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Starting A League

This was originally posted on the community forum. The first things you’ll want to do is to recruit and then find a place to practice. Please also be sure to reference the membership requirements.

Recruiting

There are lots of ways to go about this:

  • Get an email address and (ideally) a facebook page for your new league. Your facebook page will allow you to post ‘up to the minute’ information about your league: practice space, events, pictures, info about your league.
  • Schedule a time and place for your first meeting – where you will talk about what you are doing. and how you plan to get it going. This shows people that you are SERIOUS about organizing. And gives potential recruits a definite time/place to gather and meet up
  • Put up paper flyers in area hotspots: roller rinks, music stores, tattoo shops, basically anywhere. talk it up. Make sure the flyers have your email address, and links to your facebook, and the time/date of your first meeting.
  • You can advertise online – on craigslist, or other internet resources. post on our community forum. There are other yahoo groups, and forums related to roller derby that might be read by guys in your area who want to play.

Find a place to practice

Until you have a group of people who can chip in and pay dues, it might not make sense to look for dedicated practice space that costs $$$. When PVRD was starting out, we went to open skates at our local rinks. Mainly we were learning how to skate. Some of our more experienced skaters taught our inexperienced skaters. We also took skating lessons as a league. Once we got the basics, we reached out to our local women’s derby teams for help with drills, and gameplay, etc. As you get more established, we can definitely help you with that here.

You can also find outdoor locations (through the summer). Skating in public places (legally) will also drum up interest in your league. People will stop by and say ‘hey what are you doing’ and then you can hand them a flyer.

Depending on how fast your league is growing, it might be prudent to start talking to local venues (rinks, sports complexes, warehouse spaces – basically anywhere with hard wood, sport court, cement or any other suitable skating floor). You should find out how much they charge and see what it would take to afford that space. Shop around.

That should be a good start.