We're still collecting donations
On the 8th April 2024 we'd raised £20,647 with 488 supporters in 42 days. But as every pound matters, we're continuing to collect donations from supporters.
Let's get an indoor skate park facility open in the Huntingdonshire area to encourage skateboard participation all year round.
On the 8th April 2024 we'd raised £20,647 with 488 supporters in 42 days. But as every pound matters, we're continuing to collect donations from supporters.
WE DID IT. At 9:34am on Friday 5th of April we received the donation that got us to the £20,000 target from 474 unique supporters. This means we have now secured the £7,000 pledge from Sport England with a few days spare!
The truth is however that £20,000 isn’t actually enough money to open up an indoor skate park facility. That figure was put there to ensure we got the 35% match funding from Sport England. Now as the months go by we will continue to have this page set up for anyone that still wants to contribute towards the cause. We just won’t be aggressively fundraising like we’ve done during this 6 week campaign.
Therefore if you are reading this and haven’t donated yet then please be assured that there is still a need for more money and your contribution would be valued. We are especially keen to get our unique donators statistic higher too as it’s a metric which is often used from bigger organisations that will look to offer us more money. So even if you give a few quid it all helps! Thanks everyone!
Let's Go Skate C.I.C. is a not for profit skate school which has been helping people get in to skateboarding since 2016. Our instructors regularly cater for children that sign up to weekly group sessions at our local skate park in Brampton. Throughout 2023 we averaged around 40 children that would book on to our term time courses which we provide during a few evenings in the week. This ensures that children who want to learn how to skateboard but dont' know where to start have the ability to learn with us in a safe and secure environment.
We've also noticed that there's been a sharp increase in female participation in our classes with their often being more girls in a class than boys. Skateboarding can be alluring thanks to its free spirited nature, ideal for children that don't enjoy participating in traditional sports. It's meant we've been able to provide physical exercise for students that may otherwise have not been getting any.
Lastly there's also adults learning too with us thanks to the Private Lessons we offer in between classes.
We don't have a central hub where we can operate out of which we can call home. This there's no place where potential customers can pop in and have a chat with us. It means we have to use outdoor facilities which we don't own to conduct our lessons which brings with it the need to share the skate park with other users and ensuring the council that owns the park is willing to have us there.
Our own indoor place is now needed more than ever due to how we have grown post pandemic. We had a surge of interest from new students when restrictions were eased a bit due to the fact that we were able to operate yet other activities like swimming was not. Us running more classes plus more use from other riders at skate parks has meant they are busier than they've ever been making it difficult at times for everybody to share.
We run sessions for 40+ children every week helping them to socialise with others whilst improving their skills on a skateboard. These are very successful but are always at the mercy of the British weather. It's imperative we keep our students safe which means even a drizzle of rain can wetten the skate park and make it dangerous to ride on.
During the summer months it's not too much of a problem but during colder days outdoor skate parks may never dry leaving children to miss out. An indoor skate park would ensure lessons could run regardless of the weather whilst also ensuring we can even teach during Winter when we usually cease operating.
Children sad as rain falls during their lesson
We have found that our retention rate for children coming back to us after the Winter break is much lower than what it is during the rest of the year. By being able to operate during the Winter months we'd be able to help keep the spark alive to be on their board whilst also ensuring they maintain their relationships with other students (whom they often don't get to otherwise see).
From our experience being around children at skate parks we came to discover that a lot of them were unable to provide basic maintenance to their skateboard to ensure it operated effectively. We therefore created Skateboard Workshops which gave them a chance to spend time inside with an instructor teaching them how to assemble a skateboard.
Instructor Dave showing students how to dismantle a skateboard
As useful as these are we have had to find different locations to hire out to make this possible. For us this isn't cost effective resulting in us needing to keep numbers low due to a lack of space. Having our own indoor skate park facility would mean we had a regular venue to offer this service with plenty of space to spread children out so they can get hands on with their skateboard without banging elbows with others.
As amazing as skateboarding is we've realised that there is an opportunity to provide people with more than just the physical act of skateboarding itself. If you weren't aware there is a lot of effort that goes in to the graphics which get placed on the underside of a skateboard. With skateboarding often being referred to as a type of artform it makes sense that art and skateboarding can go hand in hand. This is why in the Summer of 2023 we trialed our first ever Design a Skateboard session with our students.
Students getting creative and designing their own skateboard deck
This gave them the chance to get creative with art whilst still being around skateboarding. It was a great success but came at a cost to us. The plan was to do this outside on the field next to the skate park however it rained all morning which made this not possible. We was thankfully able to hire a nearby hall to ensure it went ahead but this came at a great cost to us due to the hiring fee. Having our own skate park would alleviate this issue and also allow us to get much more bits and pieces in (pens, paint, stencils etc) to make the workshop even more fun for the kids.
By regularly offering this we will also be able to provide more opportunities for creative practices that neurodivergent and/or young people with SEN can also participate in. This will broaden our services by being able to cater to more types of young people which we currently don't do enough of.
Freddie has been having lessons with us since 2020 when he was at Alconbury Weald skate park on his scooter and witnessed us teaching another child a lesson. A quick on the fly request from his mum saw him have his first lesson with us there and then on the same day at just 6 years old.
Jason maintaining 2 metres social distancing during summer 2020
As the years have gone by Freddie has continued to skateboard alongside other sports he enjoys like Karate and Football. The key difference with his skateboarding however is he isn't able to do it all year round like the other two. At Let's Go Skate we don't operate group sessions from December to February due to it being winter which means we never know if Freddie will want to come back to us in Spring or if he'd have lost interest in skateboarding. Thankfully his mum is committed and does get him out on the dry days for some practice on his own but he misses his skate buddies and those dry days our few and far between. Like our other students Freddie regresses slightly each winter due to fear creeping in and a lack of support from our instructors but thankfully he is able to pick it all up again fairly quickly.
When asked about what it's like trying to skateboard during the winter and if an indoor skate park would benefit him Freddie said the following.
"When it’s raining I can’t go to the outdoor skatepark because it’s wet, it would be much better if we had an indoor one, and I’d be able to skate a lot more in the winter. Not being able to skateboard makes me sad. The nearest indoor skatepark is 40 minutes away from me and that’s a long way to travel."
Freddie is just one of our many students who would love to have an indoor skate park facility. He and others would be able to continue on with their lessons without having a 3 month break helping them stay on their skateboard all year long.
Last year our instructor Dave was able to raise £2,095 for the indoor skate park from his own personal GoFundMe. He did this by doing extreme physical challenges over the year including the 4x4x48 challenge invented by David Goggins which had him running 4 miles every 4 hours over a weekend!
Dave will be depositing this money in to this crowdfunder once it goes live alongside a £300 deposit from Scenic Skate Shop for their Pokemon Blind Bag raffle event which happened October 2023 last year.
We are looking to raise a total of £20,000 from this crowdfunder. With £2,395 already being secured and the remainder coming from new donations. This will also include a pledge from Sport England of £7,000 thanks to their Active Together scheme. Once we reach 25% of our target (which is £5,000) and 100 unique supporters the pledge from Sport England will appear on this page jumping us up to £12,000. We will then have the last hurdle of raising another £8,000 to reach our goal and ensure the Sport England pledge sticks (they withdraw it if we don't reach the full target amount!).
With £20,000 raised from this crowdfunder plus £2,400 from our 2023 fundraising efforts (for a total of £22,400) we will be in a much more prominent position to fund getting an indoor skate park set up and going. We will then contact Huntingdonshire District Council to see if they have any units available for us to move in to and if needed help fund any additional costs we may accrue. Once established we will be able to maintain it via our own revenue streams. We just need help getting going. Here's just some of the costs associated with a project like this which you can help fund towards.
In early 2021 Yusra and Lily of Mama Skate CIC opened Skate Parlour in Leicester. It's an indoor skate park that provides a safe, secure and sheltered space for people of all walks of life to come and skateboard. It didn't take us long to get in the car and travel over to check it out and boy were we impressed!
Skate Parlour may be small in size (compared to other established skate parks) but it embodies everything we feel is needed to get newcomers in to skateboarding. It's for this reason that we are being realistic and looking to create our own similar sized indoor skate park that gives a nod towards Skate Parlour whilst also adding our own unique aspects to it.
By having a smaller warehouse we'd be able to keep all of our costs down and much more feasible. Like Skate Parlour we'd look to utilise moving obstacles around (instead of them being permanently placed) which will allow us to give additional variety in the layout. By doing this we will be able to cater to all different styles of skateboarding.
We privated hired Skate Parlour and took our students there
An indoor skate park will give us the ability to reach even more people in our community. Here's a few ways we'll be able to do this.
We're really proud of the work we do getting new people in to skateboarding through our lessons. There is however plenty more skateboarders within the community that would benefit from us getting an indoor skate park. Any established skateboarder doesn't need lessons but they do need a place they can go to skate when the weather isn't in their favour.
Miraculously the skate park was dry for these local skateboarders but the freezing temperatures did make skateboarding challenging
For the first time we will be able to provide something for these skaters in the community by running open sessions they could book in for. This would allow them the freedom to skate without the need to pay for instruction. With there not being an indoor park nearby we anticipate receiving an influx of interest from skateboarders and other wheeled riders alike. No longer would they not be able to skate due to a rainy day as they'd be able to come to us and skate indoors.
Over many years of instructing lessons to those that have never been on a skateboard before we've found from listening to people that skate parks can be intimidating. Although we do our best to accommodate and ensure students that skate parks are much friendlier places than public perception might have you believe we still find a busy public skate park is a hurdle that's holding back plenty of newcomers from enjoying skateboarding.
Jason instructing adults at the skate park when it's quiet
If we had our own indoor skate park we would be able to provide Private lessons that truly are private by ensuring an adult can learn at their own pace without fear of judgement from others. We will also be looking in to setting up group sessions for adults for the first time. According to our local authority health profile there are a lot of issues due to a lack of activity from the older age population in Huntingdonshire. Having our own facility will enable us to help with 'active aging' as there we will see an increase in participation from adults
You may not know but skateboarding is now an Olympic sport. With this brings a lot more competitions and the need for athletes to be able to train so they can compete to the best of their ability. Where we are based in Huntingdon there is no nearby indoor skate parks with the closest being Adrenaline Alley in Corby which is nearly 30 miles away with a few others being around 50 miles.
It just so happens that the current UK Champion and Olympic hopeful Joe Hinson lives close to us. Joe often is forced to travel to these further away skate parks to train as outdoor skate parks are rarely dry and safe to skate on during winter months. Joe and any other upcoming athletes would be able to access our indoor skate park and enhance their skills without needing to travel across country to do it.
We've already outlined what we do and why an indoor skate park would help us continue that on a great scale. There is however plenty more outreach we already do and will continue to do going forwards for our community. Here's just three of the things we shall continue to do.
We can get asked to go in to schools to deliver our Beginners Introduction to Skateboarding course for pupils. This ensures even children without the means to travel or afford lessons get the chance to experience skateboarding too. We regularly attend Newlands Spring Academy in Essex to teach their Year 5's during Sports week.
We also include an assembly to the whole school went we visit for the day. Recently our talk has been on Sky Brown becoming the youngest ever Olympian for Great Britain, a great role mode for students to aspire to.
For those students that have been with us a while and have advanced skill we offer them the opportunity to travel on road trips with us to other skate parks. This provides parents with free day to themselves whilst ensuring their child gets to experience other skate parks for a fun day out.
We even document our trips out by recording YouTube videos. You can watch our trip to London to check out Cantelowes and BaySixty6 skate parks here.
Utilising our social enterprise status has meant we at times have been able to secure funding to provide free skateboard lessons to children. Living Sport funded us to teach up to 80 different children in Yaxley, Brampton & Alconbury Weald towards the end of 2022 and during 2023 from their Together Fund.
These children were even gifted a free skateboard so they could continue practicing on their own once the 8 week course had concluded. Let's Go Skate ensured that they received skateboards that are of a good quality and work well instead of cheap ones that consumers are often tricked in to getting from sports shops.
At the start of 2023 we received a cost of living grant from UK Youth. On the application form they asked us what would we like to use the money on and we decided it would be great to create an ambassador scheme which gave our teenage students the opportunity to give back and help out the younger ones. Over the year they regularly attend our after school Keep on Skatin' sessions for 6-11 year olds and alongside our instructors became an invaluable part of the team.
As a thank you to our ambassadors we have used funding to provide uniform, training and extra trips out to other skate parks as rewards. We also took part in the Clown in Action program which meant our ambassadors got more free product (including decks and shoes) from helping us out.
For this project to be successful we need your support. Here's what you can do to help
- Fundraiser of Your Own
If your child is a student of ours then we'd like to encourage you to set up your own Crowdfunded page to link in with this one. Your page would be personalised to share the story of your child and why they would like an indoor skate park. This narrative would help reach an audience that knows your child well and would therefore enhance the likelihood of a donation (over linking them to just this page).
The raised money would still go towards the skate park, it's one big pot that can be added to from different sources. Adults are welcome to do this too, even if you're not one of our students.
- Three Other Simple Ways
Otherwise there are three simple ways to help us reach our target, and make this project a reality.
1. Make a pledge. Don’t delay if you’re going to support us because momentum is key to our success!
2. Spread the word. Share our project on your social media pages and tell the world to get behind us! The more people we reach, the more support we will get.
3. Offer rewards. Get involved if you are a local business by donating things we can offer to our supporters. We will give you a shout out!
For many of years we have spoken about wanting to do this. Endless meetings, discussions with parents and day dreaming about how amazing it would be to have our own place to call home and operate out of. The time has finally come for us to get serious about making this happen.
Please do what you can to help this project out, we can't wait to get this built and create a hub for communities that will benefit so many people.
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