It's brutal here finding a decent place to ride and I finally got a local park open to buggy on. It has been a little painful getting to this point but hey, worth it. The field is not perfect, there are trees to break the wind up if the wind is not coming from the perfect direction but it's better than nothing. The park is county owned and operated but our county looks at kiting as if it were as dangerous as playing in traffic soooooo they have not played very nicely up till now.

I got in touch with a county official here who works in the parks and recreation department, explained what we do and what we are all about. He seemed intrigued by what he heard so I showed him a few kites, my buggy, all my safety gear, etc. He was impressed by the measures that we take as far as safety goes and said it would be ok to use the park. WOOT!!!!

The park is not large by any means, but its the largest area we have here so I'm super stoked! It's the size of 3 or 4 soccer fields side by side, with 2 baseball diamonds at the far end. Just navigate thru the mid field bleachers and a few goal posts and you have a decent run.

The wind was blowing (barely) today so Sheska and I took a ride over to the field and launched. The Bego was not too happy with the choppy wind we had so I decided to help Sheska out with her static skills for a bit on the Viper. 30 min. later, the wind picks up....WOOT!

No sooner did I get a kite in the sky and sit in the buggy a phys ed teacher from the school next door (we will call her buzzkill to simplify things) and the following words were exchanged:

Buzzkill: You are going to need to get the hell out of here, I have a class!"
Me: Excuse me ma'am?
Buzzkill: The school has a contract with the county and we can use this field any time its open so you need to leave NOW!
Me: Oh, ok. May I ask your name please?
Buzzkill: *mumbles something*
Me: Ok, we will be out of your way shortly, we just need to pack up.
Buzzkill: *irritated exhale*

I happened to notice buzzkill was wearing a name tag and noted the name. I then went inside the parks office when I reported what happened (in a very cool, concerned way) and I was informed by the park that this is not the first time buzzkill has acted this way and this will not be tolerated. Furthermore, I was informed that she had NO right to "kick us out" and county reps will inform buzzkill that this is NOT to happen again. The contract stated they may use an OPEN field and if we were using it, it was NOT open. I thanked the park for their support in this as well as their support in our sport. I let the park know that if this had been approached in a different manner, we would have GLADLY moved a bit down the field to give them room, that we were just surprised by the manner in which this was handled by the buzzkiller.

A small win scored today, I like to think it was due to a bit of tact and diplomacy.

You handled all that really well and probably are even more accepted now having gone through it.... Except for "buzzkill". lol

Good story.

It's nice to know that even former chalk board monitors can find gainful employment.

ATB,
Sam

Kudos Mougl! Another victory for the kite community! Keep up the positive vibes!

nice job!

cool !

Awesome!!! Good to hear the successes all round there

3-4 soccer fields :o I'm stoked if I can find a single field to ride on - let alone covered with grass

Nice mougl , that's like a ray of sunshine!

Im lucky I guess... I know all the city guys, they got my back lol

Its the ayso soccer coaches I have to worry about


Good job tho brother, its always hard to bite your toungue when cronfronted with a complete a-hole... Been there many times

Way to go mougl!!

Good job Mogal! I'm going to call you next time I need some diplomacy!
BTW... What's wrong with playing in traffic?

Depends on the traffic!

Thanks for the kudos everyone! I don't think I deserve kudos for anything I did but I do appreciate it

Just trying to help change the local image of kiters a little at a time. Might help the sport grow a bit