Robin YoLife
Robin YoLife has been embedded in the derby world since 2004 as a rollergirl, a coach, a business manager and a founder. She started her derby career as an original member of the famed Rat City Rollergirls in Seattle, where she skated for 3 years with her beloved Sockit Wenches . After a brief stint with the Bay Area Derby Girls, Robin continued southward and founded the first all-female, flat-track roller derby league in Santa Cruz, California. Click here for news links. Robin has since retired from roller derby after nearly six years of roller derby madness, and is currently pursuing an MBA and will graduate with her master's degree in 2010. Finally! You can catch interviews with "Robin Yo Life" (as her derby name is commonly misspelled) in the documentary film Blood on the Flat Track: The Rise of the Rat City Roller Girls, co-directed by Lacey Leavitt & Lainy Bagwell. The film follows the Rat City Rollergirls' teams throughout the first two seasons and "focuses on the women who comprise the league, their teams' struggle to win the championship bout and their relationships with each other". You can also see Robin pictured in the book Roller Derby: The History and All-Girl Revival of the Greatest Sport on Wheels. “Yo” (as her derby friends call her) believes that today’s roller derby must become prolific! To contribute to this pursuit, she operates this blog in her spare time. Instead of hoarding information that could help another derbyist, Robin advocates sharing everything. Yo, Roller Derby was founded on that idea alone.
Posts by Robin YoLife
Non-Members on Your Boards
Feb 23rd
Retrospect is friggin 20/20, homegirls. So! I’m offering you the first article of a series I like to call Cultivating Right woManagement. In the series I’ll share some pretty major tips you need in order to be successful in creating leadership bodies such as a Board of Directors, a Steering Committee, or an Advisory Committee.
Cultivating Right woManagement Rule #1:
Recruit Outside Community Members For Your Boards
No matter what. Seriously. It doesn’t matter what stage your team or league is in, what business structure you have, or how long you have been in existence. You must do this. Emphatic enough? No? OK, let me try again… Whether you are a Limited Liability Corporation, or Non-Profit 501c3, if your team or league has a decision-making body of any kind, it is imperative to recruit outside of your membership.
Why? Simple.
There is no substitution for all that you stand to gain, and possibly… not lose.
You gain their input, benefit from their experience, and receive a much higher level of accountability from their unbiased presence. The accountability issue is reason alone. If you haven’t heard a story of a psychotic runaway train called, Insert Name Roller Derby Board of Directors, you will soon enough. And trust me, you will live this nightmare if you don’t get smart.
Imagine being able to sit down and actually interview a slough of motivated, savvy professionals that want to help make your organization stronger without any biases or agendas. Even with the best of intentions, people can get carried away and blinded by bias. We are human. But! Remember what the road to hell is paved with.
These non-members provide opportunities to treat the process gently and respectfully, as opposed to allowing people to get all emotional and then make rash decisions based on that emotion.
Go Fishing & See What You Catch
There are hoards of women (and men!) out there that are looking for unique opportunities to give back. The fact that roller derby is super cool and edgy is just icing on the cake. Put your hook out. Maybe you’ll catch a tax attorney, a marketing executive, or a former pro athlete! Reach for the top, figure out some areas where your organization wants to target your focus, and see what happens. Even if you can’t get a big fish like these examples, you still need a good percentage of non-members on your board.
Over 50 Can Kick Your Ass
Dec 6th
Think You Are Too Old For Roller Derby?
Pfffftt. I dare you to say that in front of The Hot Flash. If this woman isn’t one of your derby heroes, she will be.
The Hot Flash is one of my former teammates of the Rat City Rollergirls‘, Sockit Wenches, and was playing derby while she turned 50 years old! If that isn’t totally awesome enough for you, read on… Flash has recently come out retirement to skate with a new banked track league in Seattle called, Tilted Thunder Rail Birds! (BTW, banked track in Seattle? GO TILTED THUNDER!)
About The Hot Flash
Flash is 53 now and still totally kicking ass on and off the track. The Hot Flash’s new blog is going to document her experiences with the Tilted Thunder Rail Birds and she’ll share what she learns and teach what she knows. That is a beautiful thing. Flash has kinda been through the ringer since her Rat City retirement, so she is bound to be full of even more piss and vinegar and sound advice. Be sure to tune in.
On a side note, before I left Seattle I was looking for a name for my 1975 Dodge Dart that embodied the take-a-licking-keep-on-ticking mantra. I admit it’s a little odd, but I named my car after this woman! Flash was the frontwoman in a hilarious band called Donna Kay Honey & The Cowpokers and so… I named my car Donna Kay Honey. I say that like it’s a normal thing to do, but it totally fits.
photo by RJB Photo
Combat Roller Derby Gossip
Nov 23rd
Gossip is Roller Derby Poison
Back in 2007 when I was setting up policies for the Santa Cruz Rollergirls, we spent a lot of time on our SCRG Code of Conduct. Several members brought together various ideas and we ended up with a pretty good Code… Sadly, it was not good enough.
One thing that I tried to implement into the code was a message about that dreadful dirty word… Gossip. I have always believed that in any organization gossip can be blamed for the majority of dissatisfaction and unrest, distrust, and attrition (turnover rates). Not to mention gossip is without a doubt a killer of all the fun that being a part of roller derby can offer.
Why Do Girls Gossip Like Little Bitches?
Gossip is obviously a lose-lose for the person being gossiped about. So, what about the gossipers? What those toxic little brats don’t realize… they are a total douchebags and no one really trusts them. Gossipers are insecure people that are often gossiping to try to fit in or pit people against each other to elevate themselves in some way.
The thing is, gossip is really hard to fight. Not impossible, but difficult. However, eliminating gossip IS impossible if your league does not address gossip in a very specific way in your policies. Like Granny Yo used to say, “If you don’t deal with it, it’ll deal with you.” In this case, that is just a general way of saying… Have the friggin GUTS to address issues that will have a huge impact on your organization’s success if your treatment of those issues is insufficient. Grow some balls.
When we were writing our Code, my suggestion of adding a “Gossip Clause” was sort of laughed at. “You can’t control gossip.” “It’s a waste of time.” I knew they were wrong, I just didn’t know exactly how to make it stick. Bitches be trifling sometimes!
Be a Champion and Change Your Policy
In an article in last week’s Sunday New York Times, a manager explains her company’s gossip policy. The article is entitled, Workplace Gossip, Keep it to Yourself, and the idea is simple and brilliant. Each employee signs the company’s “agreement to values” form, which details the no-tolerance values and culture of the organization. The author believes it really works:
"It appears to me as if everyone has bought into the mind-set. If we ever sense that someone might be gossiping, we call that person out and say, 'You need to go to the source if you have a question.'"
Just as many of us have probably seen in your team or league, gossip promotes immeasurable negativity. Negativity does squat for your overall experience in derby, not to mention teamwork.
If I could do it all over again, I would push harder for a no tolerance-style policy in SCRG’s Code of Conduct. But, hey.. email me and I’ll gladly send you a PDF of the latest draft of the SCRG Code of Conduct. That combined with the above article can make a huge difference for your team or league.
Don’t Focus on the Stars
Oct 1st
Invest Resources in Girls that are NOT Super Stars
I have seen this all before. One of two things will always happen when someone quits or when you can’t control your turnover rate. You feel the loss immediately and panic, or the noticeable affects are felt a year or three down the road.
Does Size Matter?
Whether you are in a big league busting at the seams with six friggin teams like Toronto, a medium-sized league like Oly Rollers, or a small team that is petrified to lose their best jammer — it scarcely matters.
The big cities usually have the easiest time keeping a full roster, and by no coincidence these are the teams who are most susceptible to the dreaded sink-or-swim mentality. “Perform or we’ll find someone who will!” These leagues have the potential to create huge derby empires–in scale and popularity–with lots of sponsorship opportunities and large capacity venues.
Unfortunately, high turnover rates happen with small teams just as often and are extremely costly to any business and even more so to volunteer-based orgs. A smaller team usually means a smaller town, but not always. Large towns can have difficulty keeping members as well. Any number of missed opportunities, poor programming and just bad luck can affect membership numbers no matter how you slice it.
A league that was once on top of the rankings can easily slip if you ignore your volunteers and the girls who dream of the day when they will be on the starting line-up. You know them, these are the people that do the shit that you can’t so you can skate.
Hey, ladies… don’t let the success of today screw you up later. And if you already screwed it up, it’s not too late. Yo is here.
Some Practical Ideas That Can Prevent (or Reverse) the Problem
- Create a program that is just for non-skating members — if your volunteers are a part of things they will be around more regularly, take on more tasks and require less management.
- Allow room for aspiring skaters to skate within your league on a Fresh Meat team or a B-Team without having to pass WFTDA — see who wants in and create programs accordingly. Then regular opportunities for lower-skilled skaters to scrimmage and compete in exhibitions — don’t limit their play time because they are not “good enough”, give them real-game situations to learn from.
Ideas from an HR Standpoint
- Provide lower-skilled skaters opportunities to give public appearances and press interviews — these are the girls that are the thirstiest for the derby life, and this is the kinda stuff that keeps that much-needed spark in their eyes.
- Religiously follow a protocol for skaters who are injured — sign up your healthy members for shifts of bringing over dinner and lots of regular visits. The majority of injured skaters want to return to skating, so give the needed encouragement.
And oh yeah, did I mention Junior Derby? Who else is gonna take your spot when you are old and criple and have long since expired your derby shelf-life?
A Word About Your Culture
Take an active role to foster mentorship programs and pair up veterans and fresh meat on a regular and ongoing basis — teams are only a strong as their not-as-strong link! Impress upon your stars that is their duty to “give back” to derby because it is so easy to forget that someone gave it to them, or at least contributed to their success. Besides, if she isn’t interested in nurturing her own derby community, she is not really a star.
Yo, Roller Derby™ is a ROLLER DERBY COMMUNITY curated by flat-track roller derby veteran, Robin Hoff, aka 
