From hoco@stroid.timefold.com Tue Apr 29 14:02:03 1997 From: hoco@stroid.timefold.com (Howard Cohen) Subject: [sfskaters] The 1997 sfskaters swap meet Date: Tue, 29 Apr 1997 10:17:15 -0700 BestServHost: lists.best.com To: sfskaters@lists.best.com The first ever sfskaters swap meet was a great success! About 300 people came to the Bladium Inline Hockey Stadium on Saturday, April 26, 1997 to check out about a dozen booths. NUVO was there with about a hundred pair of skates, plus lots of other equipment. Marina Skate and Snowboard was there with lots of skates and wheels and more. The Bladium Pro Shop had a booth selling hockey skates, sticks, pads, etc. Miller Sports was there with used boots and Dennis Cummings was on-hand to heat-mold the Miller boots for a custom fit. Both BAIR and CORA were in attendance with booths. Geoffery Farraghan had equipment for sale and information about BAIR to share and he set up a slide board for people to try. David Miles had information on CORA available and two Skate against Violence donation barrels for used skates. Both barrels were filled to the top by the end of the day! Lots of people shared the vision of skating as a positive influence for inner-city youth. Kelly McCown ran the Roller Divas booth and had equipment for sale as well. Eddy Matzger had a booth with free giveaways and information about his speedskating clinics. In fact, he donated one slot in an upcoming class as a door prize and Patt Romero was thrilled when she won and selected it. There were a number of people who had their own booths. Anna Stubbs (who co-produced the event with me) had lots of skates, wheels, and bearings for sale, as well as skate clothing, water packs and more. Johnathan Colt, Victoria Powers, Barb Fitterer, Janna York, Patt Romero and Michael Marx, and others had all kinds of skating and hockey equipment for sale. Andy Murray demonstrated his Wheel Hog products all day to the delight of everyone buying wheels. More than a few people bought wheels at the swap meet and had Andy give them a new profile and heat-burnish them. They spent $10 or $15 on worn 80mm wheels and end up with 76mm wheels that were like new. There were lots of smiles about this. :-) Richard Humphrey was there demonstrating his Skate Platform and selling his Roller Dance video tapes at a steep discount. Several people took the chance to try out his Skate Platform and were all smiles (I have pictures!). He also demonstrated his two-wheel modified dance skates. Man, can that man dance or what? I had a small booth with information about the sfskaters mailing list and we already have a few new members. Welcome! There were also a stack of maps of the Sunday Lake Merced Loop (http://www.timefold.com/skate/merced.html). Several of the door-prize donors like Bauer, BSB Speed Bearings, Transpack, and BullzEye supplied us with so many stickers that we still had some left at the end of the day. The Transpack stickers were the most popular and the the only ones we ran out of. John Kuzma, who manages the Bladium in San Francisco was very pleased with the turnout. A previous attempt at a swap meet had been made but the turnout didn't meet their expectations. Said John of the 1997 sfskaters swap meet: "You guys can throw a swap meet here any time!" We might just take you up on that, John. :-) But there was a lot more than just booths at the meet. Zack Phillips brought a video of his participation in "The Dating Game". No kidding. The whole swap meet all but shut down while the video played and almost everyone who wasn't actively playing hockey was watching Zack's videotaped charm. I won't reveal the outcome. ;-) A lot of people bought skates at the swap meet. The biggest sellers from the private booths were five-wheel recreational skates, followed by four-wheel recreational skates. Far fewer speedskates were sold. Surprisingly, wheels didn't sell all that well. There were tons of cheap wheels for sale and people weren't buying them. I can't imaging why since they were selling for half what they do in the cheapest mailorder sources. And then there were the door prizes... Over 100 of them! With 275 people holding raffle tickets (some people declined even free raffle tickets) the odds of winning something were pretty good. Drawings for 20 or more prizes each were held hourly between 1:00 and 5:00 pm. Many people didn't stay until the end so the chances of winning were extremely good in the later drawings because you had to be present to win. The winners are too numerous to name, but there were some notable winners. David Miles and his son David Miles, as well as Tiffany and Melanie Miles all won prizes. I was really pulling for Rose Miles, but we ran out of door prizes before her name was drawn. Several other families had multiple winners too. Two people running the NUVO booth won prizes, as did Mary Halladay of Marina Skate and Snowboard. There is no name for the expression on their faces, but imagine the feeling of having a free venue to sell you equipment with access to hundreds of skaters, and winning a prize on top of it all. Well, actually, many of the people who ran booths won prizes, and I was gratified to see that bemused look frequently. You'd think that there must be a catch... ***but there wasn't*** Check out the web site (http://www.timefold.com/skate/swap97.html) for the complete list of door prizes. A lot of people got equipment they needed or wanted. People who had no money to spend still won free prizes. The image of little David Miles holding his "Bigfoot Skis" prize comes to mind. They're just about the right size for him to use them as normal skis. ;-) But he won, and that's what he picked. Thanks to NUVO for donating two pair of them. In short, San Francisco skating history was made. It was a really fun day unless you got a close look at John Colts stitches. John had an unfriendly disagreement with a storefront window a few days earlier. On behalf of Anna Stubbs and myself, I want to thank everyone who came and everyone who ran a booth. We want to especially thank John Kuzma and Bladium for their generous support. They have proven once again that they are one of the core supporters of the skating scene in San Francisco. We are grateful to all the companies and individuals who donated door prizes and we thank them as well. Finally, I want to thank Anna Stubbs for her remarkable event coordination skills. She is responsible for acquiring all the door prizes, securing the Bladium as the venue, and coordinating the booth space. I created most of the promotional materials and handed out flyers on Friday Nights and Sundays. "Have you heard about the sfskaters swap meet?" There's a phrase I won't soon forget... I hope this gives you a flavor for the event in case you missed it. If you were there, thanks again for coming. Peace, ____ / ^ \\ / ``======, Howard Cohen (____________/ hoco@timefold.com --- -- (-)-(-)-(-)-(-)-(-)