Annual General Meeting 2019

Agenda of Business
NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN that the FIFTH ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING of the members of the above-named Company will be held in Room 5.04 in the the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, 22 Gordon St, London WC1H 0QB at 5pm on Tuesday 10th December 2019 to transact the following business

1.                 To receive and adopt the Minutes of the Annual General Meeting held on Monday 10th December 2018. 


2.                 To receive the Chief Executive’s Annual Report on Activities in the year. 


3.                 To receive Statement of Accounts and Balance Sheet

4.                 To report the results of Nomination Elections to the Board of Directors

5.                 Appointment of Accountants/Auditors and Solicitors for the year

6.                 Any Other Business

By Order of the Board of Directors

J.P. HOPE-GILL, Company Secretary

18 November 2019

Report of Activities since December 2018
The last twelve months have seen significant progress for Skateboard England, especially due to support from Sport England. However, the biggest challenge has again been the lack of resources and thus staff capacity. This has affected the amount of work we have been able to do which again has been frustrating.

With specific funding support from Sport England we now have the ability to start planning for the future and looking strategically as to how we can support and help grow skateboarding in the country.

In order to receive funding we have spent a considerable amount of time working towards becoming compliant with the Tier 2 Governance Code. This compliance shows that as an organisation we meet the strict requirements of structure, people, processes and polices that are expected of governing bodies. This also lays the foundation for receiving future funding from Sport England.

Part of our governance changes this year include the election of Geoff Else from Rubicon, the co-option of Alex Jordan from The Skateparks Project as directors, and the appointment of independent director Jake Jones who has responsibility for commercial and sponsorship. Both Nic Powley and Steve Wilkinson resigned their positions as directors and we want to place on record our huge gratitude and appreciation of the time and commitment both gave to Skateboard England during the three and a half years that they were directors.

Within all the work we have carried out this year, we are very conscious that our role is to support and facilitate the growth of skateboarding. This is the key message to the skateboarding community and its pleasing to see that this is generally accepted and welcomed. Although it has been frustrating that our reach has been limited due to lack of capacity.

Following the decision to include skateboarding in the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games, we have been working with Skateboard GB and UK Sport to identify medal potential and see how skaters can be supported. This culminated in Skateboard GB receiving some Aspiration Funding. The funding has allowed five skateboarders to take part in Olympic Qualifying events over the past year.

We have been instrumental in creating and supporting the work of Skateboard GB which is the governing body that represents the home nations for Olympic skateboarding. Lucy Adams is the chair of Skateboard GB which is operated and administered by Skateboard England. Following lengthy negotiations, we agreed with Skateboard GB to become members of the BRSF by signing a memorandum of understanding which gives autonomy to skateboarding, meaning that skateboarding decisions will continue to be made by skateboarders in the UK. This is a really positive step forward.

Sport England awarded us a grant to create a Digital Content Hub including the employment of a member of staff to deliver the project. We are delighted that Neil Ellis was appointed and has been a great asset to the organisation. The hub will give us the capacity to increase our profile on social media and engage with the skateboarding community, in addition to promoting skateboarding and supporting the community. The Digital Content Hub will be an App called My Skate that provides a service to the skateboarding community and will be a tool to help increase participation. We hope to launch My Skate before the end of the year.

Neil has done some fantastic work within social media and in the space of 8 months since he started, we recently passed our 70th million impression across social media platforms and the written, broadcast & digital media. This is a great achievement and shows the interest within skateboarding and the potential for growing the sport.

The Board agreed to create the National Championships for Park and Street which form part of the qualification process for the 2020 Olympic Games. We held the event at Graystone Action Sports park in Salford, which was a great success. The event was shown live on the BBC digital platforms and we look forward to building on this success for the event in 2020. Congratulations to the winners Joe Hinson (street/male), Helena Long (street/female), Matt Beer (park/male) and Sky Brown (park/female). We would also like to thank the sponsors including other individuals and organisations who helped to make the event the success that it was, with a special mention for Nic Powley who had overall responsibility for its organisation.

We supported the hosting of the SLS event at the Copper Box in May 2019 which showcased the world’s best street skateboarders. The event will also take place in May 2020 as the Street World Championships which will be the last skateboarding event before the Olympic Games in Tokyo. The event gave us the opportunity to hold discussions with the London Legacy Development Corporation and the London Mayor’s Office about providing skateparks and other skateable areas within the Olympic Park. Those positive discussions are ongoing.

We’ve had several meetings regarding facilities, including with Sport England, and started to look at how we look to be strategic and offer support as skateparks are being built or refurbished. We are aiming to publish a guidance and criteria document for those wanting to build skateparks early in 2020. This is an exciting piece of work and is essential if we are to increase the number and quality of parks across the country.

We have supported and given advice to a growing number of different skateparks who are in the process of applying for funding.

StreetGames organise the Level 1 coaching course on our behalf and have delivered the course to 110 candidates in the last year. The total number of qualified coaches now stands at approximately 350. The qualification is essential to see skateboarding grow, especially if we want to introduce coaching into schools and other organisations. We are currently working with StreetGames to review the course and to see if there is demand for Level 2 and Activator courses.

Following discussions, it is encouraging that at least three cities (Hull, Sheffield and Nottingham) are keen to engage with skateboarding and have committed to resourcing and supporting their local skateboarding communities with support from Skateboard England.

There has then been general daily correspondence with answering queries from individuals, CSP’s, local authorities, skate parks, etc and writing letters of support for funding.