Journo student sticks her head in

Word is spreading and WIRD were approached by Emma, a Journalism student from UOW, to be the focus of a media assignment. I'm sure she learned as much from the process as we did and in the end she came out of it with a mostly shiny piece and we had a bit of practice talking to a camera.



And here is an eye in on Emma's experience of the day.

SRDL Blocking Clinic

About half the league (8 skaters) headed up to the first day of the clinic and six of us stayed over night and then attended the second day. It was brutal and we all got our fair share of bruises. The most important things I learned from this camp were:

• When booking backpacker accomodation in Newtown be sure to specify that you want a female-only dorm - even when the number of people you are booking in is the 'maximum' per room
• When blocking keep your elbows in -paper plates can help you remember
• A 'JBlock' is the deadliest thing you can do on skates - and great!
• Getting drunk with derby girls means GETTING DRUNK WITH DERBY GIRLS
• Duct tape on knee pads rubs off and leaves marks on the floor - marks which are instantly identifiable as yours
• Killing 8 hours in Newtown isn't as easy as it seems
• 'Claymation' doesn't mean happy
  
• and, driving back to Wollonongong would be easier with food in our stomachs

SRDL really want us 'bout ready' - YAY - we are totally roller derby girls!

Indoor training!

WIRD has their first indoor skate at **** Community Centre. We are paying $20 per hour, have Wed night and Sunday arvo booked and can skate as late as we like (within out two hour booking) without the lights being turned off, needing to go home to pee or dying of thirst.

Our first skate is pretty crazy - but we really need the practice before we head off to the SRDL blocking clinic.

First Exec Com meeting @ Mc Donalds

WIRD AGENDA EXECUTIVE COMITEE MEETING

1.Sort out ex comittee poistions - what they all mean, who is doing what, when.

2.Formalize training arrangements - times, days, can we set up one sess per month as 'open' where newbies, family, friends can come watch? This should prob not be advertised on web (unless it's a email for an invite thing) as we don't want to end up just putting on free entertainment.
2.1 Training guidelines – what is expected from trainers, what is expected from skaters etc
2.2 Payment each training session (regardless if it costs for a venue or not)
2.3 Bank account setup and suggested automatic deductions per week
2.4 Attendance book for training, who attends, times, what training contained, how long, any incidents etc

3.Newbies (fresh meat packages)just a suggestion – bag, shirt, rules, badges, patch -say $50.00.optional.
3.1 Decide when the cut off starts for new fresh meat skaters - and how 'experienced' a skater needs to be to join.

4.All financial members to provide contact numbers and addresses and a weekly schedule of availability for the next 6 mths if possible. This is to seize opportunities to get together for meetings or training.

5.Grant application Neena was talking about – where is it at.

6.Talk about sponsorship and setting up a sting campaign.
6.1 Talk about fundraising and try to get a committee set up for this. Should we tie merchandising and fundraising together at this stage?

7.Organise our Annual General Meeting - this is part of our legal obligations and has to be before the 30th June as our financial year ends on the 31st Dec. There is an outline of this stuff in the constitution. We need to give one months notice and an agenda. Shouldn't be too hard. If we have enough people to fill the exec committee without contesting then we should be okay - if it does need to go to a vote we will need to find a 'returning officer' whose not too tied up in who gets what spot.

Insured!

$20,000,000 public liability insurance.

All of a sudden this all seems very real.

WIRD @ Thirroul Seaside Festival

Thanks to Toby K for camera work and Drop Bear for putting this video together.

Thirroul Seaside Festival

WIRD has been invited to strut their stuff for the crowd at the Thirroul Seaside Festival. We started talking about it a while ago but really only got one kinda rehearsl in before hand so I'm a tad nervous. The plan is that the girls will skate around behind me on the 'stage' (it deserves the '*') and I will give a spiel about derby and WIRD, calling in individual skaters to explain things.



Ha. Mostly went according to plan. Some pre-show stress sent me into a tent where I gulped coffee, sweated and generally worked myself up. I get very nervous. No reason. One of our girls got tossed on her butt, I got roused on for tapping the mike on my helmet, and after the gig we rubbed up against the crowd, handed out business cards, and forced a fireman into posing for pictures with us.

WIRD Helmet Panties

Skate Aus membership

Today is the day we've been working towards for ages - we've got 10 members, are incorporated, and now we've sent off our Skate Australia memberships. Cost us $50 each and $150 for the club and for this we get insurance, a discount at Rebel Sport and a link on the Skate Aus site.

And we can skate indoors!