To 2011 – The Year of the Siren – Jenna Tail’ya

The conversation in the beginning of 2011 went something like this;

“Should we try to have a home bout this year and see what happens?”
“Yeah, we could give it a bash. If it all goes wrong we’ll leave it for a bit.”
“To 2011 – the year of the Siren!”

“THE YEAR OF THE SIREN!”

And what a year it was.

We managed to hold that one bout – and do a pretty bang up job of it – so we followed that with another. And another. And one more after that. All in all we hosted four home bouts on our first year ‘out’. We played the Norfolk Brawds, Brighton Rockers, MK Concrete Cows, Kent Roller Girls, and even a  Siren v Siren bout! So OK, maybe we didn’t win all our games, but we learned a bucket load of valuable lessons as we went along. So who says we’re not winning in some way? Charlie Sheen certainly wouldn’t. Then we even found it in our hearts to let the boys have a go when Southern Discomfort played Lincolnshire Rolling Thunder, both men’s teams, on our turf.

In the span of that one year not only did we managed to hold four successful home bouts, but we also held two awesome fundraiser events, and two popular Freshmeat intakes. Various different Sirens trained at Blood and Thunder Bootcamp and the Rocky Mountain Rollergirls Bootcamp both in Birmingham, Sk8 Heaven Bootcamp in Northampton, Gotham’s strategy bootcamp in NYC, and WFTDA’s Officials bootcamp in Ghent. We were guest trained by Adrian Wordsworth, speed skating champion, Hula Gunn and The Bexorcist of the LRG, Sin D Doll of LRR, and many others. Bouts were watched and enjoyed live from England to America to Canada and back again. We got our first taste of the American teams live at Anarchy in the UK – London Rollergirl’s first tournament – and then got a taste of THE American team at the first ever Roller Derby World Cup in Toronto. We scrimmaged with loads with other teams, took part in a surprise close door bout, and skated a half marathon for Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital. We had some pretty mighty broken bones and injuries, welcomed some irreplaceable people onto the good ship Siren (like our epic announcer extraordinaire, Dan Gleibitz), and made some of the most amazingly hilariously lovely derby friends you could ever hope to meet.

All of this done with the Sirens’ trademark inappropriateness, vulgarity, and complete disregard for modesty that you’ve all come to know and love.

Towards the middle of the year the current league management decided it was time to step up our internal structure to match the pace of leaps forward we’d made in our events, so after a nomination and league vote our 2012 Board of Directors was born. Congratulations to the following;

Vice Managing Director – Mother Mercy

Secretary – Macey/DC

Treasurer – Lady GoreGore

Communications Director – Geek Le Chic

And that leaves me, Jenna Tail’ya, the proudest and most honoured Managing Director that ever did the derbies (that’s my self-proclaimed official title, innit).

One of our goals as directors is to have a completely open door policy within the league and with the community as well. If you’d ever like to speak to us regarding a comment, concern, question, or just to say we’re totally awesome (cuz we are) then drop us a message through our Contact Us section of the website.

So what’s next for 2012 you say? Well, that’s easy. Now we win bouts. I mean there will be other things as well; we’re planning four more home bouts for you this season, we’ve got two more fundraising events in the works (including the Anti-Valentine’s Day Flash Bash; got your ticket yet?), we’re looking to recruit some luscious new referees we’re aptly calling Refmeat (apply within), and we want to bout away more this year so if you’re an interested league keep us in mind. Have derby, will travel! But let’s be honest. 2012 will mostly be spent doing lots and lots of winning… does anyone else have that song in their head now?

So on behalf of myself, the board, and the league and everyone in it, we’d like to thank you all for making our first season in 2011 one to remember. We could never do this without the support of our families, friends, the other leagues we know and love, our beautiful fans, and the community.

We love you Saaaaaffffeeennndddd!!

Here’s to more bouts, more beer, more bruises, and more kicking ass!!

Jenna Tail’ya #407   xx
The proudest and most honoured Managing Director that ever did the derbies*
Seaside Siren Roller Girls

*And you thought I was joking.