EROC 2012

The 2012 edition of the EROC took place in Berlin on the last weekend of January, and was hosted by the local league, the Bear City RollerDerby. Go HERE if you want a little "history" of the event -- if you can call it history so far...

The European Derby Convention is growing year by year: Have a look at the list of the registered countries and leagues if you're sceptical! 13 countries were represented by up to 16 leagues each (for Germany) -- and 7 for France!

The event started on Friday evening with an opening party at Wowsville bar where all the participants could meet and warm up for the weekend. I had forgotten what it was like to be allowed to smoke in bars! Although I convey it's pretty cool not to have to go outside and lose your fingers in the German cold, I'm not quite sure I'm liking it anymore.
By the way I would like to deeply thank all my saviors to whom I borrowed the gloves during the weekend: I really had underestimated the power of cold. Now I know that I'd rather concentrate on my gloved hands slipping on my crutches, than concentrate on saying to myself over and over that pain is just an illusion.
Anyway this is no dilemna now as I don't need my sticks anymore: I learnt to walk this weekend thanks to an intensive training consisting in at least one hour per day of waking in the snow.

OnWheelz DiscoRoller

In France, there are no roller-rinks, no roller-discos, no real flat indoor spaces devoted to skating... From time to time some punctual events are organized and we can go clubbing on wheelz! The OnWheelz Discos are organized by my friend Jim (whom I rollerdance with). He used to do three nights per year until last year when the place he used to book became a municipal gym.

Just like every year, there is this big LGBT event called the TIP (Tournois International de Paris) gathering sports teams and associations from all Europe, with animations by all the represented sports.

-- By the way, I had the indescribable chance to find myself on one of the promotion flyers saying "Chloé does sport to fight against discriminations, come and join her!"... Long story.

 

The only LGBT skating association, Les Enrolleres, where I give Slalom-skating lessons, was taking part in this huge event. And along with Jim they decided to organize a new edition of the OnWheelz as part of the Tournament. The biggest difficulty was to manage to get enough people despite the early hours: having become the city's property, the gym had to close at 00 AM... This time, the OnWheelz is going to be a "Before" party.

The originality of this edition was the Roller-Derby Demo at the end!

I was in charge of it, having to take care of several organization stuffs and coordinating the PRG and Jim. I had been named Captain of Team Awesome, and my friend Cherry LieLie was Captain of Team Amazing, so things got quite simple because we easily agree with each other. We found tee-shirts for the two teams on which we drew the numbers of all the girlz. I made a music playlist for the show. We agreed on a little presentation -- which didn't turn that well because it's tough without rehearsal haha.

Other things didn't turn out as expected... little misunderstandings here and there. But it got better after explanations.