by Mel @troubleon8wheels
"No-one roller skates where I live," is something we hear in messages and our shop.
We get it. You've had a mid-life awakening and re-evaluated your life. You've finally realised that prioritising your own mental and physical wellness is important and roller skating is an activity that helps you feel alive. Now, you need to tell everyone, (neighbours, work colleagues and strangers), about your newly discovered leisure activity, and are making it your personal mission to get as many of them rolling as possible. The problem is, they haven't had the same life experiences and epiphany moment you have, so they think you are a bit eccentric / too old / *insert judgemental comment here* and are declining your enthusiastic invitations to join in.
You've done all the possible skating you can in your living room, hallway and kitchen and it's time to take these wheels outside. Right? Well yes, but outside is scary. Its not-quite-flat, not-that-smooth, where do you put your bag scary. So your brain puts you off.
Solution? Skate pals!
You are more likely to stick to an activity when you have made a commitment. Book that session, class or make a skate date. But what if you only just started about 3 days ago, and you haven't yet had the chance to connect with anyone? (Let's be honest, social media rarely shows us folks living in our actual town, more like 3000 miles away - nice one algorithms.)
Here are some suggestions of how to start your own roller skate gang.
1. Take charge. You don't have to be bossy, but if you want the skate pals, why are you waiting for someone else to start a gang? You can approach this in one of two ways - view it as a temporary group to connect with others, and should you find you connect with another group, you can then decide what to do.
Our tip is to make everyone up to the first 10-20 people or within the first month of joining an admin of the group.
2. Choose a platform. There are pros and cons to all the social media types, and there is always someone that says they don't have a particular platform, so choose the one that suits you the most.
3. Name your group - based on locality can be useful to help people find you. Now share, share, share your group invitation links far and wide!
4. Where will you meet? Somewhere easy to get to in your locality would be ideal. Somewhere people will feel safe too. Here are the things we look for in selecting outdoor meet-up spots:
traffic free or reduced traffic
as smooth as possible
friendly neighbouring buildings - nothing worse than being asked to leave after only 5 minutes.
a cafe or shop nearby is always a bonus
5. Decide when to meet up. Make a snazzy little graphic or use our template below and share it. A lot.
By the way, are you prepared to skate by yourself? If you are starting with a group size of one (aka just you, the founder) it can take a good few times of putting yourself out there before other skaters may come across you. It's so easy to be disheartened, so encourage yourself to think "This must be the wrong time of day, I need to try again and at least I got to skate."
Keep going, and one day you will have a roller skate gang of your own.
Did you find this post useful? We'd love to know if it inspired you to start your own skate gang.
Have you already got an established skate gang? Look out for our upcoming blog post about levelling up your existing skate gang.
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