Loving me some Fresh Meat!

If you have been under a rock and haven't heard we have had two tryouts this season. One in May, which spawned six new skating members in our league, Brianna, Casey, Erin, Kim, Manuela and Tanya. These girls have done their time and proved to be dedicated members of SCDG. I think they are finally no longer in the status of Fresh Meat anymore and are allowed to acquire a derby name for themselves. The only name I have heard so far is from Kim, who will now be known as Barbarian Librarian. There is another new player in our league, Elaina, now known as Nurse Rackula, who joined the league late last year. She came on as a ghostrider, suffered an injury, stuck around with the league and is now at player status. The second tryout this year was on July 19th, none of us could have predicted the turn out at Scotts Valley that morning. We had an idea that we would see more potentials then our last tryout but when 28 women showed up that morning, we were all blown away. Of the 28, 27 joined up with the league, with a small handful becoming Damaged Deck Hands (our volunteer non-skating members) while they work on their skating skills. For fear of forgetting to include someone, I won't list out all their names but you will be able to check all of them out soon on our website in the Fresh Meat section.

Our newest Fresh Meat are showing a lot of potential. They all have a lot of heart and fresh energy that the league definitely needs to help with all of the work involved with running this type of business. We are breathing a little easier now that we know we can pass on some of our duties to fresh blood. It's going to be marvelous next year to be able to truly field two travel teams, the Boardwalk Bombshells and the Harbor Hellcats, which is really going to up the competition within our league, making us that much better.

I especially love that we can partake all this knowledge we have acquired, skills and strategy we have taught ourselves and give it to these upcoming derby players. They will have an advantage that we didn't quite have because we have had to learn things the hard way, figuring it out at each practice and bout. Within time it will be more of an even playing field and then we will continue to all teach each other through the experience we gain at bouts. Until then, I will do what I can to teach these new freshies the way of derby, not only the game but how to communicate and work together in this community. It's important to be humble, to respect each other and to support even the weakest league member. I hope I can impart this knowledge on our newest members and have them thrive and become kick ass derby bitches.