About Us

Click on a team member to find out more about them

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  Sarah  Agar Brennan

  Founder and Director of Sk8 Safe

   

  Coaching Skateboarding at the tender age of 40 as a mother of 3 (2 biologically and one hairy beast from the Dog’s Trust we called Fozzy Bear) I am not your typical Skateboarder.

   

  I fell in love with the sport in my 20’s when I set up a Skateboard shop selling all things Skateboard related. I loved my job and the products I sold, the industry suited me. I began fund-raising for a local Skatepark to be built and volunteered my time with the project, and still do!

   

  It wasn’t until I was 30 though that I had managed to succeed staying on a board longer than a few seconds.

  Any previous attempts had resulted in me falling on my bottom moments after getting on the board.

   

  A couple of friends of mine and myself had started a Saturday club for kids at our local village hall. Perplexed by the lack of young people trying skateboarding we set out to attract new blood. I was meant to be there purely in an admin role but soon donned a helmet and joined

  in the club. Each week I would get on my board with kids the age of my kids and learn to skate, they learnt so fast that I had to take up extra classes to keep up. I realised pretty quickly, as did everyone else that I would never make the cut as a skateboarder but my passion had
  been ignited.

   

  I could see so much potential in the activity as a way of engaging young people especially the ones who weren’t connecting with the more traditional sports. I wanted to shout from the roof tops to all those kids out there feeling lost or needing a confidence boost, ‘come skate with us feel safe, secure and be free of judgement’ all the things I needed to hear growing up.

   

  More recently working with 1st4Sport as the technical expert for the Level 1 Award in Coaching Skateboard Sessions Qualification has been a particular highlight for me. I am really pleased to have helped mould such a great course based on years of coaching, tutoring and assessing experience. Partnering with Skateboard England is a dream come true.

   

  I give my heart and my soul to the young people and organisations I work with. I  help them make kids dreams come true and in doing so my dreams come true.

   

  Each day I wake I feel so blessed to be doing the job I do.

   

  Click back on Sarah's face to to hide

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  Danny Jones

  Sk8 Safe Coach

   

  I am 26 and I was born and still live in Scarborough, North Yorkshire. David Geen, my best friend and one of Scarborough’s best skateboarders in his day got me into Skateboarding. I saw him kickflip and it blew my mind, like a mini Brandon Westgate, so much pop and speed! I instantly chucked my football in the bin and begged my mum for a board! He then showed me Deca’s ‘Second to none’, still the best skate vid! And I never looked back! Baggy clothes, hip hop and style over tricks is what I saw as skateboarding culture, a way of living, not a sport, just mates doing something different to the mainstream.

   

  Skateboarding gives me a massive outlet from the real world. It allows me to forget the pressure of work and I get to meet the best people and travel to great places. Skateboarding isn’t just a sport, it’s a culture that brings everybody together.

   

  I think Sk8 Safe is brilliant, it gives kids an opportunity to not only try a new sport but helps them progress further with the help of wonderful people. It not only helps technically with the sport but also builds self-confidence, safety, etiquette and all round great attitudes.

   

  Current Sponsors are:

  DC Shoes

  Retreat Brand Clothing

  Dissent Skate Shop

   

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  Denham Hill

  Hi, my names Denham Hill, I'm 23 years old and I currently live in Otley, West Yorkshire.

   

  I started skating around 2001/2, when skateboarding experienced a huge boom in popularity. Everyone wanted a board. Loud graphics, Louder music and really, really baggy jeans were the order of the day. All my friends rode, and after some persuading, my parents bought me my first proper deck at christmas. An old Toy Machine deck with Toy machine wheels and some incredibly dodgy trucks. It still stands as one of the best gifts I have ever received.

   

  It's be a few years until I descovered freestyle skateboarding, which has since become the single most long standing and positive influence in my life. Freestyle is something of a lost art, having almost completely died out in the early 90s. Freestyle involves creating lines and routines, but completely on flat ground. It's all pogos, primos (or rail stands in old money!) and as many manual and 360 variations as one could imagine. Say "Rodney Mullen" and people usually understand what freestyle is.

   

  I love skateboarding because it has helped me overcome many personal issues and restored a sense of worth and purpose. Any anxieties or insecurities I may have can be dealt with constructively. I feel skateboarding has helped me progress into being a more confident and balanced individual. Simply put, I skate because it's one of few things I feel I couldn't live without.

   

  Sk8 Safe offer fantastic opportunities for the younger generation to take up a sport which is accepting of everyone, of any background. It gives young people a chance to progress in a such a way that they set their own limits, no matter how high, without any fear of rejection as may sometimes happen in team sports. I hope to continue working with Sk8 Safe and developing individuals in a way which I think little else can. I hope skateboarding can be just as much of a positive influence on them as it was on myself and so many others.

   

   

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  Carl Agar Brennan

  I spent most of my career working for large corporate organisations, gaining extensive knowledge as  an operations manager. Some of the best times I’ve had however, were in the skate industry setting up and running a local skate store. My passion for skateboarding started in the early 90s, some might say I was a late bloomer! Working with the skateboarders in North Allerton, North Yorkshire I decided to bring skateboarding supplies to their local town. I soon built a fantastic group of friends all who skated and later became soul-mates. During my time running a skate shop I worked with local councils, Radio 1, Sony, and exhibition teams to give my all to the sport.

   

  There is no greater joy than seeing a young boarder taking those first wobbly rolls down a flat bank or seeing the board rise a couple of inches off the floor when they land their first Ollie. Pure joy. Working with Sk8 Safe gives me the opportunity to repeat that feeling time and time again knowing that each and every one of them has the opportunity of a great future immersed in the world of wheeled sports and the pleasure it can bring to their lives, and hopefully their children thereafter.

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  Stevie Cussons

  I have been riding for  8 years.  I have had many great moments in this time on my Scooter. Being told I was going to be flown to Munich (Germany) to represent micro was a particular highlight! I have ridden for Micro, Mutts and Dogg over this time which was a real adventure.

   

  My favourite skatepark is Radlands Plaza, my favourite scooter brand is Proto, my favourite food is pizza, I love Pizza nearly as much as I love riding! You will find my riding my local park most of all though in Harrogate listening to great music with a good beat most probably doing manual combos!

   

  So pleased to be a part of the Sk8 Safe team and contribute to the new Freestyle Scooter Training Courses.

   

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  Julie Thornton

  I’m delighted to joining the Sk8 Safe team. I bring an extra dynamic to the team, as an experienced youth worker for the past 18 years. My passion, drive and enthusiasm is to support young people’s dreams and aspirations.  Over the past 3 years this has included engaging and facilitating the skate community in our local area, giving all the young people and user groups the opportunity to get the voices heard with lots of new exciting developments.  These have included Preston Park Skate Park (Stockton), John Whitehead Skate park (Billingham), (Award Winning) Elmtree Project X and utilizing the councils mobile facilities’ that had been stuck in a cupboard for years. I’ve even been known to take 70 young people on trips to out of the area skate parks so they can get to see different parks and develop their skills.  Previously this has included a week’s residential for 20 young people from the Project X Steering Group to Chester facilitating user groups and designers in developing the skate park agenda for our Local Authority,  hitting parks on the route home was our reward.

   

  As a targeted youth support worker you will find me most evening either at a skate park or talking to groups of young people on the streets this is often the start of a great journey from my point of view supporting young people into the transition into adulthood is what makes me tick.

   

  The other string to my bow is my work with alternative education, my interest lies in education is not the one size fits all approach that the national curriculum offers, this lead me to qualify as an alternative education teacher and delivering lots of fun engaging programmes to young people who are excluded or at risk of exclusion from main stream school. I hope to use this work to bring a fun and interesting programme to Sk8 Safe that is both engaging and suits the needs of our users.

   

  The Sk8 Safe team have even had me on a board now I can’t say it went well but can’t blame me for trying!