Okay, the minutes from the Inline Industry Group meeting that took place in
Miami are finally done!



Minutes of Inline Industry Group Meeting



Board Member Kathy McSparran opened the meeting by thanking the election
committee and all who ran and voted in the election. She then briefly
outlined the history of the Inline Industry Group to date, starting with
founder Allan Wright's initial call for a meeting in Duluth in 2005, through
the meeting one year ago in Miami and the resulting volunteer committee's
uncompleted attempt to put together bylaws, choose a name, etc. over the
next 11 months, which led to Allan's most recent call for a volunteer
election committee and the election of the present five-member board of
directors.



The four board members present at the meeting introduced themselves: Gene
Cook, Kris Fondran, Nick Skally and Kathy McSparran. Kathy explained that
the fifth board member, Robert Kaskel from New York City, was unable to
attend because his wife was recovering from surgery.



Nick Skally of Rollerblade then presented some industry statistics that
showed, among other things, a rise in sell-through (skates moving off the
shelves at the retail level) for the first time in eight years, a good sign
that a turnaround for the industry may be underway. He also pointed out
that the media has been more receptive to Rollerblade's press releases
suggesting inline skating articles recently, and that several major
magazines will be running articles in the coming months. Nick also pointed
out that inline skating has now been around for over 25 years, so a whole
generation is reaching the "Gee, I need to get back in shape" stage and they
are already familiar with inline skating. A major initiative he is
currently involved in involves traveling to running marathons and promoting
skating as an excellent cross-training activity for runners.



The floor was then opened up for comments and questions.



One major area of discussion centered around the listserv. First Allan
Wright explained the group roster is the list of everyone in the industry
group; this list is used for one-way communication of announcements.
Members of this group received multiple announcements inviting them to go to
Yahoogroups and join the Inline Industry Group listserv, which is designed
for more frequent discussion. Since not all individuals on the roster chose
to sign up for the listserv, the roster is a larger list than the listserv
and some people receive the announcements but not the listserv discussions.
If this describes you and you want to join the listserv, send an e-mail to
InlineIndustry-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.



Next, various suggestions for making the Inline Industry Group listserv a
more positive and productive tool were volunteered. They ranged from
starting an entirely new group and inviting only those with something
positive to contribute, to giving the listserv moderator, Jim White,
permission and guidelines for filtering out individual posts, issuing
warnings and/or banning repeat offenders in cases of postings that consist
of personal attacks and/or are simply not relevant to the mission of the
group. The interim board will carefully draft these guidelines for the
moderator as soon as possible, as it was clear that this was a high priority
for the group.



Another area of discussion was ways to grow the sport. Suggestions included
focusing on the 30+ age groups, getting people to transition from the lone
hobby skater to a frequent participant in group skates, making the public
more aware of the existence of local skating groups and events, having
rental and demo skates available, (mentioned was the Rollerblade demo van
program) encouraging the use of safety gear to minimize injuries driving
people away from the sport, etc. It seemed clear that there were many more
ideas than we could possibly discuss in one hour and it is hoped that this
discussion and brainstorming will be continued on the listserv.



Finally, as time ran down, Robert Stroud presented a progress report on his
work since last February's meeting on trying to find ways to copy David
Miles' success with the Healthy Saturdays initiative in San Francisco. He
had prepared a one page written report but only got to make a few points
before we had to give up the meeting room to the next group. Robert
actually already posted the entire report to the listserv immediately after
the Great EsSkate, but to recap, some of his main points were:



1. While some street closures for recreation were government initiated
(ex. Bogata, Columbia), all such successful street closures in North America
that he researched were initiated by an individual or group.



2. Alliances with bicycling, anti-obesity, environmental and other
groups are vital to success.



3. A forum or listserv where people experienced with such campaigns can
share their expertise with those involved in current campaigns would be very
helpful.



4. A national dues-paying skater mass-membership organization mirroring
the large bicycling organizations, such as the Skaters Alliance David Miles
is working on, with a procedure for endorsing local street closure efforts,
could give skaters a louder voice in such efforts.



The meeting was then adjourned, with members invited to continue discussions
outside, although few did so.



Postscript: The board is already working on the guidelines for moderation
of the listserv and this should be in place shortly. In addition, Gene Cook
was a member of the previous committee that worked on bylaws and other
structural decisions (name, legal status, etc.) and he has forwarded some
proposed bylaws, that were worked on and considered by the previous
committee, to the rest of the board members to review so we are not starting
from scratch. We are all committed to having a proposed structure ready for
the group to vote on hopefully in a matter of weeks. In the meantime,
there's no need to sit around waiting for us! We encourage the use of the
listserv to continue the productive discussions that took place in the Miami
meeting and to inform each other of opportunities for members to get
involved with various projects already in progress.



Let's Roll!









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