Since last October there has been a campaign in my town (Southport, UK) to get a skatepark, as there has been alot of damage caused by skaters, BMXers etc in the town centre. I am Chairman of the user group who has headed this campaign up, and brought it to the stage where we are adding the finishing touches to plans with council officers. £200,000 has been put aside for two facilities in the borough, and we’re all set to go.
BUT… WE NEED A NAME FOR THE PARK
I know its not strictly unicycle related, thou the park will be used by uni’s. Can anyone think of any names, cos i figured there are alot of creative minds on here, so u might be able to help. We are a sea side resort by the way, and the park is going to be next to a new leisure centre called DUNES. None of that has to have any effect on ideas, but it might help u think. I don’t think people here would understand if we called it Unispin, or named it after any great unicyclists thou.
If you need something that is not specific to any particular kind of human powered vehicle that might use it, go with something cute and generic: Wheels by the Waves.
You can play off the port in your towns name, and have The Dock or whatever you Britts call a Dock. That way you can be like Go Skate at the South Port Dock. If you could make a Boat shaped Box/Spine thing or something like that, it would be totally sweet too. (the Peir would work in the same theme)
Name it after the last Council Leader or Mayor of whichever party usually wins local elections. They’re friends are that little bit more likely to maintain it and repair it.
Of course, that’s a little cynical of me, but I didn’t get where I am today by being blythe and trusting.
Whatever it’s officially called, the locals will give it a suitable name. So you call it the Alderman Featherstonehaugh Memorial Recreational Facility, and the local kids will call it some thing like ‘The Stonedunes’ or ‘The Pan’.
The relict of the late Alderman Featherstonehaugh is happy, and the kids are happy. And remember, if the kids are united, they can never be divided…
South Sea Skate Park (SSSPark)
South Side Sea Park
Southpark (heheh)
Southport Dunes
Sea Side Skate Park
Sea Side Dunes
Sea-Dune Park (good oxymoron, heh)
Sea Side Riderz Park
Dunes Of The Sea
Skate’n Ride Sea Side Park
Skate Hear Instead Of Town Centre Park
Harper’s Wanabee Skate Palace
Thats what i came up with, mabye if you could provide more info about it. Well i’m going to take my creative mind and figure out the reason we have eyebrows, and mabye even the purpose of liquid soap.
I visited South Port’s tourist site. The hamlette seems to feature a few big old manors, flowers (?), sand and … PLEASURELAND. I kid you not (what sort of theme park would that be?). With this native sence of directness, I suggest a name that is stupidly literal. I imagine there was once a simmilar conversation when naming the town, “Uh, well, we’re a port… an, uh… it faces, well, south…”.
So… humm… ‘At-least-they’re-not-breaking-into-your-house-land’? Eh, hem… not very catchy. Maybe invoke the Queen? “The Royal Punk Conservitory”? Egads: that’s week. Is there some affectionate term you chaps have for streat punks? or maybe a colourfull word of endearment? “Rouges Rest”? Ahh- wow, that’s horrable. Better just name it after a famous vagrant and be done with it.
Don’t bother with a name. We got one recentally, and it has a bunch of names. One thing though, you might want to wait a bit, or go there in the morning, we fall more, so if you go there, and there’s 50 skaters, then youre going to hit someone
The Rochelle Park District is considering the very same thing but we are unsure of it’s status at the moment. The local fire dept. wants to sponsor the facility and possibly build it. One of the brainstorm ideas was to flood the park in the winter and use it as an ice skating arena. The firemen would then name the park “Fire and Ice”
There has been a local project near here called Wheels in Motion (or something like that) and they were initially interested in unicycles when they needed kids to help out but it became obvious (to my son and his mates) that they were not as welcome when it came to using it. The place is not that close that they can go alone so no big loss.
How about Southport Wheel Park, simple, to the point and doesn’t distinguish between the different users. Just my thoughts.
i quite like checkernut’s idea of taking a name from the book ‘DUNE’
it’s just about lateral enough to make the ‘outsiders’ wonder and the ‘initiated’ sniggle
maybe someone who knows the book better than me can suggest a couple of names and we may even get lucky and get a few punable ones
the karmic wheel park (?)
u may want to use the opportunity for some advance marketing
try n arrange a skating competition of sorts, get some decent prizes and let them ‘pay’ to enter by suggesting a name
that way u might get even more ‘buy-in’ from the skating community (who may not be thrilled at being kicked out of town), some sense of ownership, and a bucketload of names
In these parts, ours is so eloquently called: “The Skate Park”. And everyone calls it that, not just the skatboarders. (it never had a name to start with, only it’s in “lone peak park” so i guess it’s the ‘lone peak skate park’ … lame) Unfortunately, a unicyclist there would be afraid for his/ her life if riding while crowded. . . too many punks to get beat up by… bah (eventually i’ll go, i just don’t want lots of onlookers to jeer and ask who’s nicked the other wheel.)
