Skate park project status

Télé-Toulouse (TLT)

On Monday, February 18th, we were on live TV for a 40-minute show called Oxygène. It was a sports special about BMX riders in the region and the need and complete lack of structure for serious enthusiasts of the sport. It was a round-table discussion format with five guests and the interviewer, Benoit Ruiz de Conejo. TLT is the local television station for Toulouse. The controversial or interesting subject of the show was: Why did the Mairie deToulouse say "no" to us in August and the Mairie de Castanet say "yes?"

 

In August, last year, we approached many city governments with our project, including Toulouse and Castanet.

 

Andrée represented the future The One and Only skate park; Christophe Canitrot, a semi-professional BMX rider and constructor of our street course, represented the riders in the area; Alex Baret, designer and co-owner of Twentyvelocross, a successful Toulouse-based bike manufacturer, represented the economic side of the issue; Monsieur Paix, adjutant mayor in charge of sport for Toulouse, represented the mairie of Toulouse, and Gilles Magrini, adjutant mayor in charge of urbanism for Castanet, represented the mairie of Castanet.

 

The show producers had prepared segments of interviews and taped "sessions" of Christophe and other riders in Ponts Jumeaux, a concrete public skate park in Toulouse, and at Blagnac, on some great dirt piles and a decent mini-ramp there. There was also a segment about the history of Twentyvelocross, another one about the only existing covered park around here, Public Domain, in Albi, (a town about 70 kilometers northeast of Toulouse) where BMX riders can go. A camera crew also went out to our property and filmed it for the show, and great new three-dimensional images of the entire future skate park, The One and Only, were featured during "our" segment.

 

The show was broadcast live at 7:20 p.m. on Monday, re-broadcast three more times that day, and then several times throughout the week. It was a hit. The producers mixed great music and cinematography and the discussion was interesting. Guillaume added his own commentary during the round-table discussion, and a tug-of-war between him and Clarke, Christophe's dog, in the audience, added to a positive atmosphere.

 

It was a great stroke of luck to have the chance to get the mairie of Castanet on air saying they support us fully. It helps us when we're dealing with other people. The Toulouse guy was great. He said that skateboard and sports like that were just fads. A perfect counter to what we're promoting.

 

Andrée was super her first time in the live spotlight. She did a wonderful job of presenting what we're about---namely, creating a "sanctuary de l'extreme" (extreme sports sanctuary) for enthusiasts in this part of France.

 

If you want to see a copy of the show, you'll have to wait until we become more technologically-advanced.

 

 

La nuit du roller (night of the skater) at the Havana Café

 

On Thursday night, February 7th, from 9 p.m. to 4 a.m., Roulez Rose, the biggest skate club in Toulouse, organized a big soiree for roller (inline and quad). There was a big percussion group, slalom demonstrations, skate dancing and a lot of music.

 

We showed up at 9:30 to put up some park description literature and pass out brochures and leave signature sheets. We're gathering signatures of skaters, skateboarders and BMX riders who want our park to open. These are for sending invitations and for showing our financers there are actual people interested in such a place as ours.

 

We ran into TSS (Tolosa Street Skating), a group of street skaters we know pretty well.

 

It was a real treat. Guillaume was fascinated and loved the percussion band. Andrée and I were continually kissing people we knew (it's the French handshake) and being introduced to people we didn't. Around 11:30, as we were getting ready to slip out, Delphine Cizeau, president of Roulez Rose, told us not to go anywhere, because TLT was there and wanted to interview us.

 

As as result of meeting us, the interviewer, Benoit Ruiz de Conejo, would expand a show on BMX that he was working on. He would change the focus of this show to feature a new skate park opening in the region in Castanet! That's how it began. Andrée (and David and Guillaume too!) got her first television appearance and believe it or not, the report on the "night of the skater" actually centered around US!

 

Our TSS friends put on a little extreme skating show, including jumping over a classic Chevy convertible from the stage to the dance floor below. Pierre Labadie, their newest member, did what looked like a 540-degree spin. This exciting television report finishes with Andrée answering some questions and the reporter saying something like, big things are coming soon...

 

Attestation

On Monday, February 11th, we received a letter from the Mairie de Castanet-Tolosan. An official letter of support from the municipality for our project. Next comes a promissory note for the arrangement for sale and leasing of the approximately 7 acres of land that will be home to The One and Only skate park. On Saturday, February 16th, we delivered our proposition for the terms for the land.

 

Park design, et al.

Our street course designer, Fabien Koudoyor, has come up with some great 3-D images of our future skate park. He transformed our two-dimensional drawings into life-like images that really capture what we're planning. Check out this website's the park link to view them.

 

Our first architect, Daniel Tranduc, of Launac, had recommended that we approach ABF (Architectes des Batiments de France) and make a presentation of our park before he continues to work on our park. He recommended that we be accompanied by someone from the Mairie of Castanet. He sent a preliminary rough estimate of the cost of building the Village de Skate, fencing the entire park, and asphalt and lighting and plants---just under four million French francs.

 

We met on Friday, March 1st with Monsieur James, an architect in Castanet, who has a lot of experience working with ABF. We're happy to consult with him about our designs. He'll work with us to come up with a set of drawings to present to the fine folks at ABF and VNF (Voies Navigables de France), an agency in charge of the Canal du Midi, and DIREN (la Direction Régionale de l'Environnement) and finally, la Direction Départementale de l'Equipement de la Haute Garonne. It's a beautiful world, with lots of nice people to see.

 

The Canal du Midi is considered a French national monument. Anything we plan to put next to it has to be approved, aesthetically, by these agencies.

 

Things are less mysterious. The unknown world of creating a park of our dreams is becoming known, and more comfortable.

 

Voila.

 

 

Signatures and letters

We have almost five hundred support signatures. These are skaters, skateboarders and BMX riders in the region who want our park to open. We have support letters from Rollers Avenue, an inline skate shop in Toulouse, TSS (Tolosa Street Skating), an aggressive inline skate association in Toulouse, T.U.B.S. 31 (Toulouse Universite Baseball Softball), Roulez Rose, the largest skate club in Toulouse, and La Ligue Midi Pyrenees de Baseball, Softball et Criket.

 

We met three new shops, Climazone, a successful snowboard and longboard shop in Toulouse, Rider Family, a snowboard and skateboard shop in St Orens and Gliss'XS, a skate shop specializing in roller hockey. Maybe it's our notoriety, but we're getting a very positive reception from each new business we meet (and lots of useful information).

 

David wrote letters to Oprah Winfrey, Bill Gates, and an organization called American Dreams in Las Vegas. They were mailed on March 25th. This is what David wrote. His letter was designed to catch the interest of the parties.

 

Once they're interested in our story, we can talk.

 

 

 

Extravaganza street module construction

Christophe Canitrot, Frank Fléouter, Fabien Koudoyor and Patrice Grauby are our module builders. David met with the four of them and worked out which modules would be built for the competition on May 4-5. Material costs were estimated and we're waiting for a place big enough to build them in Castanet--but we're not waiting long.

Christophe Blanchard, the adjutant mayor in charge of sports in Castanet, and Gilles Magrini, the first adjutant mayor in charge of urbanism, are searching for a hanger or a warehouse for us.

On Friday, March 1st, we talked to the owner of L'Enclos, the restaurant and motel in Donneville, where we stayed for five weeks last year as we searched for a home for our dream. Madame Ginette Massat gave us a lead on an old foundry building in Montgiscard, a town eight kilometers east of Castanet. We checked it out and it'll suit our needs. We're waiting until tomorrow to hear if the owner is interested in letting us use it (for a price).

We will start the construction of these modules within a few days, if at all possible. Christophe Canitrot and Fabien and David have been working on the materials estimates. All we need is a place...

PPS (Les Petits Pois Sauteurs), a skateboard association in Toulouse, will be using these modules for their National Skateboard Competition in September at La Place du Capitol in Toulouse. They're putting on this even with a skateboard shop in Toulouse called Blunt. This shop gets its skateboard parts and clothing directly from the States. Anyway, The One and Only is dedicated to the practitioners of the "alternative sports" and will gladly make its modules available whenever possible.

Skateboard plan

We've been fortunate to meet Patrice Grauby, a skateboarder and founding member of Section Skate de Castanet Auzeville. He's motivated and he has produced a pretty good-looking plan for our skateboard area.

On Wednesday, March 6th, we meet with PPS guys in Toulouse and see what they think. Patrice is a woodworker guy who is constructing our May competition modules with Christophe and Fabien and Frank. He just got back from his one year of mandatory French military service.

After a first plan revision, Patrice has come up with a second, more suitable plan for our 500 square meter (1,640 square foot) "aire de skateboard." This is one of the three main pavilions making up the Village de Skate. His first plan was a super-skate-world packed into a small place.

 

We want a change-of-pace from the large street course. This skateboard area, just like every aspect of our skate park plan, will reflect the wants and needs of ACTUAL enthusiasts! In this case, skateboarders. We're getting feedback from top skateboarders in the area, ones with experience in competitions and other skate parks in Lyon or Paris.

 

It's good to have a motivated guy from Castanet working with us. For the construction, we may eventually team up with the guys from Public Domain, a not-for-profit, skateboard-focused, indoor skate park in Albi about 70 kilometers away. They offered to help us build our skateboard modules.

Future Extreme sports event

There is a large, international extreme sports event April 6-14 in Montpellier, about 250 kilometers (150 miles) from here. David will go because the portable ramps and equipment used for the competitions were made by Christophe and his friends. We've got to check out the construction quality.

EVENT Organizing OURSELVES!!!

 

Castanet look out! We're going to do the overall organizing of our May 4-5 Extravaganza ourselves. How hard can it be? Really, we've got organizers for the tournaments of softball and roller hockey, the street competition with skateboard, BMX and inline, the music, graffiti, slalom skate, skate surf and juggling demonstrations. We have a good contact for sponsors. We might as well try it ourselves.

We'll call it our "come-on-down-and-have-fun-for-free-with-us-and-watch-people-competing-for-prizes-and-find-out-about-the-future-skate-park-opening-in your-area" event. A nice, short, catchy name for a neat first event planned entirely by The One and Only future skate park.

Sponsoring and radio, (two big pieces of the event organizing puzzle)

On Tuesday, March 5th, we'll meet again with Eric Authie, owner of Tout Terrain, a company specializing in designing advertizement for events. He and his colleagues arrange sponsoring for events and have good working relationships with the two big radio stations here, Fun Radio and RTL 2.

Featured

We were featured in a recent edition of O Toulouse, a weekly magazine/newspaper with a large circulation. Beatrice Colin, a writer for the paper, visited us on Wednesday, January 23rd, with a photographer.

 

We talked for a hour or so at our apartment and then drove to the Canal du Midi, at the location of our future skate park. Here is what the article looks like. It's not translated into English yet, sorry Mom.

 

This writer actually got what we're about. We're very happy with her article.

 

BIG MONEY

We're going for the big fish next.

 

Great new skate park in Rangueil:

 

 

We live in Ramonville Saint Agne for the moment. Not five minutes away is the Universite Paul Sabatier Rangueil. Near this university is a brand-new skate park built by Daco & Co. and designed by PPS (Petits Pois Sauteurs), the Tolouse skateboard association we mention in this project status link from time to time.

The skating surface is inox, or stainless steel, and it's finally big enough and wide enough to do some real skating. The Mairie de Toulouse paid for this expensive place. There's a mini-pipe, eight meters wide, table, quarter ramps. Really designed with skateboarders in mind. Even so, David can skate there without much trouble (along with BMX riders and a ton of other skaters and skateboarders).

This is a public park, uncovered, unlit, with no facilities, no trash cans, no benches.

But the equipment is great to skate on. The PPS guys have something to be proud of--it's the first skate park around that is finally big and wide enough for everyone (normally, for some reason, the ramps at public parks are too narrow, and therefore, dangerous).

 

 

Pushing for May

Against all odds, we're doing our Extravaganza in May.

 

On Saturday, March 2nd, TSS (Tolosa Street Skating) came to town. We talked to Mano, Speedy, Frosty, Fabien, Pierre and Ludovic. They're organizing the street competition for us---BMX, skateboard and inline. They organized an inline competition in August, last year, for Ponts Jumeaux, the cement skate park in Toulouse. The Mairie of Toulouse didn't help with funding, so it didn't happen.

 

Now they have the chance. So we had a pretty good meeting. The meeting, of course, evolved into a skating "session" in Castanet, which eventually led back to Rangueil, to the new skate park.

 

 

 

Visit often

Visit this Skate Park Project Status link often to keep current on our ongoing efforts.

Watch as the reality of this park materializes out of the stuff of dreams.

If you have sent us a dollar or well wishes---thanks. 

Your gesture will continue to live, in a future operating skate park.

a bientôt!