Indica Knox Corcoran, 13, from Papamoa is the young man with the board in the air at Drop Deep's skate competition in Katikati. Photo / Hamish Mckie
When Melody Lamb organised a skateboarding competition in Wellington in 2011, she thought it would be her first and last.
How wrong could she be.
Many events later, Melody and Drop Deep Skateboarding will host a competition at Te Puke Skateboard Park in Jubilee Park on Saturday.
Starting at 1pm, the competition will have under 13, under 16, open and girls’ categories.
“We’ll have judges and an MC, we’ll have prizes, we’ll have a best trick comp as well. The whole thing is just for young people to participate and compete in an event just to help build their skills, their confidence and to just have a great time,” says Melody.
She says every skatepark has its own local group of skaters and she hopes the Te Puke group come along.
“Some don’t because some don’t like competing and that’s fine, but we will have other skaters from out of town probably come because there’s not a lot happening in this space.”
The competition is part of Western Bay of Plenty District Council’s youth engagement summer series and is also supported by COLAB as a Neighbours Aotearoa event.
Over a decade ago Melody was living in Wellington and her son, Jordan, was a keen skateboarder.
“His skatepark was the Waitangi Skatepark in Wellington, which is the main city skatepark.
“There wasn’t really a lot going on at the skatepark to help skaters develop and grow. There were bigger comps that would come along for more confident skaters, but my son wouldn’t enter any of them because he didn’t think he was good enough, so I decided to run a competition for the local skaters, mainly so that my son could enter.”
She says she thought she was organising one event.
“It was alcohol and drug-free and I was getting all my little communities to come and help and make it a good day - and it was a really good day - and then I was done, I could relax.”
But the phone began ringing.
“I started getting phone calls from different councils. Would I come to their skatepark and basically do the same thing? I really didn’t know anything about skateboarding at all and the only skateboarder I knew was my son.”
She ended up talking to the winners of the competition she had organised and asked them if they wanted to be part of something at different skateparks.
That began a five-year journey with skateboarders that included road trips, anti-bullying campaigns in schools, skatepark tours and festivals.
“It was all basically youth-led.
“We got pro skaters from America to come and ride in our van with us and look for skateboarding spots which is pretty incredible.”
A number of people had come on board as trustees, but by 2016 a decision was made to wind things up.
“The trustees didn’t have enough time to continue with what we were doing and we decided we would just not do it any more and to end it on a good note.
“I thought we were done and that was it and didn’t think much more of it.
“Then in 2018 I just felt like I was being pulled back into that space, so I went and did some studying to help me understand this world a little bit more. I got a job as an event manager - but that was hit by Covid.”
Undaunted, Melody looked at ways of engaging skateboarders during lockdown.
“We did some online challenges and I just engaged with skaters from around the world and it was pretty cool.”
In 2021, she moved o the Bay of Plenty where she got a job as a youth worker in Katikati.
“That was really good because I brought my skateboarding contacts and networks into that role, just to help with engaging rangatahi.”
She helped start the Poutama Pathways into Employment programme, but turned down a three-year contract to continue with it.
“I’d seen the needs of youth around that Covid time, but also seen the barriers for the youth in the Bay of Plenty, especially being rural, it was quite different to Wellington.
“They’ve got transport issues and so much more isolation and with Covid on top of that. I could see the employment stuff was being taken care of by amazing people, but there was a gap, something Drop Deep, that brought fun and community and action, could fill.
“People love watching skateboarding so I would do this fulltime.”
That was in August last year.
“Yes, it’s been difficult, but it’s actually been really good at the same time.”
She has been working with Western Bay of Plenty District Council.
“Partly to show them what we can do, but also they spend a lot of money on skateparks, but people don’t want to go down there because of the anti-social behaviours that go on, so we bring a positive flavour and people have a really wholesome good time.”
Last month a competition was held in Katikati with 37 participants “which is pretty incredible”.