Just got this info from Mandy @ 360 Skate School. She will be travelling to Ecuador in October to teach kids down there how to skate.

Go check out this event… it is a great cause!

Thought you might want to put this flyer up on ur site. Its a sick fundraiser to help a group of pro girls go on tour in Equador and teach Clinics for the locals.

There is a game of skate where the winner gets $1000!!!! That’s the biggest prize for a game of skate that I’ve ever known. It’s $20 to enter unless you bring 2-3 cans of food for the local homeless shelter - then is half off the enrty fee.

There’s also a soccer game between some pro skaters that’ll be fun to watch.

We need people to come so please spread the word!!!!

Thanks
-Mandy

Park Review Incentive Program:
With our growth, it is increasingly more important to keep up the great reviews and news from the skateboarding world and we still need more volunteer assistance. To encourage this, we will be instituting a new "Review Incentive Program."

1 Park Review = Sticker Pack

3 Park Reviews = NEW OCSkateboarding T-Shirt (choice of size/color)

10 Park Reviews = Planted Skateboard Deck

All reviews must follow our criteria and should be well thought out. If we don’t feel like your heart is in it we will not accept the review. We will provide a list of items we would like included in your review and expect it to be complete.

If you are interested in providing reviews, please email us and we will forward the criteria to you.
 

Attention all amateurs… the city of San Clemente is having their SC Open in September.

The event will feature a Skate event on Saturday, Septemeber 20th and a surf event on Sunday, Sept. 21st.

Click on the flyer image on the left to open the actual flyer/registration form for the event.

Friday afternoon my daughter finally got a lesson from Mandy at 360 skate school. We have appreciated Mandy and her contributions to our site over the last year, and we tried to promote her lessons based on word of mouth… I finally got a chance to see what all of the parents and associates were raving about.

Angela over at Madrid Skateboards said it best… (paraphrasing) - Mandy is safe, clean and fun for the kids, but keeps the edge to skateboarding and keeps it cool!

I have to completely agree. After a full hour in the blazing sun, under pads and helmets (both instructor and student), Mandy was gentle but firm and gave a great first lesson. She started with instruction before even entering the park (Costa Mesa’s Volcom skate park) making sure to emphasize the rules and caution needed to stay safe at the park.

From fakies and banks to mongo and kick-turns, Mandy covered enough basics in an hour to have my daughter excited about the next lesson (she chose to skate again instead of a surf lesson… which will come.) She sent my daughter home with homework and rewards for milestones.

Thanks Mandy, and to all of you parents considering lessons for the summer… go with 360, you will not be disappointed!

EXPN.com has an article yesterday regarding the Ryan Sheckler golf tournament  - a tournament to raise money for 5 charities including Ryan’s own Sheckler Foundation.

Great idea, celebrity golf tournaments are almost always entertaining and seem to draw a good crowd… prime sponsorship opportunity to raise money for the charities.

One thing didn’t sit right with me, read the following line and tell me if you see it:

"Ryan Sheckler Hosts First-Time Golf Tournament; Brody Jenner, Mia Hamm, Kevin Federline, Bode Miller Among Those Attending"

Kevin Federline? Seriously? This is supposed to be a "celebrity" tournament not the "5 minutes of fame" hack fest. How do you go about adding a name like Federline to a golf tournament raising money for children’s charities.

Anyways… good luck to all of the "true" celebrities playing… it should be off the hook-yo!

This coming weekend marks the 15th anniversary of the U.S. Open of surfing and the 10th year of the Soul Bowl.

The site, Go211.com is anticipating over 400,000 visitors to the event over all and should be a good "fun in the sun" turnout.

From the site:
Today’s top action sports super stars in skateboarding and freestyle BMX will showcase their skills in the 68’ (long) by 46’ (wide) one-of-a kind "Soul Bowl." Celebrating it’s 10th anniversary, the Soul Bowl will host veterans that include skateboarders Sandro Dias, Omar Hassan, Tony Magnusson, Dave Duncan, Cara-Beth Burnside, and Lyn-Z Adams Hawkins as well as BMX riders Chad Kagy, Van Homan, Kevin Robinson, Koji Kraft, and the “Condor” – Mat Hoffman.

Skateboarder List

We are going to try and cover the event at some point this weekend, but if anyone gets a chance to take some killer photos, please send them to us… we will be giving away t-shirts to the best submitted photos!

We recently received a comment regarding Safety equipment in Costa Mesa’s park…

Moved comment to its own post here.

Save the date, August 9th is the Skateboard for a Cure event to help raise money for the TJ Martell Foundation.

The event will allow thousands of kids to skate with pros, celebrities and others through the streets of Los Angeles finishing at Fairfax High School where there will be autograph signing, food, games and more.

Donations of $20 or more will receive a free event t-shirt.

The TJ Martell Foundation is a devoted to Leukemia, Cancer and AIDS research.

I know this is not an OC event, but it is close enough and is for a good enough cause to mention. If you can make this event, go.

You can get more information at www.skateboardforacure.com.

We got to spend some time at the cup this weekend (though not as much as I would have hoped) and overall it was a pretty exciting event. I did feel like there was a little too much "NBA" influence. The other downside was the typical fair crowd. Once you get past all that the events were pretty exciting.

Eric and I took turns showing up where we could, but I was lucky enough to catch some action for the Pro Street finals (we even got admitted down to the grass surface for some photos.) The media could have had a little better access to some better shots, but all in all I think we got some nice shots and look forward to getting them all up. For temporary, I have put some on Flickr to get started: http://www.flickr.com/photos/28605642@N06/

I also had a chance to get pretty close to some of the guys like PLG, Shaun White, Bucky and a few others on the vert during warm ups on Friday. Those photos are in there as well.

Well done event over all and the course was sick!

Results for the event:

Just a reminder to those of you who haven’t been paying attention…

The Maloof Money Cup, marked as the "World’s Greatest Skateboarding Competition" starts on Friday the 11th and runs through Sunday the 13th.

We will be out there checking out the competition and snapping shots of the talent, so keep your eyes out for us!

Click Here for a Schedule of Events