House of Bruise, Saturday, November 22, 2008

This Saturday, November 22nd, is the final bout of a yet undetermined season for the Memphis Hustlin' Rollers.
What's at stake? An undefeated, 12-0 record! Can your Memphis Hustlin' Rollers take it through 2008 with a full "W" column?



Come cheer for your hometown Hustlin' Rollers as they host the Dixie Derby Girls of Huntsville, AL.


You think you've seen roller derby in Memphis.
You ain't seen nothin' yet!

Saturday night, November 22nd... Come join the Memphis Hustlin' Rollers as they reach for great heights.
An undefeated, 13-0 2008 season!

Memphis Roller Derby needs all of your support. MRD needs you in the house... The House of Bruise—at the Mid-South Fairgrounds... Making as much noise as you can for your favorite team!

This is your last chance to come see the Memphis Hustlin' Rollers before spring 2009. Get your $10 ready, and come out to the biggest event in the city—this Saturday.


PLEASE—HELP US HELP! Donate a new, unwrapped toy to Toys for Tots and be entered into a drawing for an awesome Memphis Roller Derby gift basket, including MRD league merchandise and a Sekisui gift card.
Mmmmmm, sushi!

Saturday, November 22nd
Doors at 6PM / $10
Mid-South Fairgrounds
940 Early Maxwell Blvd
Memphis, TN

PrissKillas to Paducah & MRD video shoot

We woke up at 7:45 on Sunday morning (which I never do), trained for 30 minutes from 8:00 to 8:30, then went on to the venue and the Prisskillas walked away with a win against Paducah, Kentucky's Radioactive Roller Girls, The Atomics, http://www.myspace.com/pcrg.

They are a fresh league. Our coaches organized it to give us some more experience and also to give a sister league some practice. Their league only has 18 skaters and don't have enough girls to scrimmage each other most of the time. We did it for us both to gain some practice time, and for fun!   It was ALOT of fun.  All the girls were really nice. 

Other fun stuff that happened, but I couldn't attend :( was a video shoot for an MRD commercial with our girls and Al Kapone!  :) lol.  The pictures are great.  Jim Duong still photographed the shoot.  It was paid for by the City of Memphis, in collaboration with Live from Memphis and will air on MTV's web next to the 5$ cover.

Thanks to our great marketing Brad Brains & Shawty PR director for throwing it together in a wink of an eye. :)  Props!  I'm only sad lil T's mug and my own aren't in it somewhere!  I seem to miss out on pics and stuff.  It always happens, but I'm used to it!  In CARD game, I was off getting water at the benches while the 2 teams were taking pics together, then yesterday in Paducah, I was off at the bench talking to Lil T when the 2 teams pics were taken!  lol!  It goes all the way back to high school.  I was on yearbook staff, and I created the art, and wrote a good majority of the section me and my team were working on, but when it came time for picture day - my car broke down and I lived in Reseda, but my high school was in Canyon Country (45 minutes away) :( 

There was some redemption, when I saw the yearbook, and in the yearbook staff section, even though I wasn't in the group picture, a self-portrait I did for photo class was hanging on the wall in the background of another picture!  ahahahaha.

It's like I'm there....in the background :)  It is what it is.

When I get pics from Paducah, I'll share.  These are from the video shoot, that Jim Duong took:

I love seeing Al Kapeezy sportin' MRD gear! :) holding the MRD playbook!  So awesome!

Two of my favorite people:  Chica Bandita & Bloody Elle

More favorite people, MRDeviants mixed with some notable skaters, the shoot was such a last minute thing, It's good we also had some fans there too:

Chica, Juju & Robin n' Stealin'

My absolute favorite!  KOACH KAPONE!  hell yeah.

It's been a dream for a long time with the league that the city supports us, and I see it happening now, thanks to some really great hard working people on our board staff and directors and some notable influential Memphians, such as the Turley family & Al Kapone attending our games, functions and supporting the new league.

It's taken 3 years almost.  That's actually, not so bad for a bunch of girls at Skateland Raleigh when we started :)  Proud of us.

 

Memphis Roller Derby achieves WFTDA status!

After years of hard work by so many, we've accomplished our goal from day 1! WFTDA official new members Memphis Roller Derby!

What this means for our league, is national ranking. It's the equivalent of going from the minor league to the major league. It's a great accomplishment and now, our undefeated travel team, will officially begin to rank nationally.

This will give us the opportunity to go up against teams with more experience. What a wonderful week this has been for Memphis Roller Derby.

Fundraisers - A Necessary Evil for the Love of Quad

Having fundraisers is absolutely necessary being a non-profit. Especially if you have not gained a substantial sponsor for your league. Organizing them is a quite a feat and a lot goes into the preparation in hopes for great rewards.

Secure venue, secure MC's, bands, d.j.s, create a theme, come up a name for the event i.e.

"White Trash Beach Bash"



or

"Ho Ho Ho Burlesque Show"

and perhaps a catchy tag line, i.e. "Put a Girl on your Grill"; a tag line we use for our car washes.


Guesstimating our figures, I believe we raised about five thousand as a combined total from all three of these events, and I may be generous.

The volunteers, including the bands do not get paid a lot if anything and all the money we raise is filtered back into producing our bouts, paying rental costs of our venue, practice space, printing costs and if we can afford it, travel expenses to bout out of town leagues.

We feature our own skaters on almost all of our print advertising as a way to familiarize the public with its new home town derby girl athletes. I feel its exciting to see someone in person that you've become familiar with in print ads. Its good for marketing your league to your town.

All of these things contribute to getting the word out and making it something fun and different for someone to want to say "Okay, I'll give you my money." In most cases, it takes months of preparation and the rewards are not always pleasing and its mostly always stressful.

There is one thing that does me feel rewarded for the effort and that is when I see children smile or gawk in amazement at these large amazon women on 8 tiny wheels, plowing into each other at speeds upwards of 20 mph, falling down, jumping up and keep on skating.

And if children's smiles don't please you, then you'll certainly gleam from the goofy pictures that are born, whether you remember them being snapped, or not!

Cooper Young Festival - September 13, 2008

On September 13, the local community known as Cooper Young held its annual festival. The streets are blocked off in a 3-4 block radius. Vendors line the sidewalks and sell the handmade items, register people to vote, inform people of local non-profits। It's a fun one day event. One our derby girls is a restaurant owner (Tsunami) and she let us set up behind their booth, where Kel Diabla & Instant Karmen sold their hand made paper, bamboo and metal lamps.

It was a good day. We sold some merchandise, networked and worked in 2 hour shifts from 9 am to 5 pm.

Ragin Caucasian

More pictures here

I spent the rest of the day rolling around on my skates, passing out hundreds of fliers for our upcoming game on November 1st. It was a beautiful day, perfect weather. It's a lot of work promoting, but very gratifying to hear the tone in the voice of the people you come in contact with and it's always a high-pitched "Oh! I didn't know we had Roller Derby in Memphis! We're there!" or "Oh yeah! I used to watch that when I was a kid! We have it in Memphis now?!"

It brings a smile to my face and makes the sweat and repetition of saying "Come to our Roller Derby game" a hundred times worth it.

Honky Tonk Stomp - Knoxville, TN

Memphis Hustlin' Rollers managed to scratch another notch in the post of defeating Tennessee rivals for the second year in a row.

Final Scores:

Hustlin' Rollers (96) / Hard Knox Roller Girls (73)
Hustlin' Rollers (73) / Nashville Roller Girls (39

Next year, Memphis will host Nashville & Knoxville for the third annual Stomp.

I tried to post a link to the pictures, but for some reason, it's not working.

Inferno & Memphis Roller Derby

We had a great meeting with Inferno today.

Brad Brains (our new marketing director) and myself were in attendance. Brad was just voted in this morning, and he's on top of it! I'm so glad he was there with me.

A fellow skater works for them in the media department. She said they expressed interest in helping our league. Thanks to Lyn-da-licious, we are building a great relationship with Inferno. They offered to work on our November 1 & November 22 posters for the last two games of the season.

The concepts are amazing, and it's comforting to know that so many great people are spending so much time working on getting more people to our games, is just beyond words for me. What a great opportunity.

Thank you,
Julia Karre
Mark Adkins
Linda Corti
Susan Ewing

and all the awesome artists that worked on these conceptual designs for us.

and our own Lyn-Da-Licious

What a great team.

I took over the creative position following in Brad's footsteps. Large shoes to fill. He's an amazing artist & photographer. Like many artists, we see eye to eye on a lot, and butt heads in other areas. Today, it seems we were both drawn towards the same concept for these games and it felt good. I'm glad to have him as new marketing director. I think he'll propel us forward in a way we've been sorely in need of the for past 3 years.

I'm also looking forward to direction in that department, that I've been lacking. I'm so glad he could make the meeting today and I see two great posters coming out of it.

Thanks Inferno!

The Stomp - Tennessee State Conference

The Stomp (2008) aka Honky Tonk Stomp (2007) - Is comprised of the three Tennessee All-Star teams going up against each other in a three day event. Nashville Rhythm & Bruisers, Memphis Hustlin' Rollers & Hard Knox Roller Girls.

Last Year, the Hustlin' Rollers walked away with the title of state champions.

MRDeviants (the loving nickname for our fans)

It's basically unofficial. We are not WFTDA certified yet, and neither are the Hard Knox Roller Girls. Nashville Rhythm & Bruisers are, but are not currently ranked amongst the leagues in WFTDA. Reason being they have not played enough league sanctioned games for ranking.

This weekend is a re-match of 2007. I had the opportunity to travel last year to Nashville and play in the game against Knoxville. It was a hard game, my first as a travel team member and as a jammer, my performance was very poor. My coach Jonjitsu put me in as a blocker after our skater Lyn-da-licious was viciously stomped in the kidney with a skate. The paramedics were quick with advising her to go to the hospital, but she refused. Not a surprise. She is one of the toughest skaters on our league. She insisted he throw me in as her replacement, as I normally don't block, but she knew I was up for the task. He did, and I did well as a blocker, succeeding in stopping the opposing jammer several times.

Personally, I felt really bad about my jamming, because in a game previous to this against our inter-league team the WMD's, I managed to score the most points in the game and we won that game by just 5 points. After watching the video's of the 2007 Honky Tonk Stomp, my spirits were not so much dampened. I watched jammer after jammer experience the same woes as I. They couldn't break through, they fell on the slick spots and ultimately didn't score any points either.

I've remained on travel team this whole time, but it seems a bag of mixed nuts. Either my health or other things have interfered with my practices and ultimately my ability to travel out of town for games.

I'm wishing my teammates the best of luck this Stomp and If you have a chance to visit Knoxville, you'll be in for a treat.

Sunday, they have miscellaneous scrimmages against different derby girls, refs against coaches, etc. Lots of fun.

For more information, please visit Hard Knox Roller Girls Dot Com

Whoop That Trick Hustlin' Rollers!

Thursday Night Practice & Demands of Roller Derby

At our previous venue, Funquest, we would practice nearly 4 days a week. Tuesday night is always league practice. At Funquest, we'd practice from 7-9 on the weekdays and on Saturday or Sunday the times varied. 5-7 Saturday, 7-9 Saturday, 9-11am Sunday, 11-1 Sunday, so on.

We moved into the Mid-South Fairgrounds sometime in February of 2008. The limitations of the venue has forced our practices into a 3 day period. All back to back. Tuesday night is still league practice 7-9. Wednesday & Thursday nights are team practices. However the scheduling is so late. I find it very hard to attend the late practices. Practice now is 6:30-8:30 or 8:30-10:30...weeknights. I miss our old practice times, and never thought I would, or the 45 minute drive to Collierville.

Skaters are required mandatory skate hours (time spent on your skates) Our league requires 12 per month mandatory. Our league also requires 8 service hours a month. Service hours include time dedicated to building the league, promoting, working for the leagues benefit. Directors are exempt from service hours, because directors usually work an upwards of 30-40 hours a month on building the business. I'm creative director for my league. When we first started, I was bout production director.

As bout production director, I had to research how bouts were managed. Tickets, crowd control, security, volunteer management, acquiring an announcer, acquiring equipment for the production (track, lighting, sound, microphones, rosters, scoreboard) A lot of research went into it and with the help of some other well established leagues and great volunteers, and fellow bout production skater committee members (Hurt Reynolds & Nox) our committee produced the only two sold out bouts of our 3 year career. None of us had ever done anything like this before. We had news crews at the bout, thanks to our great PR department.

Now I'm creative director and I do posters,
, maintain our website MemphisRollerDerby.com, which we are meeting with an ad agency to redevelop, commandeer writers, photographers, videographers, produce bout books and rosters for the league. It's all hard work. I spend an average of 2-3 hours a day working on that aspect. On top of being a skater and training, needless to say, it's hard. I think it's worth it though. Now I feel like the mother, that wants to see her child succeed.

The pressure and demands take it toll. So many of us that take on the role of director or board member, end up quiting the position 'just to skate' again. I just remind myself of why I'm here. I guess that is the one thing that keeps me going. However, I would love to just say "I'm just going to skate."

At this point, it's not about being on the winning team, or meeting so and so celebrity. I look at the faces of the girls that believe in our organization and have worked since day one, and also the girls and guys that have joined and believe in it, and think to myself that I need to push through it...No matter how hard it gets.

To the nitty gritty:

Thursday night practice - my team has a new trainer. Her name is Manda Malice and she offered her services to our team. I'm so happy she did. Our team has the most drop-outs and trades in the entire league. I don't think it stems from so much strife as it does from family issues, and people moving or making life changes that being a volunteer on an organization that demands so much time, they just couldn't do it. There are no hard feelings either, amongst dropped/traded teammates.

Our practice was Thursday, 6:30-8:30.

Manda made it clear (and gratefully so) that this is a team effort. We geared up, and were told that whoever is fully suited, they move to the middle of the rink and wait on one knee in supine position until the rest of our team joins. This adds pressure. Much needed pressure, to gear up fast. I'm usually the first up in gear, I don't really like to lallygag around, I'm here to skate.

Before we geared up, Manda led us through core building drills. Drills that G.I. Jane would be proud of. Rocky Balboa would quiver. She led us on to endurance, pack and scrimmage drills. In total, our practice lasted 2 hours.

My favorite part of her hard edge approach to the first time training our team, was that she said "I know you may have relaxed after scrimmaging before, but now, you're going to do 20 laps." Love it.

Today, I'm in so much pain, that every muscle in my entire body is feeling the intent of her drills. Even though it hurts, I'm so grateful. We need this. I can't imagine doing this back to back though. I'm a little wary of the Tues, Wed, Thur. I wish they were spread out more. One day on, one day off - to recover.

I do look forward to our next training session with her. She brought us together as a team, and in the 3 years I've been a PKP, this is the first time someone else had the strength to wrangle in the strong personalities our team possess. I feel she'll harness it, and bring us to where we need to be.

Dirty Secrets first post! How exciting :)

I've decided to keep a weblog of my training, injuries, practices, bouts, pr events, travel & life as a modern day derby girl. I've been doing this for almost 3 years, come February and I can say honestly that it has taken me just about that long, to really understand why I continue to stay and play.


I'm not a writer by profession, however, I thought it would be great to have a log, and share it with other like minds, and voyeur's who may be interested in derby, or playing derby, but want to know more about exactly what it takes to form a league, skate, train & build the business of modern day non-profit flat track, derby association with the goal of being WFTDA (Women's Flat Track Derby Association) certified.


Our league started from scratch. Approximately 30 girls attended the first meeting (which I could not attend). I was hesitant. I wasn't sure I really wanted to play roller derby, but it seemed exciting. Then I went to the second practice, and I loved it. I found that I knew several of the girls already, and met so many new faces.


At first we just haphazardly formed committees, through appointments. We had committees such as, training, sponsorship, creative, pr, bout production, events & fundraising, community service. Over time, along with the learning process of structure, we've almost fine tuned our structure to a smooth working entity, with a good chain of command and process flow.

We've come across roadblocks, where very few fellow leagues were generous in handing out their 'secrets' for sake of competition. It is almost like a mother, trying to teach their child to walk with a 'do it yourself' mentality. Don't give up necessary knowledge needed to be successful, instead, let us fall a few times, watch us make mistakes, and once the mother watches you fall, then get up, fall, then get up, and finally start walking... the mother senses a proud feeling. Then she gives us tips, but only enough to help us grow.

I feel comfortable saying that building a roller derby league from scratch is difficult. We have a lot to be thankful for. Other 'fresh' leagues around us, that offered us guidance and improvement. It's really an amazing feat, instances where many leagues fail, and others succeed is more common than not.

It's a learning process.

I feel that's a good insight into the business aspect of building a league. My next post will be about the physical & mental work that goes into it. Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoy the journey.