COMOPOLO

The facts...

Basketball courts are publicly funded through a Park Sales Tax: https://www.gocolumbiamo.com/ParksandRec/Parks/...

The "League" is a summer program run by Parks and Rec, not an entity itself. They play Tues, Wed till August: http://gocolumbiamo.com/Public_Comm/Public_Info...

Unknown...

Will Parks and Rec be cool with skid marks?

Board storage / transportation?

board storage and transport was your van i thought. lol

We could build a portion of the boards (behind the goals) and try it out first

muskrat wrote:

board storage and transport was your van i thought. lol

Ha! For a trial run, and maybe a few times before I leave

a while back, nic maglio offered to store boards from the garage in his truck so that they wouldnt be thrown away. i dont want to speak for him but that is a possibility. I was also thinking we could shoot an email to the school next door and see if we could store them behind their dumpster. I noticed there was some space there, so wouldn't hurt to talk to them. outside of that, im not sure.

as for skid marks... im not sure. i bet its something with could find some chemical cleaner to take them off. small fee we could all cheap in on in order to have a court with lights.

well if we're being realistic why would we not have a permanent plan? this just seems like a one time deal to prove a point that doesn't need to be proven. sure we can play at douglass, i just don't care to, not that i make everyone's decision!

you're talking about like 6 times as many boards. store them outside? we'll be building boards often then.

i'm trying to be practical here, the "building boards for behind the goals" makes sense to me.

im not expecting to have all the answers for the first time we go out there to play, it will take some times playing and figuring it out to see what would be best.

muskrat wrote:

i'm trying to be practical here, the "building boards for behind the goals" makes sense to me.

maybe we could eventually have 4x's for side boards, it'd block the vast majority i imagine, and they'd never fall down, being wide and all. easier to stash than plywood with braces. 6, 8, 10, 12, 16 ft. bout a buck a foot

4x4: 3 1/2" tall
4x6: 5 1/2"

ball: 2 1/2"

I'm not into the idea. People have been shot there as well as stabbed. Why risk our safety?

maybe i missed this in the thread, but are we going to test out the surface before the building of the boards or are we certain it's appropriate for bikes?

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im pretty positive its a bike friendly surface.

the crime is rarer there than you think. how often do you see people there? their are people there all the time, and they are enjoying the park without getting stabbed or shot. anyway, those type of crimes dont happen because people are in the park, they happen because of altercations outside of the park and then are led to the park. as long as we dont start fights with people we will be fine. If sketchy areas were a reason to not play polo then i bet several clubs would not exist. I know chicago polo is in a bad area, and the lawrence people were talking about that area being sketchy. like i said above, as long as we keep to ourselves we wont have a problem with people.

"the crime is rarer than you think"
how not rare do you think tim a. thinks the crime is?

But the courts at Douglass are used heavily! Major distinction. B-ball players will never let it happen! Honestly, what is the drive to play there in the first place? Apologies for the negativity.

they are not used as heavily as you think, trust me please. i've been scoping it out for several weeks now as i drive by it taking deliveries. and out side of league play, ive never seen both courts in use at one period of time. i road my bike over there yesterday evening to measure everything and it wasnt in use at all, a couple hours later, vince and i drove by and there was one court in use. and thats how busy it is on a cool summer night. come fall or winter, it will dwindle down even more. Basketball is a summer sport and polo is year round. please keep your eye on the courts in the evenings and you will see they are not as popular as you think.

YIMYOM wrote:

Honestly, what is the drive to play there in the first place? Apologies for the negativity.

No need to apologies, that's why I'm trying to talk it out with people. Come fall cosmo will force us to go down to only being able to play on Sundays, due to the lose of the garage. So it's very important for us to find a new location before fall. As much as we want to fight for lights at Cosmo, even if we did it is still years away from actual installment, and I feel like that is a big IF because we've seen how much they do not want to put money into a place that isn't bringing them money, and because of the worry of lighting the skate park. Douglas Park already has lights that the city pays to light 24 hours, so we don't have to, at best, wait years to get lights. Even if people were okay with only playing on Sundays come fall, another problem with Cosmo that people have are all the cracks. The city already said it isn't in their budget until i believe 2012 or 2013 (I cant remember off the top of my head which). Douglas courts are smooth. The central location of Douglas is great as well. It's a lot easier for people to jump on their bikes and just come out and play instead of catching rides. This offers a higher chance of getting new people to check it out, much like the garage did. We can flier around campus and those interested can just ride their bike to campus. So to sum up, my biggest drive to play there are the smooth courts, the 24 hour lights, and the central location that we need in order to play more than once a week.

RE violence:

(Since Jan)

Shots Fired: 1 reported at douglas, 1 reported at the garage, 160 in como
Death Investigations: 0 in douglas, 15 in ward 1
Abandoned Bikes: 1

http://www.gocolumbiamo.com/PSJC/Services/911/9...

http://www.raidsonline.com/

TimA, Colleen/TimD, Floppy, Tron, Kruse, Pete, Courtney, Aaron, Jonathon, Me. we all live in the first ward, where the concentration of crime on these maps is. Dpark is no more dangerous than our neighborhoods. I'd say its safer, considering it is wide open in public, and literally right next to an elementary school..

also, those sites, especially the como one, are quite interesting

I was being a little hyperbolic with the shootings, but the fact is that I believe us being there will insight violence. Probably only misdemeanor assault, but still not shit I want to get mixed up in. It's in no way a permanent solution, so to me it's not even worth looking in to. If you're so certain it will be fine, get permission from the parks department. Call them, I guarantee they'll say "HELL NO".

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did you guys ask for permission to play at the roller hockey court before playing there? I could have seen the parks department being like "bikes on a hockey court?!? no way!" but that wasn't the case, so I'm not convinced they'd be so against us using courts. I think it very easily could be a permanent solution, and if not permanent than something that will last a long while. like what vince said on facebook "tis easier to ask forgiveness than permission"

I dont think we will be killed if we play there. I think of STL getting pissed at those kids playing soccer on one of the courts they used. The kids werent destroying the court, but rather taking up space that STL polo had been using for polo (they were abandoned tennis courts, not used BBall courts). STL bribed them away with soda, but I doubt we will get bribed away, maybe told sternly. I imagine those who use Dpark see it as theirs, whether or not it is. It will probably be hard for us to show up on our goofy bikes and get respect and then also leave boards there (Vince is moving, and those with trucks maybe dont want to offer to carry that around). And by the way, the courts looked in use @ 1230am last night. I know it was a Saturday, but these courts arent abandoned courts.

Air In Hand wrote:

did you guys ask for permission to play at the roller hockey court before playing there? I could have seen the parks department being like "bikes on a hockey court?!? no way!" but that wasn't the case, so I'm not convinced they'd be so against us using courts. I think it very easily could be a permanent solution, and if not permanent than something that will last a long while. like what vince said on facebook "tis easier to ask forgiveness than permission"

We were originally kicked out of the hockey rink based on the idea that the hockey rink was a part of the skate park, and bikes aren't allowed in the skatepark. We then went through the channels at Parks and Rec. to have the Midwest Champeens, and we have ever since had implied permission to play there. The Hockey Rink at Cosmo is basically unused besides a few roller hockey kids playing pick up. It's a completely different situation than basketball courts on the edge of downtown.

Our basic problem is that there aren't abandoned courts of any type in Columbia. If you found an old basketball court that had the backboards ripped off and shit, then I would be like hell yes, let's set it up.

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I think we wont know how people will react to us there unless we go, and i know the courts are used, thats good. that means they are taken care of unlike cosmo which is low down on priority for the parks department. Vince offering for the next month or so works out and gives time to find a solution to keeping boards. whether its everyone throws a couple bucks to nic so we can use his truck or we sit down with the principle of the elementary school and see if we can work out a deal to store them behind their dumpster. this is something that will be a work in progress, werent not going to just stumble onto a court that has everything we need; we'll have to put in some effort.

p.s. the como link vince posted is crazy, you can look up all the "annoying phone calls" in the area hahaha also, there are more shots fired in the benton stephens area than most other places, i didnt realize this neighborhood was so sketchy

Nic said no and the boards next to the dumpster seems like they'll either get tossed out or be considered littering. Were talking 300 feet of boards here, 6 times what we had stored at the garage. I didn't not know we were not allowed to use cosmo at first, that sheds new light on this situation.

I don't recall ever being kicked out of cosmo. we asked parks and rec about insurance and the other court, not plain usage as i recall. floppy was in contact with them, do you remember what really went down?

So here is an idea. Why don't we play at the tennis courts at hickman? It is lit in decent condition and used much less than Dpark. Also hickman does not use these tennis courts they play at cosmo.

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i feel like we'd get kicked out of there faster than we would douglas park, but im down to try it! im down to try anywhere, if i had a truck id store all our boards and we could try a million different places. i just want to be proactive about finding something new so that we can have a place to play 2 months from now. we have vince for this month and he seems willing to help transport boards (thank you vince <3) so why not try douglas on a sunday and then hickman on a wednesday. we can feel things out.

How does the club deal with money? It sounds like whatever the solution, it will cost something. Is there any structure in place to help spread around the cost?

http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ll=38.943...

what about these?

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http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ll=38.939...

this one is really private

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im down to try it but again i bet its something private that the apartment complex owns, and it would be hard to get someone private to let us play on their property due to insurance issues (just like the problem you guys had when trying to play at the senior place on old 63). saying that, im down to try though! i think the best bet is to build some boards, go around to places and try them out.

also a place I have found is

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&...

it is a basketball court in this little park set back from the neighborhood and separated by a wooded area so we wouldnt disturb anyone. the problem is, there are not any lights. one possible solution is we raise some money as a club and buy generator lights similar to

http://www.ventry.com/lentry/index.html

they are small and could be transported in someones car.

The picnic shelter next to the skate park has electricity, I think.

http://www.gocolumbiamo.com/ParksandRec/Parks/C...

Maybe extension cords and work lights? Four or five of the bigger ones, on tripods. A 1000-Watt light, with two adjustable heads, would be about $50. If we need five in four months, then we we need $62.50 a month. If eight people contribute, that's about $7.80 a month for each of them. (Extension cords not included, because I think I can get a few from work for free.)

excellent suggestion

forget any plugged in lights, we had two massive generator powered lights with 30 ft poles on cosmo for the midwests, and it barely did anything. we would have needed 4-6 of those to make it decently playable

also, we have no way to deal with money. it was hard enough to collect $90 to rent the boards a few weeks ago

bummmmmmer

we've gone to just about every public tennis court we could find, and nothing looked promising. either always used or not lit. worth scouring through it again though...

https://www.gocolumbiamo.com/ParksandRec/Parks/...

broadway village looks interesting. it is private, but who knows, worth looking into

If it comes down to it I work at Woodcrest Chapel on Nifong (MKT from downtown to Forum to Nifong, ~5 miles), and we've a shed that could store the boards, as well as decent lighting. Granted, I've never really had a hard look at the lights with polo in mind, but I feel like they'd do well enough. We could probably use the kitchen/walk-in, there are bathrooms, and water; the only obstacle is scheduling for big events, but those are usually on Fridays.

There are two relatively good places to set up a court, the main parking lot (level enough), and a lower parking lot.

These are all great suggestions. Would anyone be up to scope out locals soon? Make a list of all these places and ride around, check them out, take notes and discuss again? It seems to me that there are several potential areas.

HICKMAN COURTS

"http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ll=38.939...

this one is really private"

i actually know the people that own this court.

chances are if we throw boards and bikes on a basketball court, the park's insurance won't cover us either, it could be a liability, not certain though.

cosmo-bethel has 12 tennis courts?!?!?!? we must have a bunch of little pete lampras' running around columbia!

Bethel is an awesome place for tennis

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1 - cosmo-bethel is further than cosmo, and its mostly school property

2 - parks insurance doesn't cover us, wether we put up boards or not

3 - is hickman even a possibility, it being a school?

i was just commenting on the tennis courts at cosmo bethel just because of how many there are, not in regards to us using them.

If you guys don't figure this out and have a permanent place to play, with lights, by the time I get back, I'm going to chain saw your bicycles.

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princent wrote:

forget any plugged in lights, we had two massive generator powered lights with 30 ft poles on cosmo for the midwests, and it barely did anything. we would have needed 4-6 of those to make it decently playable

I actually looked into this a while back. First of all, Floppy and I figured that the outlet at the pavilion couldn't handle the load of the amount of lighting we would need. Also, the amount of extension cord we would need would be a huge cost alone. Lastly, I agree with Vince. We would never be able to light up that entire court with even 1500 watt work lights. We would have to board it off into a half court set up for after dark. Still, I think the materials/cost of that endeavor make it not really viable.

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