Many thanks to all those readers who have sent in articles for inclusion this month. As always, if you've got anything "skatey" to share, the Sk8school newsletter gives it a 2000+ audience each month (and growing), so just email it to us.

In this month's packed edition we have news on:

• Theory Class - Last chance!
• Eastbourne Carnival Procession
• Spring Courses - A few beginners places remaining
• Flow, Grace and Tricks - the experts course
• Kids Club dates and survey
• Open Skates
• Coaching Courses and survey
• New Sk8school website designs
• RSS feeds
• Facebook Club
• Swap Shop
• Various customer contributions and links
• Pam's speed skater appeal
  
• Shops news

Sk8 Theory

The ideal course to fully round your skate education for parents and adult skaters. Attend this class and know more than the shop assistant! You may save money by doing this course! You will certainly make more educated buying decisions! Get the best impartial knowledge on everything you ever wanted to know about skating - and a good number of things you didn't even realize you wanted to know! We cover:

• Types of skate and skating - do you want a quad or inline?
• Wheel type, profile, material, durometer ,size and rebound
• Bearing abec, race, materials and lube
• Frame technology, maintenance, choosing, buying, fitting
• Diet, fitness, where to skate and so much more.

Sk8school has the most widely experienced, knowledgeable and qualified instructors in Eastbourne. This is your chance to benefit from over 20 years skating, retail, teaching, trekking and events experience in just one 2 hour session!

Free to attend if you've done it before, otherwise all this knowledge can be yours for £10. You can make the trip additionally worthwhile by attending the Open skate before hand at 12 midday.

Class starts 2pm ShineWater Sunday February 17th.

Eastbourne Carnival Procession

Eastbourne's Carnival Procession is back (after 12 years) and we're proud to announce that Sk8school are organising the skate side of this charity event. (Organised by "Lark in the Park"). This news is hot off the press so details are sketchy, but its expected to be held sometime in late June. This will be a road skate of about 4 miles at a very easy pace. If you are nervous about skating in traffic, on roads with varying surfaces, cambers and stopping on hills you could always attend the Sk8school Sk8 Street Wise course first! As we get more information we'll put it in future news letters and build an area on the website for it. We'll need adult volunteers to help with bucket collections - there will be floats and music and its free, so don't miss it!

Spring Courses

Once again we've nearly sold out, (all "mastering" courses are now full) there are just a few beginners places available on February 17^th (afternoon). Hurry! If you know someone who would benefit from them, as at £40 including skate hire for a half day intensive course, they are bound to go fast. At both dates there will be the usual Open skates for the general public, Kids Club and introductory lessons for participating shop customers. Welcome one and all!

Flow, grace and tricks

It's coming! The experts only course, for the difficult to scare! You must be able to skate very well, before you bother with this one! You will be problem solving and testing yourself and your courage with this course. In one day you'll attempt:

• Linking manoeuvres
• Knowing when to stop a move
• Various steps (dancing not streetwise)
• Pirouettes, spins, jumps, flash linked turns, spin to sit
• Barrel roll, grapevine, various toe tricks, slalom tricks, dance moves and even a little sideways!

Survivors will be impressive!

If you have not completed all of our "mastering" courses (backwards/10 stops/turns) don't consider this one! So far, 5 brave souls have signed up, which is 2 more than I expected! I know some of you are coming along just to watch! If you want to know more about the "experts" course, contact us - the class is Sunday afternoon March 16 at Shinewater.

Kids Club and Heely Club

We've seen a welcome surge in Kids Club numbers recently and soon this will be run outdoors every week (Apr-Oct). We'd like a little help from you (parents) though, to help us decide what time of day would be best to run it when we go back inside! Yes we mean from October (I know it seems a long time away - but halls need to be booked in advance!)

Our next Kids Club will take place at the same time and place as the Open Skates - midday, Sunday February 17 and midday, Sunday March 16.

Open Skates

We have an hours Open Skate, midday at Shinewater Sports Centre on February 17. At only £3 a person, it's the ideal place to practise when the weather is bad! First time skaters from the shops can also have their introductory session here.

Coaching Courses

A few of you have mentioned that Coaching sessions might be a good idea. Please note, coaching is VERY different to teaching and much less fun and more hard work, for you the customer! Only serious souls need apply! This would be aimed at focused small groups of intermediate to advanced skaters, wanting to solve problems with specific skating moves. For example:

• Backwards or forwards crossover
• Stride 3
• Hockey stop or power slide

These are the "cream" moves of the "mastering" courses, the ones you work toward and skaters often struggle with.

Pam's Speed skating appeal

Some of you will remember Pam's lessons in Sk8school. Well she's still very much as skate crazy as ever promoting hockey all over the place. Pam also supports skating in all its forms and has asked us to promote this attempt to get skating a little more recognised...

Could you please take a minute to go onto the following link and vote for the South Woodham Ferrers Rollerspeed skating club.

http://www.echo-news.co.uk/sport/awards/vote/team/

Many thanks for your support!