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Stacey Roper reports from Auckland, New Zealand:
I talked a local indoor park into having a girls' session. So on tuesday nights at 6pm about seven to ten girls show up and we skate. A friend of mine and I help teach the beginners basic tricks, looking after and setting up their boards etc. Its been real fun. We haven't really advertised the night, but we are thinking of going to schools and doing demos and really start promoting skating. We

have a few profile skaters now like Georgina Mathews (she does bennyhannas), and there's another gifted skater here as well whom we are going to help out. Its bloody hard when everyone is so spread out, but with the park supporting us we now have some sort of base to work from. there are girls ranging in age from 12-23. Most of the girls coming to the sessions are still in school, (which is good), but makes it hard to organize trips and events, because there is no funding and they don't work. But there is plenty of time to fundraise to have a big New Zealand contigent at the "girls street skate jam 4" somewhere in Australia next year. "girls street skate jam 4" is kinda like Patty Segovia's All Girl Skate Jam, Georgina and I went over to Australia to compete with their best girl skaters, and we did real good. Georgina got second and won best trick, and I got third out of about thirty girls skaters from all across Australia and two from New Zealand. They have prizes right down to eighth place, which is real cool and next year we'll try and get more of the kiwis over there.
A week after that we had the New Zealand skateboard nationals which as been running about the last 13 years, which also has an open womens street style section (the last five years anyway), Georgina is the currant champ, with Mini, another 14 year old from Napier coming in a close second. Both of these youngens blow my mind. Alot like young Vanessa Torres.
There's a huge future for girl skaters, and I can't wait to see what they're going to be like in a few years time!