Month: April 2016

Slacking in Boulder

Pre-Boulder City Meeting thoughts

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My thoughts for the meeting:

  • Focus on relaxing the tree rules as a primary goal, with an emphasis on common sense rules (the fewer the better), such as:
    • Always use tree ware
    • Choose appropriate trees
    • Lines should never cross sidewalks
    • Lines should never be unattended
    • Avoid crowded parks
  • Talk about the benefits of slacklining
    • Get outside! Boulder Parks and Rec’s master plan talks a lot about how to engage more people with the outdoors, and are interested in improving our community’s fitness. Slacklining is an approachable sport that requires minimal equipment. It fits in well with Boulder’s strong climbing, biking, hiking and other outdoor activities
    • Discuss what Tyler’s been able to accomplish with CU. That CU allows slacklining should be a big benefit.
    • If the city is concerned about risk, I think strong parallels can be made around other very acceptable sports – the Valmont bike park, the skate park, kayaking Boulder Creek, climbing/bouldering and other sports. Slacklining doesn’t seem to me to carry any additional risk or liability to the city (Katie – maybe weigh in on the legal side?).
    • Invite them out for a demo on campus! Let’s teach them to slack.
    • Do talk about the opportunity for poles at a park, but that should not be the primary goal. I think that would be too limiting for the community if we only had one place to go.
  • Economic affect
    • Slackline Industries has been in the Boulder / Louisville area for x (Jamie?) years, employs local people, sponsors competitions such as the Go Pro Games (Vail) and X Games, and has built and supported slackline parks across the US. The owners live in Boulder.
    • The Boulder Adventure Lodge has a dedicated ‘slack park’ to help attract athletes who stay in the area.
      Slacking for Trees – an annual event on the CU campus that raises funds to plant trees
      International
    • Slackers from all over the world visit Boulder, and our slackers travel widely. Great goodwill for our communities.
    • Slacktopia Event in April at the Spot Climbing Gym in Boulder – over 250 people attended a recent event focused on slacklining.

From the general slacklining community, I think this group could help coordinate a public relations campaign around slacking in Boulder. The Daily Camera has written a number of articles in the past, and if we are successful in opening up access, we could offer up services to the community in general, such as:

  • Provide free tree protection. Tim Ross (I think), was able to get a slackline ordinance cleared through his city, and one of the things they did was make tree protection out of carpet scraps and give them out.
  • Distribute Slackline.us flyers to the slackline community, parks officials, police. They’ve created some great materials.
    Communicate which trees to use. Teach how to properly use treeware.
  • Encourage everyone to stay positive and respectful. I think it’s been pretty good in Boulder, however I’ve seen some attitudes in some postings that would not help out the cause.
  • Encourage good citizenship – pick up our trash, and everyone else’s. Educate other slackers we see that aren’t doing it right.

Materials for the meeting:

  • I’m a fan of keeping the handouts short; if they want more, we can follow up later. I would say we include:
    http://slackline.us/publications/ (look at the photo from Jackson, WY in the tweets; I think they have the BEST rules).
    I think all of those are awesome, and would get us going.
  • Maybe (just maybe) a sample regulation or law from another city.

I have notes from some of Tyler’s emails, and a summary of many articles, news, and other info on a website that Justin and I maintain on this site.