Brighton Hard Court Bike Polo - Official Thread

I'm not hoarding loads of mallets! Ill try n bring a couple today but don't have loads.
Can't beleive I made it home last night in one piece. Gotta build my whole bike today, hit the court bout 1.30?

Will be down as soon as the rear wheel is finished not sure when that will be as this time its getting builts by professionls not me the idiot amateur

went to the roller derby warehouse place this afternoon, it seems pretty good, but cost might be on the steep side. they have two area's set up, one is roughly 25x50, and the other one roughly 14x28. the surface seems the same as what cambridge have. if we were to play there, it would be charged hourly unless we could come up with some other arrangement with them, they seem to have a fair few things booked in, not just roller derby. so we would be able to book in sundays and wednesday evenings if we wanted.

the sides are boarded but there are entry gaps, and one pillared wall. The smaller court has more boarding, but is incomplete at the moment, and might be a bit too small! they said we could bring in our own goals and store them there if need be. they did not seem to be totally sure on prices, but £30 per hour was mentioned for the big court and £15 per hour for the small, which is way too much in my opinion, but i think some bargaining can be done. i have got some photos, that you can all see on wednesday.

Good work on the little scouting mission. Sounds sort of promissing but as you said, those prices are way to high I think

Did we ever talk about getting a local shop/business to sponsor? All we would need would be the cost covered for the hire, or 50% paid. Long shot I know but worth a go? Think of big local businesses, Donatello and the like.

Also the scoombe centre could be good with the floodlit outdoor courts, would be cheaper too

Did we ever talk about getting a local shop/business to sponsor? All we would need would be the cost covered for the hire, or 50% paid. Long shot I know but worth a go? Think of big local businesses, Donatello and the like.

Also the scoombe centre could be good with the floodlit outdoor courts, would be cheaper too

Yeah I think local business could be good, especially as if they were to give a lump sum (I don't know whether they'd be likely to do this or not) we might then be able to buy a whole lump of court time at discount rate

Nice one Jamie. You're right - £30 an hour is quite a lot.

But what would we be getting for our dollar? A lit, dry court over the winter would be frickin amazing! We'd also be able to start the much discussed but never actioned Recruitment Drive. Charging for sessions would obviously help cover our costs. I realise it would also mean less games for all of us, but if it proved popular we could always start hiring the second court for the newbies...?

Local business sponsorship: I'm not being funny, but what is any local business going to gain from paying for us to play polo? We're not exactly high profile, either in the local or tourney arenas. Not sure I'd want 'Donatellos' across my back/on a wheeldisc/along my down tube either. Maybe you could get it tattoed on your forhead, Rich?

Does anybody have particularly good haggling skills? I'm happy to call and give it a go. I'm also happy to split the rent of the courts if enough of us keep going regularly. I work, so I'm also prepared to pay slightly more if it helps to subsidise those of us that don't.

Their might even be grants available for this sort of thing if we were to become the official BRIGHTON BIKE POLO association or whatever. Does anyone know who the best people to speak to about this? Maybe I'll bell the council today...

from what i remember, if we want any grant it would have to be from culture money, as bike polo is not yet recognised a sport so we couldn't get any sport funding. that ssaid, we do have a Green MP so you never know

This all sounds amazing.

I need to re-ratify the polo team at uni and get some more student members. The problem last year was not having anything to ask for, now we have something!

This weather is fucking disgusting! Should we try to book the indoor court for tomorrow night? 7 til 10 or something like that? He might be prepared to do a deal for a one off trial session if there's nothing else booked in. I'm dying to check it out, and negotiations over price/booking might be a bit easier face to face.

That's sounds like a fantastic idea.

Polo bike update:

The Bruiser is nearly finished, but a headset issue meant that I couldn't get it rideable to bring back to Brighton :(

It looks rad although a bit odd with components which suited an old road frame.

I also need a 1 1/8 short stem, does anyone have anything kicking about?

If you can get to the workshop, there's bound to be something that'll work!

Might not be able to, I'm busy with Bike 4 Life this evening and I'm heading back on Friday early morning I think.

Let me have the dimensions and I'll hunt about!! And we're open today from 3pm :)

Oooh, warehouse exciting. As with Chris, I'm prepared to pay to have a dry and lit court this winter. £30 is probably too steep, but what do we get for that money? Can we drink, smoke, swear and fight in this place without anyone getting upset (apart from me, I mean)?

It would be.good to know how much cambridge pay so we can compare? Pickering?

Oooh, warehouse exciting. As with Chris, I'm prepared to pay to have a dry and lit court this winter. £30 is probably too steep, but what do we get for that money? Can we drink, smoke, swear and fight in this place without anyone getting upset (apart from me, I mean)?

Cambridge paid £330 PCM ! & everybody chipped in between £10 & £20 a month depending on how much they could afford & frequency they played , we also sub-let it out to opera nights & some krusty skateboarders which went towards payment ! Cambridge have previously paid £25 for 2 hours use on a floodlit court ( pre warehouse days ) the warehouse is cheap as it's on a short term contract as it's due to be demolished early next year ! The Cambridge roller girls ( pre warehouse days ) paid £25 per hour for use of sports centre halls ! So shoreham prices seem to be a little above the average I guess. but I reckon we can hustle this guy to maybe get a semi permanent rota & maybe some cheaper prices ! .......Maybe woody can sell some of his mallets that he's stashed away to put towards payment of the court ?!

So who's up for a trip to Shoreham tomorrow? We're going to have to pay something whatever we're able to knock him down to for a 'taster session', and I don't want to (a) get all the way out there and nobody else turns up, (b) be responsible for sorting the bill cos nobody else turns up, and finally (c) look like a tit, along with BRIGHTON BIKE POLO, cos nodody else....oh, you get the idea.

Id rather play pp, but can play shoreham as long as its decided before I.go.yo.work so I can take my polo.bike to work

So who's up for a trip to Shoreham tomorrow? We're going to have to pay something whatever we're able to knock him down to for a 'taster session', and I don't want to (a) get all the way out there and nobody else turns up, (b) be responsible for sorting the bill cos nobody else turns up, and finally (c) look like a tit, along with BRIGHTON BIKE POLO, cos nodody else....oh, you get the idea.

PP would be better/cheaper/easier, but the forecast isn't looking too good. Probably won't try and sort the warehouse until there has been some sort of response and we can gauge the level of interest.

P.P or shoreham , I'm in either way !

I'm also up for either!! It'd be nice to check out Shoreham though :)

has anyone looked on gumtree for warehouse space to rent?

i think this one in shoreham could be a short term solution, but finding somewhere that we have a bit more control over would be a lot better. Roller derby would always be given the priority there and they are trying to run the place as a business so they would always be looking for profit. they also said that if we rent it there has to be a member of first aid trained staff on site at all times!
they have a deal going with the roller derby girls, where they take a percentage of ticket sales of their 6 weekly bouts, and give them discounted training sessions, they pretty much said we could have a similar deal if tourneys brought in money for them........

i am up for p.p. tomorrow, and having a proper chat about shoreham!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/67238891@N02/

here are the photos, i am rubbish at using cameras but you get the idea