Beard Blog - Day 10

Today's beard

When Projekts MCR began running the skatepark, back in August 2004, we were told by the Council that they would soon be providing floodlights, mains electricity, an office for us to work in and, at some point, a park extension. This was all great news because sitting outside in the freezing cold, even after the first week, was starting to become a little depressing. Around 8 months later we finally received our office; a black, steel shipping container, 2 meters wide, 3 meters long and 2 meters high. Although it wasn't much warmer than being outside, it kept the wind off and it gave us a secure place to keep our generator until the floodlights arrived. We had no idea that we'd be waiting over 3 years to get them.

We used a generator to power temporary floodlights during the first winter. This allowed the skaters to continue into the night, which was great for them but not so fun for whoever was working because they were forced to sit outside for 5 hours each evening in freezing temperatures.

Our first generator was stolen on 12 December 2004, when the park was closed. It was worth about £5,000, I think. The Council gave us another generator shortly after. This was stolen less than a month later, between Christmas Day and New Year. It was stolen whilst Projekts staff were working inside the park but no one saw or heard anything. The generator had been left sitting on the trailer it had arrived on. We think the thieves must have simply attached it to their van a driven off with it. This generator was also very expensive, similar to the first one.

The following year, we had our final generators stolen. We were storing two generators in our office at the time. The thieves clipped the locks on the gate, then tried to pull the container door open but gave up trying that after they accidently managed to rip the solid metal handle off. They then turned their attention to our metal shutters that protected the windows on the front and side of the office. They peeled the front shutter open using a long metal rod, smashed the window, climbed in and opened the door from the inside, then proceeded to steal everything inside which included two generators (one for lights the other for a small electric heater), our entire tuck shop stock (this was apparently sold to the local pub, according to some young boys from the area who claimed to have witnessed the transaction), some skateboards and my guitar (this made me particularly sad as I’d owned it for a very long time). There would be no more generators from now on.

The total cost of these thefts comes to around £10,000 which, coincidently, is the price we're paying for permanent floodlights.

To see how the beard's coming on click on this: http://picasaweb.google.com/johnnyhaines/MyBeardProtest