosting events or placing donation jars in local businesses. But you can also raise funds via digital routes such as Facebook or Fundraising programs.
• City / Major Donors — Conclude fundraising.
• Find & Hire Designer — Create blueprints. This is the fun part, and it’s likely that the first thing you did when deciding to launch a skatepark project was to draw your fantasy park. Well, the skatepark probably won’t look anything like that, because most public skatepark designs result from the inputt of several skaters filtered through the ideas and experience of a professional skatepark designer; the best skateparks are the result of top skatepark designers taking local input and balancing it with everything they know about lines, flow, speed, and the million other things that affect skatepark design. The importance of hiring an experienced skatepark designer cannot be overemphasized. In other words, a guy who sells playground equipment in addition to skate ramps is not a qualified skatepark designer. Make sure, that only companies with experience are allowed to render for your project.
• Find & Hire Builder — Begin construction. long with Design, this is the other most critical step. You can have the best design on paper, but if you hand it over to a guy who’s made his living pouring sidewalks, get ready for kinks, bumps, and gaps (not the kind you can ollie). Just as every qualified designer should be able to rattle off a list of great parks they’re responsible for, so should a qualified skatepark builder. And it’s up to you to recognize or check those references.
• Operation — This is actually one of the most important and most crtical parts about keeping your skateboarding project, spot or park in good condition and alive. Therefore negotiating and establishing with your partners, communites or local authorities should be one of the most important pillars to keep your projects alive for future generations.

(Don´t stop to) Create Awareness

It’s up to you to always keep people interested in your movement, just remind them regularly why they wanted to be involved in the first place. And while you’re at it, plan and strategize for your campaigns. You may have a talented and persuasive group of volunteers on your skatepark committee, but unless you have broad public support, you’ll have trouble convincing local officials that they should spend public money on a skatepark (they’d rather build another soccer complex). Send skaters door-to-door to collect signatures and hand out information sheets about your project, including where and when you’ll be meeting. Have adult members of the group approach their friends and colleagues, as well. Skaters can solicit the help of business owners that kick them out of spots — yes, if they don’t want you skating the rail in front of their store, it behooves them to support the creation of a local public skatepark.

Organize Fun Events for your local community, for yourself and friends once in a while

ome up with some creative and fun public events that will attract people and your local media. The more you can get the word out about your skatepark project, the more chances you have of reaching potential donors.

Lesson(s) learned: Keep pushing & keep your focus

Those are some of the basic ideas and steps assisting you in achieving your vision, collected i.e. thanks to the Tony Hawk Foundation Website and thanks to various other resources and authors. In my local hometown it took several decades, various generations of skaters and finally a local official skateboarding society to make the dream of a concrete skatepark a reality. In any case, you can be proud of the legacy you’ve left for future generations of skaters. If your friends aren´t interested — dont bother, look for other skaters or people, who could be interested in making a change (instead of always complaining without doing anything by themselves). Over the years i also learned to not care about other people´s opinions or advice, if they don´t actually have any experience in those fields. Skateboarding is still much more than the mainstream competitions, corporate fashion sales and/or even the competitive character channeling into the upcoming olympics. While all these aspects of skateboarding are a part of nowadays people perceptions of skateboarding — one of the coolest and unique features of skateboarding is, that it is whatever you want it to be for you: Starting to find or improve a (local) spot, finding a place to be able to skate on a regular basis with building a small spot with a ledge or a bank — there are actually hardly excuses not to get started with skateboarding (on a regular basis again) , while at the same time actually also improving (y)our local (skateboarding) opportunities for yourself and even future generations.

Thank you skateboarding!