NO: Snakes🐍, Chickens🐔, or Sheep🐑
Be authentic, independent and courageous self, because…you suck when you’re not!
Power imbalance & intimacy – no dating policy:
The KIND forbid forming of intimate relationships between dividuals while overriding power-imbalance or hierarchy is present within such a relationship, namely, but not limited to; coach-student, one party is heavily depending on another for finance and/or material, disproportionate social status including skating skill, are generally forbid / strongly discouraged from forming an intimate relationship with someone who are acutely vulnerable in proportion, as such power imbalance is a breeding ground for exploitation and/or abuse.
Our Ethos & Practice:
We aggressively practice inclusivity. We expect our community members to practice a baseline humanity to each other while allowing themselves to freely chose who they wish to hang around with, learn to distinguish rejection (personal choice) from exclusion (intended harm) or other forms of abuse, and handle personal conflict in a healthy manner. Any forms of bullying or other abuse, in overt or covert forms by anyone, including majority-on-minority, peer-on-peer, minority-on-minority will not be tolerated. We will offer a clear guidance on acceptable conduct, and won’t hesitate to publicly call out any harmful behaviours (not the names of the perpetrator, unless that is necessary for the safety of the community.)
We believe in active allyship and intervention, and continually remind our community that passive bystanders of aggression are equally culpable, as they are the enablers of the harm by the means of inaction, and such SILENCE IS VIOLENCE.
Where appropriate, we will not hesitate to report/liaise with the emergency services. We expect police officers to come in as part of their routine patrol, and may intervene adhoc if they identified any concerns.
C&C Separation:
The prevailing attitude amongst skaters, even including the female skaters, is that they are largely confusing the skilled skaters’ COMPETENCE in skating with their personal CONDUCT. Like the recent near-collapse of the CBI, one of the key enabling factors of misconduct by high-profile personnel is the habit amongst the skater community to blindly “worship” skilled skaters, and creating self-subscribed implicit hierarchy. This power imbalance derives from the passion towards skateboarding, and such blind devotion is generally accepted, if not expected or encouraged. And this kind of intoxicating energy would bleed into other aspects of community behaviours, it can cloud the individual’s moral judgements and thus enable abusive behaviours to escalate. We aggressively promote as well as practice the “C&C separation” to retain critical thinking, ability to make a judgement call, and the courage to act upon it when individuals are faced with compelling situations in the Grove, even if the accused was perceived to be “untouchable” due to their skateboarding competency.