Annual General Meeting 2020

NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN that the SIXTH ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING of the members of the above-named Company will be held virtually at 6pm on Thursday 17th December 2020 to transact the following business

The link for the virtual meeting is as follows - https://zoom.us/j/92860356302?pwd=eGQ1Sko3MC8yVmJsVWtsRC92cWRTdz09

1.                 To receive and adopt the Minutes of the Annual General Meeting held on Tuesday 10th December 2019. 


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


3.                 To receive Statement of Accounts and Balance Sheet

4.                 Statement from the Chair

5.                 Any Other Business 

By Order of the Board of Directors
J.P. HOPE-GILL, Company Secretary
20 November 2020

Report of Activities since December 2019
The last twelve months have seen significant progress for Skateboard England, especially due to support from Sport England.

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.

Part of our governance changes this year included the election of Jamie Burton and Brent Lewis as directors, and the appointment of Alex Jordan from The Skateparks Project as chair following the resignation of Lucy Adams in July. We want to place on record our huge gratitude and appreciation of the dedication, hard work, time and commitment Lucy gave to Skateboard England since its formation in September 2015.

Within all the work we carry out, 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 staffing capacity.

COVID-19 has had a dramatic effect on our work this year. We spent a considerable amount of time and worked really hard with government, skatepark operators and Sport England to create the guidelines for re-opening of both outdoor and indoor skateparks during the first lockdown. The second lockdown was very frustrating. We were informed by government that indoor and outdoor skateparks were required by law to close. That wasn't then communicated effectively by government to local authorities and so there was real confusion as to the need for skateparks to close.

Our plans to host the National Championships for Park and Street in April 2020 were thwarted by COVID-19 and we had to cancel the event at short notice. We decided to hold a virtual championships on social media and were really pleased with the response it received. We now plan to hold the event in early 2021, dependent on COVID restrictions.

During the COVID-19 lockdown we created a series of online competitions, training guides and inspiration for skaters to keep them active for the 8 weeks through March, April and May, which resulted in a reach of over 20 million people.

Unfortunately due to COVID-19, the Street Skateboarding World Championships did not take place at the Copper Box in London. That said, being involved in 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.

A considerable amount of work has been carried out by a Working Group to create a guidance and criteria document for skateboarding spaces, made up of facility experts from the skateboarding community. The process has engaged with the international federation, non-UK national federations, skatepark manufacturers, skateboarders, home nation governing bodies, local authorities, community groups and architects, in order to shape the content. The document which was published in July 2020, is an online resource on the SE/SBGB websites and all local authorities have been made aware of its existence. Since publication the document has been accessed over 1,500 times and 35 requests for specific guidance on building new skateparks. The document will be reviewed and updated accordingly on an annual basis. This is an exciting piece of work and is essential if we are to increase the number and quality of parks across the country.

It is encouraging that following discussions, several cities are keen to engage with skateboarding and have committed to resourcing and supporting their local skateboarding communities with support from Skateboard England. This year saw the creation of a new skateable space in Sheffield City Centre which was a fantastic collaboration between Skateboard England, the local community and the city council. We’d like to replicate this sort of project across many other cities in the coming years.

We have supported and given advice to over 80 different skateparks, organisations and local authorities who are in the process of applying for funding. A huge thank you to Neil Ellis who has led this work.

StreetGames organise the Level 1 coaching course on our behalf but due to COVID-19, have delivered very few courses in the last year. There are approximately 200 people waiting to attend a course when COVID restrictions are lifted. The total number of qualified coaches now stands at approximately 450. 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 a group to consider the future of coaching courses for skateboarding in the UK. This will include the introduction of new courses and making parts of the courses online so that they are more accessible.

As we engage more with government funders, Sport England and UK Sport, it is essential that we have robust plans in place for future funding applications and so that we can support the sustainable growth of the sport. To that end we have been working on a 12-Year Strategic Plan. This long term strategic plan is being developed as a whole-sport strategy which includes grassroots, talent and world class performance. The first 4-years of the plan are concerned with creating and building capacity and organisational structure. We’ve identified some strategic priorities which underpin and are key pillars with realistic outcomes which will enable us to achieve our ambitions and goals. These Strategic Pillars include Coaching & People, Physical Space, Healthy Skaters, Competitions, Performance Services, Judging, Leading, Digital Connection and Taking Part. We’ll be publically launching the strategy in 2021.

March 2020 saw the launch of the MySkate App, which was funded by Sport England. The App provides a service to the skateboarding community through a skatepark finder, Game of Skate and information portal; and will be a tool to help increase participation. We will be adding functionality into the App including the mapping of skatespots across the UK. Despite COVID and its impact on skateboarding, by the end of October 2020, there were over 22,000 subscribers and in August 2020 there were 188,000 uses of the App.

Neil has also done some fantastic work within social media and in the space of 18 months since he started, we recently passed over 100 million impression across our social media platforms and the written, broadcast & digital media. This is a great achievement and shows the interest in skateboarding and the potential for growing the sport.

Following a recommendation from UK Sport and Sport England in October 2019, we have been exploring the re-structure of Skateboard GB to include the Skateboard England function. This will mean Skateboard England becomes part of Skateboard GB and ceases to exist. This re-structure will enable us to avoid duplication, be more efficient in the way that we work and mean we are better positioned to secure funding. It will have no adverse impact on the work of Skateboard England. The re-structure will be completed by the end of December 2020. As Skateboard England is currently the NGB for Wales, we have been in contact with Sport Wales and the Welsh Sports Association regarding the setting up of a Welsh NGB. Further discussions will take place in earl 2021.

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.