Kyle Thomas

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Jul 13 2011

New Fort St John Skateboard Park Scene

Wednesday evening I attended what I’m going to call a Fort St. John Skateboard Park Committee meeting at the Fort St John City Hall. The reason for this committee is because there is a group of people in this town that are advocating for a new skateboard park, as the old one is now 10 years old and has several issues.

Hails Elizabeth Photography

The group is being headed up by Adam Kirschner, a veteran skater and life long Fort St Johner. He has rallied together not only many of the local skaters and bikers, but also community members and business owners like Brent, Andrew and myself.

Adam hopes that by building up this group, getting charitable status and collecting donations from local businesses, the group will be able to approach the City about getting the proposed new land and some money to help fund the project. So currently the group is meeting every two weeks to get details figured out. Details like a website, communications, design ideas, statements etc. Below I mention some of the topics brought up during this past meeting.

The Old Park Problems

What I gather about the current park in Fort St John is it is to small for the number of people who use it on a daily basis. It also is becoming a safety hazard as it has many cracks in the concrete.

Potentially from the communities view point the skatepark is a place where mischief happens, which is true, but it is not done by those who actually bike or skateboard at the park. This is being done by lowlifes, who want to do nothing but smoke, drink and cause havac.

Potential Solutions

Although in the early stages, many solutions were talked about for the new park. As it will be a new park the issue of the cracks in the concrete will be taken care. Design is also a big factor in making sure the park can accommodate all those who wish to use it. Size is one aspect but making sure the park flows properly for all who use it is also a big part of the how it should be designed, which is why a company like NEWLINE Skateparks will be consulted to design the new park.

The location is proposed to be in a very central area of town with high visibly from all angles to detour any riff raff from hanging out at the park and causing problems.

From this Point

At this point there is still a lot of little details that need to be ironed out before a big push can happen. Specifically a charitable status so the group can accept donations. Proper brand also needs to be done, this includes building the website, get flyers out, developing the mission/vision statement and so on.

Finally I will leave you with why I am taking part in this group even though I don’t use the park. There are a few reasons actually. The first is because I want to be more of a contributor to the community and help in the ways I can. I’m particularly interested in helping out in this group because I have somewhat of a background in this area, which leads me to my second reason. In Yellowknife, because I have a brother passionate about skateboarding, I briefly helped out with a skateboarding movement there. It is actually a skateboarding ministry that helps show the community that skateboarding can be positive and they are also hoping to build a new park for Yellowknife in the future.

I will leave you with that. If you think you can help or have a question for me, hit me up through my Contact Page and be sure to “Like” the page on Facebook.

Written by kylewith · Categorized: Fort St John · Tagged: fort st john, skate park, skateboarding

Jul 29 2009

Drive from Yellowknife to Grande Prairie

This will be quick as I do not have the patients to write out an elaborate post tonight. So this will be more of a photo blog.

All packed and ready to go the night before.

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At 5am Yellowknife look like it was going to be a nice day.

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This was a neat photo I randomly caught crossing the bridge at Rae.

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We saw lots of buffalo on the road, lots of which were just standing on the road.

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There was still lots of bridge construction going on.

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The ferry ride was uneventful. I think I have lived in the north to long.

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The wee town of Grimshaw.

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I normally try and take photos of the beautiful Dunvagan Valley but because the construction on the bridge, which I am fairly certain has been happening for 3 years now, I wanted to focus on driving.

This was our little set up in the Grande Prairie campground. I thought it was very redneck to have a lazy boy and computer chair set up outside.

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I was always uncertain as to how much the bunk could hold. I think there was about 200lbs on it and it didn’t collapse on my brother so it must be decent.

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We spent most of today in Grande Prairie shopping and skateboarding. We also drove over to Wembley to check out a new skatepark we were told about. I must say for a small farming town, it was a pretty nice.

Note* We got to Dawson as well today and I was able to get my apartment. I will put up another post with picture tomorrow.

Written by kylewith · Categorized: Journal · Tagged: Construction, drive, Grande Prairie, north, park, redneck, roadtrip, Shopping, skate, skateboard, skateboarding, Travels

Jun 26 2009

Keep Waiting, I’m Tired

I know you’re all waiting to see what crazy crap I can come up with next but I got no time (in my opinion anyways) to write a full fled post.

You see I spent the good portion of the day in the airport, I mean like 6.5 hours. Don’t ask. Miss communication between me and buddy in charge. Picked up 4 skaters and was told we couldn’t get into the arena to build the ramps that are needed for tomorrow (Saturday). 8pm rolls around and the final skaters arrive and the ramp building commences. So here we are at 11pm, just got home almost all the ramps complete for the competition tomorrow.

The catch to all of this is that I still haven’t caught up on the sleep I missed coming out of night shifts. So for the last 16 hours I have been running on 5 hours of sleep but before that I was up for about 21 hours. As you can tell what may see like simple tasks were dragged out because of my lack of sleep.

Tomorrow is a new day and this weekend is packed full of events and I hope to pop in and out of them getting pictures and what not.
I’m tired so off to sleep I go to try and get at least 8 hours.

Peace.

Written by kylewith · Categorized: Journal · Tagged: airport, Blogging, events, skateboarding, skater, sleep, Tired

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