Skate park project status

Dollar/Euro scheme

Since our first dollar, sent to us from Pennsylvania from Vince Lepidi, we've received a little trickle of dollars and euros from the U.S., France, Germany & Brazil. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts.

 

Our first big mailing of letters asking for people to send a buck and pass it on looked like this.

 

If you'd like to join in the madness, send your buck to:

 

David and Andrée Weimer

The One and Only skate park

10 Domaine de la Chêneraie

31520 Ramonville Saint Agne

France

If you want to invest more than a dollar, do it with your Visa, MasterCard or American Express, or, directly from your bank account to ours---via the internet, here. Have patience, it does work!

And please---Don't forget to pass this on. This chain or pyramid scheme only works, the way it was intended, with a truly great number of people...

 

Recent happenings

 

Promissory letter

On Thursday, January 24th, we met with M. Patrice Tournon, an adjutant mayor of Castanet Tolosan. We came to an agreement about the buying price and leasing terms of the land where the future skate park, The One and Only will be. We will receive a promissory note from the Mairie (town government) of Castanet Tolosan soon.

 

Park design

Our architect, Daniel Tranduc, has completed preliminary sketches and plans for the main building and three pavilions. We'll schedule a test drilling at the main building and pavilion sites next. This is necessary to determine how the foundation and support structures will be built.

 

 

Signatures and letters

We have over three 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, and TSS (Tolosa Street Skating), an aggressive inline skate association in Toulouse.

 

All of the shops and organizations have promised to write letters of support for our dossier and financing of this enterprise.

 

 

Street course design(ing)

Fabien Koudoyor has improved upon his design for The One and Only street course. He's visited skate parks far and near and consulted with experts in the three disciplines (inline, skateboard and BMX). The next step is a meeting with the people who will build the thing. We'll get together with about five people and put our heads together on this.

new course!

We're adding a 20 x 25 meter (about 60 x 75 feet) covered street course designed specifically with skateboarders in mind. The main street course is fast and fantastic. For skaters, BMX and skateboarders. It became obvious, however, that a place was needed for skateboarders to do what they do.

BMX

It's a given now. We will allow BMX into our park. There are just toooo many BMX enthusiasts in this region. It's unbelievable. And excellent riders and clubs and associations abound. We'll come up with a session plan for the park, with BMX in mind. Toulouse is home to twentyvelocross, a manufacturer of BMX bikes operated by riders.

There's going to be a little organizing to do, meaning, scheduling session times, but it turns out to be the best idea to include people from all three disciplines in this park.

Skateboard guru

We met Mato on January 17 in Toulouse for lunch. He's a skate module builder with a reputation in this area. He operated a small skate park, focused on skateboard, in Toulouse for a few years and is still regarded as one of the best skateboarders in the area. He knows what skateboarders like to skate on, equipment-wise. He said he'll design something for our 20 x 25 aire du skateboard.

Another possibility, however, is the owner of the not-for-profit skate park in Albi, Public Domain, a skateboard-focused indoor park about 70 kilometers away from us. He offered to build the modules for us.

Future stuff

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.

Roller hockey tournament

On February 9-10, there is a roller hockey tournament in a la Ramee, a part of Toulouse. Ten teams will compete, including team Roulez Rose. We'll attend and talk with the teams about our two roller hockey rinks.

 

Roller hockey is one area we want to gather more support from. The team sport concept is irresistible. Rugby is king in Toulouse and Haute Garonne, and Toulouse has been the national champion for more years than anyone can count. In addition, soccer (football) is extremely popular. These sports attract a huge spectator attendance and we believe that roller hockey is perfect for our park. It's not a stretch for the spectators of these other sports to attend a roller hockey match. We think it will translate well.

EVENT Organizing

 

BMX events

We met on January 29th with Nicolas Cambon, organizing member of Roots BMX Albi, a BMX association in this region. We met at Public Domain, an indoor skate park in Albi. Nicolas is a rider and an organizer of BMX events. We think we can work together for our April/May Extravaganza in Castanet, as well as in future events planned by The One and Only.

Sponsoring and radio

On January 29th, David also met Eric Authie, owner of Tout Terrain Ocean, a company specializing in obtaining sponsoring and designing advertizement for events. They met at the location of the April/May TO&O Extravaganza. M. Authie is an excellent contact for our future events. He and his colleagues are able to obtain sponsoring for events and they have good working relationships with two big radio stations here, Fun Radio and RTL 2.

Seeking overall organizer

We're still looking for an organizer for our event, overall. We'll talk to Delphine Cizeau, president of Roulez Rose, the biggest inline skate club in Toulouse. She has recently started her own company specializing in....organizing events!

We are looking forward to talking with Delphine about our April/May Extravaganza. The pieces of the puzzle are falling into place. Check out our Events link to know more.

Famous at last!

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 and went to the Canal du Midi, at the location of our future skate park. David doesn't like his picture taken, but eventually, the photographer was able to take a picture he could use. Here is what the article looks like. Sorry it's not translated.

 

It's amazing. This writer actually got what we're about. We're very happy with her article. We've received a couple of contacts as a result--one from an opposition party leader to the current Castanet government, and another person asking for longboard lesson contacts. Occasionally, we talk to someone in a shop or an office and they look at us and say, "weren't you in O Toulouse last week?"

ESTIMATES

We are getting estimates RIGHT NOW!!!

On January 30th, we met with M. Malet, an asphalt guy in Castanet. We discussed the most important part of a park for rolling sports--the asphalt, or smooth surface. He'll get an estimate to us in a week.

On February 1st, we met with Nicolas at Jardinerie Les Camelias, a Castanet tree nursery. He'll get a preliminary estimate to us in a month or so, with some back-and-forth dialogue in the meantime.

Now that Fabien is done with the street course design, we'll be working on a materials and labor estimate.

We have an estimate for a four-station batting cage with an automated ball retrieval system manufactured by ATEC (Athletic Training Equipment Company) in the U.S.

We have the estimate from Casal Sport for our giant vertical competition ramp (half-pipe). This French sporting goods company handles skating ramps manufactured by a Swiss company, Vertical, one of the top competition ramp companies in Europe.

David went to Lyon on January 26th and met with the technical representative of Vertical for France, Rolland Melet (he speaks English and German, so he and David had no trouble communicating), and the sales representative of Causal Sport, Patrick Fontaine, responsible for all of France as well.

On the way to Lyon, David stopped in Montpellier on Saturday morning to visit a well known skate park called Grammont. There is a decent-sized street course with a bowl and mini-half-pipe. There is also a four-meter-tall (12 feet) vertical half-pipe, twelve meters wide (about 36 feet). It was very important to see the equipment in person and especially to skate on the different surfaces and constructions. A vertical ramp is a totally different dimension in skating, as different from normal ramp skating as as ramp skating is from flat land skating. It's exhilarating. The One and Only skate park WILL have a competition ramp!

 

 

 

Mayor time

On January 31st, we met the Mayor of Castanet Tolosan. We introduced ourselves and presented our project. He, of course, knows about us, but we felt it was important to inform him of what we're planning. He was a very serious guy, not one to back slap or exaggerate. He's one of the youngest mayors in France. He said we (the Mairie de Castanet and us, the future The One and Only), both have a mutual interest in the realization of this enterprise in his town. Hey, that's what we think!

 

We promised to tell him when we're in the paper or on T.V. or the radio, and he promised to tell the town government to help us whenever we need it--for obtaining places to put on events, meeting rooms, etc.

 

 

Grande reunion:

On Saturday, February 2nd, representatives of eleven area associations were invited to meet with us in a building across from the courthouse to review the park plan. Specifically, the street course, bowl and skateboard area, as well as generally, the park overall. These are groups that we have personally previously contacted. They all support our project and we wanted their unique perspectives for reviewing our park plans.

 

Acroller, ET & Capitol skate shops, LSK (Association Longskate Toulouse)

Mato Skate Park, PPS (Petits Pois Sauteurs), Roots BMX Albi

Roulez Rose, Section Skate de Castanet Auzeville, SNC (Skateboarders Non Confirmes)

TSS (Tolosa Street Skating) and Twentyvelocross.

 

Nine associations showed up, with an additional group, ASC (Aygues Skate Crew) attending.

 

It was successful organized chaos. With a lot of very good feedback and opinions.

 

We had pizza, Chinese food and drinks. T-shirts, brochures and prize give-aways. renewed promises of support, new contacts and offers of help, and Champagne. L'esprit was running high.

 

Immediately following the meeting, TSS went across the street to the marble water fountains in front of the Mairie (courthouse). They held a session there, entertaining a wedding party gathered there for the ceremonial marriage of a couple by the Mayor.

 

Marble is a great surface to grind on. I think everyone present figured this out. Including the mayor...

 

Well, one thing is certain. There is a definite need for our park as a place for skaters to find an outlet for their sliding skills!

 

 

International Publicity

No word back yet from Good Morning, America, Today, USA Today, David Letterman or Jay Leno.

 

We sent them letters, telling them of our story and our million-dollar dollar scheme and offering to put on a skate show with French skaters and to teach skating to a show host. We think our story is a good one that happens to be true.

 

You might think we're kidding, but we're trying to get Jay Leno to have us on his show. David will show him basic inline skate techniques and three or four street skaters from Tolosa Street Skating will put on a demonstration with David. We'll tell our story of 19 years as pen-pals, our unusual life stories, and explain why we're doing a million-dollar pyramid scheme to finance our skate park! . We'll give Jay a The One and Only t-shirt and an advance ticket.

 

We've contacted David Letterman's people, too. We've invited him to do his show from our currently empty field on the Canal du Midi.

 

David will write next to Donald Trump and Bill Gates. We will contact skate parks in the U.S. to help sponsor a U.S./French skate park opening in Southern France.

 

So the beat goes on--on the unusual financing front.

 

Advance Tickets

We’re going to sell advance tickets to prospective park visitors.  The debut of this phase of financing will be at our April/May Extravaganza in Castanet. People's names will go on a database and they get two entrance tickets for the price of one.  A daily ticket costs five Euros, about the same as five dollars.  In return for which, these Extravaganza visitors get a future visit to our future skate park, and a promise from us to return their money if we don’t open.

 

 

 

 

Visit often

Visit this Skate Park Project Status link often to keep current on our ongoing efforts and to watch as the reality of this park materializes out of thin air, growing out of the stuff of dreams.  If you have sent us a dollar or well wishes, thanks.  Your gesture will continue to live on, in a future operating skate park.

a bientôt!