Hey Best Friends and Team!
As you may have noticed, the skatepark/business has been struggling since we opened due to (in my opinion) lack of marketing, half assed commitments and no clear direction. There are lots of amazing ideas and events you all have come up with over this past year and a half, but no follow through and so I’m here to change that starting now!
I know we all want this place to work and I’m letting you know now that if we can’t get off our asses and make it work together, Coty is going to sell the ramp and file bankruptcy and we will be moving to Reno, Nevada so he can take over his dad’s drywall business. Coty is basically giving me September to make this work. Just keeping it real, besties.
So starting today, I am laying out some clear expectations of the direction we need to go and how you can help (if you don’t want to help or care about any of this, just text me separately and go about your life).
The first half of this might feel harsh, but I just need you to set aside your feelings for a few minutes. My intention is to be real with you all, I’m not trying to call anyone out.
Firstly, if you currently have a key you need to either:
A) Pay $150 per month for it
B) Bring enough skaters to adult nights to generate $150 per month
C) Generate at least $150 in student sign ups
D) Argue your value as to how you are generating or going to generate $150 worth of business
E) Take over at least 1 open skate day or adult night weekly
The above is the bare minimum and honestly I should up that to $250 but I digress.
If you cannot commit to any of the above, please return your keys to me or Coty ASAP so I can give them to people who can pay for them or are willing to do the above.
If you don’t have a key yet but can commit to the above, hit me up and we can work on getting you a key.
Here is where I clarify why we are here and what supports the building: kids (and their parents). Camps and private lessons pay for the building. It’s been great to have adult nights and skate with friends, but at the end of the day, skaters are broke and don’t want to pay to skate, they feel entitled to skate for free. I just need to say, sorry but it’s brand new skaters who pay the rent and they are the only reason we will make it through the lease without going bankrupt (and the only reason we’ve made it this far).
To break this down even clearer, for every open skate person paying $15 for a 4+ hour session, there is a new skater whose parents will pay $40-$50 for a 30 minute private lesson. So while getting skaters to open skate/adult nights is wonderful, brand new skaters are more valuable.
Be grateful for the baby skaters (and their parents) who support your ability to skate a nice vert ramp and mini ramp indoors, and treat the building you care if it exists!
By that I mean, wipe up spills, clean the toilet, sweep the ramps, throw beers in the dumpster, pick up cigarette butts in the parking lot, take the trash out, fix holes in the walls or things that are broken, etc. Leave the park better than when you arrived, National Park style.
New skaters parents worst fears is their kids getting into drugs and alcohol, listening to songs with swear words in it etc. Is that dumb? Yes, but also we can help them with their delusions and create a clean and safe environment they feel happy to drop their kids off and continue to come back.
But also, I have spent 1.5 years cleaning up after you all and I told Coty when we got the building I did not want to be the only one being responsible for cleanliness and (surprise) I have been pretty much the only person to clean the building, yet I’m here the least.
Please don’t make me make a chore chart for adult men to initial, for the love of God.
(sorry about my side tangent, so let’s get to the positive stuff!)
We are here for the kids. We are paying it forward. We are here to serve them. It is not about us and our skating, it’s about them and their skating. Yes, we will ultimately benefit too, but we need to be fountains, not drains.
This brings me to TEAMS!
You can help by being a part of a TEAM!
These are the teams I would like to exist, each with a specific and helpful focus:
Marketing/Promo team
Lessons/Camps/Afterschool Program team
Events/Contests team
Social Media team
Financial/Admin team
Website/SEO/Ads team
Facility/Janitor Team (this is a half joke)
Please let me know what team you’d be interested in joining! All the teams are interconnected and will work together so we can make this place a community driven indoor skatepark that’s pays for itself so we can keep it around for us all to continue to enjoy.
Just so I am transparent and so you all can understand the big picture, our goal for the business has always been to have a team where YOU ALL are running it/can take it over/actually get paid. At this exact moment, these are volunteer teams (co-op style) where you currently will get knowledge and experience and training from me, the best boss in the universe, slash if you have a key, being on these teams would “pay” for the key as long as there are measurable ($$$) results. BUT the goal would be to pay people for their work once the building is sustainably paid thanks to all of our wonderful teamwork! I have already almost done that with so much grinding, but it would be great to have some support so I can reach that goal way faster and focus on bigger picture things (and not have to go bankrupt and move to another state because we get sued by the landlord).
Anyway, love you all. I want this place to work, not just for me and not just for Coty, but because I truly, truly love skateboarding and want the Oklahoma area to have access to an indoor place people can learn and train and have fun skating with their friends judgement/gatekeepy-free, and ultimately just grow the scene and level of skating here.
Please help me and don’t let another indoor skatepark disappear and ruin someone’s love for skating because they become more and more depressed every month it continues not to work out. Join me in my toxically positive optimism and help this place reach its full potential!
Message me so I know you read all this (sorry, I know it’s long), but if you don’t within the next few days, I will be calling you to read it out loud to you and putting you on the spot!
P.S.
Coty has not read this, all he knows is I’m contacting all of you to create a team so please don’t text him like WTF did Sarah just send me, what a cunt, I’m not giving up my key, instead just text me that directly!