Podcasts and Stuff

This month saw us release our latest collaboration, this one with Glasgow Podcast Board to Death and design by Jonny Paterson.

Podcasts have been important to me for a very long time. I enjoy the company and the variety.

Over the years i’ve been lucky enough to be asked on to a number of podcasts and even hosted whilst one was on a break (thanks again Ica!). I’m also due to be involved with another podcast very soon - more on that later! Dream come true stuff for me. And so when Jonathon of BTD podcast asked about doing something I was more than happy to get involved.!

Board to Death has covered many a subject and is well marshalled by Jonathon with a structure that keeps it on track - the world doesn’t need more 4 hour long rambling podcasts ! Addition, gatekeeping, mental health - all subjects that make for good listening and hopefully good learning.

It’s not easy keeping something creative going. The return on your investment of time and money isn’t always tangible. Not everyone will like it - some will go out of their way to let you know. But mostly people will be supportive and it’ll provide something positive to someone including yourself. It’s certainly done that for me with Doric Skateboards. So massive well done to all those out there doing their thing - and especially to Jonathan for trusting me with this. Stoked.

I’ll be making an appearance on Board to Death this Summer where hopefully I won’t make a tit of myself. I tend to talk and talk nervously when I get going in most situations which can lead to me saying silly things and lots of self deprecating stuff.! Canna help it.

If you want to help keep their podcast going you could purchase one of the hoodys or tees in the collection - it’ll go a long way!

Linked here.

Thanks for reading and thanks for the support.

Mental Health Fundraiser - September 22

As we approach winter and the uncertainty surrounding fuel bills I wanted to try to raise some funds for Mental Health Aberdeen.

Link to Fundraiser HERE.

Poor mental health can be triggered by many things - stress over money can certainly be one. MHA provide an invaluable service for people who are struggling. We hope to raise some money to go towards this. Keeping someone on the other end of a phone or a counsellor on hand is going to be so important as we seem to enter such an uncertain winter. 

Each donation will be entered into a draw. We have a few prizes up for grabs including:

• One off test print Deck of the Hello Radical Deck - also include a HR Zine.

• John Walter Deck signed and numbered. Ltd Edition.

• Stallan Deck - no longer in print or available! 

• And a donation from local artist David Shade - Paper Planes spray painted deck - a one off.! 

• We also have 4 of our badges to give away too via an anonymous donor. 👍

So that’s 8 prizes to be won. No matter what size the donation. 

Some of these decks were actually owned by John Welsh who many locals will know sadly passed away. His entire collection was kindly donated to Transition Extreme where I bought them back from.  I hope they can now raise a little more money!

If you can donate any amount it will be appreciated - it all adds up. Even if you can’t it would be a huge boost if you could share this appeal. 👍

We’ll run this until the end of September and draw prizes after that. Stay tuned to our socials for that! 

Thanks kindly

Gary

Guest Blog Post - Ross “Fox” Salitura Skateboard Coach

“In what I hope is the first of many guest blogs on the website here is Ross. When I approached Ross about writing a blog I didn’t discuss subject matter or context in particular. Really want to thank him for sharing something honest, positive and engaging. I think you’ll get something from reading this. Thanks again - you can find Ross on Instagram here ,his website for lessons is here and once you’ve read his blog you’ll find his YouTube link there too” Gary.

Hi

I’m Ross “Fox” Salitura - Gary asked me to write a guest blog for the Doric Website and I jumped at the opportunity, however, I then got nervous and I have re-written this multiple times, through fear, anxiety, nerves and countless other reasons. 

Eventually I decided to write from a place of honesty and talk about my time skateboarding in Scotland in the hope that someone will take something away from my ramblings. 

I have been on and off a skateboard since I was 12/13 and I am now a “young” 31. I moved to Scotland in 2015 and fully re started skateboarding around 2018/2019 after having taken a break for a few years. I came back with an open mindedness and desire to push and progress as much as I could before I got “too old”.

I was bought a 5 foot mini ramp by my ex wife and built this in my garden which gave me a space to practice away from people as I had nerves around how “good” I would be after not skating. Unfortunately, one neighbour who was not skateboard friendly, reported this ramp to the council which resulted in me taking a dispute with the council all the way to the government. Unfortunately I lost the dispute with the government which led to me taking the ramp down in December 2019. 

Through this battle, I learnt a lot about building and planning regulations and discovered, that If I put wheels onto ramps and built in my garage, I could still have ramps. Therefore, I moved my ramp into the garage and continued skateboarding while considering expanding with “portable” ramps at a later date. While going through this dispute, the story was picked up my local and national newspapers and the support of local skateboarders was simply amazing and led me to be confident enough to go out and meet some of them and start interacting with the skateboard community around me. 

LOCKDOWN! - This slowed skating down as I couldn’t go to the skatepark, however, I was fortunate and had a ramp in my garage and discovered a website selling portable ramps, so I purchased a few and I continued.

I enjoyed the idea of me supporting a Scottish Skate Company and It was around this lockdown time, that I bought my first Doric Deck. I had followed Doric on Instagram and I knew a couple guys had used their boards and they seemed to hold up well. Once the sunburst orange board arrived and I started using it, I was hooked and continued to use Doric boards regularly. 

I loved the website, content and all the amazing artwork and collaborations with local artists that Doric does. There is just a genuine feel to the company and which is simply inspiring. A very wholesome local company.

Unfortunately although I was re-discovering skateboarding, during this time in lockdown, my marriage fell apart, my mental health suffered and my addictions took over. I continued to skateboard, and also started filming tricks, clips, blogs and other fun videos. However, I was battling demons I was not used to or understood. I swear that without the skateboard, community and outlet it provided, I don’t know where I would be right now. 

Skateboarding was the only constant. No matter how bad things got, I could go out on the board and ride down the street and feel a small moment of peace or freedom. I cannot quite put a finger on the emotion or feeling, however, its something I treasure and am thankful for. 

I don’t write this for sympathy, but to show that having something you are passionate about, care about, and can do when things are not going well, you will still be able to find a reason to continue, to feel peace, to enjoy a small moment in time. 

In August 2021, I broke my toes, damaged ligaments and just messed up my whole leg while trying to do an air in Newport Bowl in Fife. I waited over 3 hours for an Ambulance to come which it did not and had to be dragged out of the bowl in agonising pain. This was near to the lowest point in my life and in my twisted state, I felt like skateboarding and everything it involved had betrayed me. (This was not true). I flew down to England to stay at a house my friend had. I don’t like recalling this time, however, I chose to isolate myself from everything good in my life that friends, family and skateboarding had bought me. Instead I dove into self pity, despair and depression. I reached a breaking point and knew I had to do something.

After roughly a month, I phoned a skateboarder who had put out his phone number on Instagram for anyone struggling and I cried down the phone to this guy in the USA. He just listened without judgement and a sentence he said stuck with me. He told me “were warriors dude, were, fu!@ing warriors” THIS, from a skateboarder I had never met, but admired was enough to remind me that skateboarding and its community are amazing. I realised, my skate community was in Scotland. So I returned to Scotland, determined to stop the addictions in my life and to recover. 

I won’t go into the full depths of my issues here, however, rest assured, today, I am here, sober, stronger and more sound and peaceful than I have ever been. When I returned to Scotland in September 2021 I sought help and reached out to mental health charities, doctors and addiction support groups. All of these I cannot thank enough. Please if anyone is struggling with anything, REACH OUT! There is always support and people out there who will listen and support you.  

When I was back in Scotland, I noticed that skateboarding, although injuring me now and then, was still a thing I loved. The people around me who are involved in skateboarding, all cared about me and wanted me to be well. Skateboarding had created a community around me of people who were friends. True friends. I had overlooked and isolated myself from this and could not believe how unaware I was of what I had gained from skateboarding in Scotland. I was overwhelmed with support and started to investigate into how I could give back to skateboarding. This was when I found and undertook the Skateboard GB course to become and Accredited skateboard coach. 

This course took place in Glasgow in October 2021, which was an amazing time in my life. I met lots of skateboarders who I had followed on social media and made new friends while on the course. This course honed my skills and helped me understand how best to help and support new and experienced skateboarders in lessons. 

I finished the course fully qualified and grateful. I started looking into how to set myself up as a freelance coach, and Don’t Comply Films, who have a small private skatepark in Kirkcaldy offered me their space for lessons. This group of young men who own the skatepark, had been there not only for the good times, but also through all the bad times, supporting me and helping me through my journey. By offering me this space for lessons when I could find nowhere else to do them, showed me, again more support than I can ever thank them for. 

I took this opportunity and set up a website from scratch, lesson plans, schedules and all of the craziness that goes into starting up a small business. I knew that I would need spare skateboards for lessons, and Doric had recently started selling a full set up, which I jumped at the chance to get one. I use this set up for lessons to this day for anyone who wants a lesson but does not have a skateboard.  

All in all, my life is peaceful now. A massive reason for this is due to skateboarding, the people involved, and the overall support within the skateboarding community. To you all, I am thankful. 

I would like to end my ramblings by saying It takes courage to start a company and pursue a dream, and seeing someone do this, is nothing short of inspiring for people such as myself.  I am now pursuing a career which I love and have friends within the skateboarding community all across Scotland and the UK. I contribute a lot of my inspiration to small companies such as Doric and people like Gary who show that it is worth taking a chance on something you enjoy. 

Ross “Fox” Salitura

Skateboard Coach 

Fear.....

My list of fears are large and varied.

One of my earliest memories is being at my brothers school assembly of some kind at Bramble Brae Primary Northfield circa 1980.

There must have been a performance and we had to clap. Surrounded by strangers I felt something that made me clench my fists and clap like that instead. Somewhere inside I realised that clapping made a noise, noise brings attention, attention brings people. And I didn’t want that. At least thats my memory of it.

A few years later I may or may not have swallowed a bit of lego (it never “passed”). I had to stay in hospital overnight and as I lay there tucked in like I was planning an escape (I probably was) I felt a cough coming.

I held it in because I didn’t want the attention of the staff on the ward. But what happened was a small cough turned into a loud splutter and my intentions were in tatters as the staff came running.!

It seems bizarre to me and possibly disingenuous to you that I would write this blog post, do videos, podcasts, social media, work shops etc all in the name of starting a business and be scared of attention. But then we are complicated creatures full of contradictions and I’m no different.

What has any of this got to do with Doric Skateboards, skateboarding, screen printing, design blah blah?

None of this started out with a plan and a destination. It ‘s just morphed and grown in various directions organically. Perhaps if I had been more business/financially focused I’d be writing this on a brand new macbook (and not my day job laptop) and be doing this full or part time. Perhaps I would be following a Dropship type business model for the clothing. But I do things my way for good or bad! Thats not to say I don’t take advice, I really do. No one is a one man band.

I work on my fears all the time. Each time I post on social media or do one of these I am already second guessing what people will think, followed swiftly by the other part of me that tells me people are way less interested in me and what I do than I think. ; )

I’ll always be a fearful person. Its like that game where you whack all those moles with a hammer, then one more pops up! I conquer one for a day and then it transfers to something else. My main fear now is getting back on my skateboard. It consumes my thoughts at times and the longer it goes the bigger its built up. I am 100% embarrassed by how bad I am and that is part of what stops me.

My approach to handling these things has always been the same. When I was young and went to the skatepark I was elated when it was empty. That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy skating with friends (shout out Team Oatcake!) - I did. But if I was solo I didn’t have the social skills to adapt if there was a group there. So if it was empty I would anxiously have fun until more people turned up then I would slink away.

And 25ish years later when I started to learn to screen print I would turn up to Peacocks Studio with some screens under my arm. But if anyone else was there I would either:

1. Change my mind and go home.

2. Do the absolute bare minimum and then scurry away.

3. At all times keep what I was doing hidden so no one could see it.

I’ve become way more relaxed when going to Peacocks now. I understand when people think of these places as pretentious, arty places that are impenetrable.

Some of that is true. ; )

But mostly its just normal folk getting on with their own thing.

Will I find the same peace of mind with getting back on my board? Will I find the confidence I had a few years ago when I would go for wee night time skates on my own?

Who knows?

Happy Birthday To Us. 4 Years Old.

Normally this blog post would be a summary of the free skate and cake session at Transition that we’ve done in the first 2 years. But obviously that’s not been able to happen - so we’ll plan one for later in the year or maybe just wait until our 5th Birthday and go all out!

So instead I just wanted to say a huge thanks to all that have supported me over the years.

To coincide with this we worked with local creative Katy Shewan on a product photoshoot. This also landed at a time when we were launching some new colours to the Plenty of PoP range.!

I’ve written about photoshoots previously. You can read it here. In that post i was exploring what a photo shoot means to me, to Doric and very broadly how different approaches are perceived.

Katy’s approach worked great for me - we chatted about what I liked and what I didn’t, looked at a mood board, talked about models and then I just left them to it.!

A few days later i had photographs for everything i currently have and one or two others for later. ; )

I think my hesitance to do something like this is just my pure self consciousness - I don’t want people to think i am taking myself seriously, getting beyond my station, etc. What I have discovered about myself is that whilst i don’t take myself seriously - I take what I do very seriously.

So I wrestle with the prospect of treating Doric Skateboards like a legitimate business. But I shouldn’t worry - its ok to take this seriously and want it to be a success. It really doesn’t make me some capitalistic twat. This was never set up as some kind of altruistic endeavour. I think in the early days I was almost apologetic about what I was doing. Embarrassed. But now I feel more legit. And that’s got nothing to do with popularity, takings, profit, exterior validation. Its just something in me.

4+ years ago we wrote a mission statement. Some of it has changed over the years but one bit has remained:

“create a skateboard brand that we can be proud of.”

This used to say the North East. But it really starts with me. If anyone else wants to be part of that “we” then that’s absolutely amazing! : )

And so photoshoots like this one help give me a wee sense of pride and make sure I keep on track with the hows and whys of starting this in the first place.

Happy Birthday to Us. : )

Clear the Decks

As I posted on FB this week I’ve been digging through the clearance stuff and having a think about how that reflects what i’m doing and how i’m doing it. This definitely signals a change that started earlier this year when i started migrating my clothing to more environmentally friendly stock.

When i’m left with excess stock its either one or a combination of a few of these:

• Totally missed the mark on the design/didn’t resonate;

• Getting stuff printed by a 3rd party often includes minimum numbers (perhaps too high for me);

• Too enthusiastic about stuff - particularly if i’m printing. I enjoy the process so much i can get carried away;

• Not asking people what they think before going for it;

• General anxiety to ensure i have enough sizes/colours of designs.

So pre-orders seem to be the way ahead. I’ve always done informal pre-orders - no money exchanging hands until i have the product ready. But that’s left me stung on a few occasions when folk change their mind/lose their job or just ghost me - no criticism there, shit happens.

The Stallan pre-order worked really well although due to shortages i’m still waiting to fulfil 4 orders. But overall it seemed to be a good way to gauge interest and only produce the tees that i needed with a few extras for the website. Decks are a slightly different proposition as for ones i get printed there are minimum orders and for the ones i print it takes a great deal of effort so i have to do a decent amount to make it worthwhile (in terms of time).

But for clothing i can be in much better control. Some of the new tees i’ll be launching soon will be printed DTG (direct to garment) by a local printed Grey Area Ink. Pete used to be a screen printer so knows his onions in the print game.! It also means i’ll be supporting another local business on a more permanent basis. Doing this should give us more control to produce what we need, when we need it. My tiny wee loft space is only so big.! I’ll also be working on a more formal basis with a local designer soon - more news on that later this month.

So hopefully in the future i won’t need to do too many clearance type sales. That means less of those “MEGA SALE GRAB A BARGAIN” type posts which i’m sure we are all sick of and reduces the amount of future landfill that i’m directly contributing to.

This year we’ve missed about 4 pop ups due to the global crisis so its reduced our capacity to sell. But the upside is the website sales have been much higher than before (thanks for that!). And i’ve spent less on stock - mostly because i’ve had no choice with places closed for a while. At the start of lockdown I held off on “selling” posts and did a bit more sharing of other local businesses which I feel like I’ve always done and still do. But after a wee while I felt like it was time to go again with my own stuff. And that’s when we kicked off the Stallan colab.

I’ll stick the link below to the clearance page on the website. Some gems in there for good prices.! : ) Have a look see. Maybe give it a share with someone you think would appreciate it.

Thanks for reading and thanks for the support. Always appreciated and never taken for granted.

www.doricskateboards.com/clearance

Doric Design Competition

Well that was fun wasn’t it?

The idea for this came from a chap called Chris Rae who runs a drone photography business called Aperture Aerial Photography. We are both doing the same course at RGU at the moment and the idea of a design competition popped up! So thanks for the idea!

I think we had over 70 entries in 14 days.!

It started out as just a deck design, a one off.

But as it went i thought we should expand it. So I thought stickers and tees too.

To be honest we could have had 5 deck winners easily. So i whittled down that list to to 5 or so and sent to Mike from Transition. And thankfully he sent back a top 5 in almost the same order as me! Same winner so that was perfect.

Neils Cull the Gulls/People is spot on. So much so that we’ve decided to do a full run of this in the future.! It definitely has some fun about it but also a little bit of menace which i love. Keep your eyes peeled for this later this year.

Then we thought about a T-Shirt. Again - loads of possibilities but one stood out for a few reasons. It was very very local and niche. A reference to a notorious harbour bar in Aberdeen - Peep Peeps. No longer with us but immortalised on Britain’s Toughest Bars! So that was a great shout from Phil. Some locals are going to be sporting this tee very soon! : )

Then we picked two designs to do as stickers. Roberts Aberdeen Football Club inspired one and Stewarts Keith Haring one were fantastic and will be produced soon. They will be available on the website very soon with all profits going towards Mental Health Aberdeen.

Next we picked some runners up for some extra prizes! A very generous local donated £25 for a Hobbycraft gift voucher and that went straight to Zack! Really loved his drawing of Union Terrace and some Burns for added Scottish!

We had to pick another 5 for sticker packs so congrats to Justin, Andrew, Patrick, Livi and Sandra.! Those packs are winging their way to you folks now (if you haven’t sent me your address go for it!).

And again thanks to all that entered and all the comments. It certainly distracted me from the realities of life at the moment and i hope it did for you too.

Maybe lets do this again next year?

Didn't See This Coming...

Well that’s not quite true. We had warning. Examples. Cautionary tails.

But it looks right now (24th March 2020) that the UK’s decision to go into lockdown may be too late to head off the worst? At least that’s what the experts and infographs say. And we all know how much people trust experts at this point in time. What do they know? More than my mate that’s watched some videos on YouTube from David Ike?

Aye probably. ; )

Anyways.

Where does this leave Doric Skateboards? Well i’m lucky that this doesn’t provide me with any income. Every penny goes back in, plus we always give donations to various causes and of course support a couple of skaters with our merch. Although like most folk i’m concerned about my day job - i’m working from home at the moment but who knows whats round the corner?

Sales have obviously been quiet. I’ve scaled back on sharing “sales” posts but i have to stay positive and look forward to whats next for us. So i’ll maybe see where i am in a week or so and start sharing some stuff again - new colabs etc. The only stuff on social media i am sharing is that stupid March Meet the Maker challenge.! Ha! I’ve started it so i’ll finish.

Any shares, likes, comments, recommendations and reviews online are very very welcome.!

Once this is all over we’ll be kicking off a celebration for our 3rd Birthday which is next week. Plans to follow in the coming weeks. Months?

For now i can still post stuff if anyone needs/wants something. All my stock is bagged and boxed up safely.

Until then - stay safe and i hate to say this BUT think twice about going for a skate. If you injure yourself and end up in A&E? Well this ain’t the time..

Finally - another wee nudge to check out our People We Like page. Perhaps someone there that could do with some support in any way you can.

Oh! And keep your eyes peeled on social media this week - i’ll do a live screen printing session and you can fire questions/insults at me.

Cheers

Gary