1,000 signatures reached
To: All Aussie Climbers and active parents
Include a Bouldering area in the Victoria Park rejuvenation project
I want you to add your name to this campaign to add weight of public feeling to our proposal to include a bouldering region into the Victoria Park Rejuvenation project that is being undertaken in northern central Brisbane.
To the Victoria Park project team:
We the affiliated and signees of this petition ask that you include a Bouldering area into the plans for the rejuvenated Victoria Park in Brisbane.
The bouldering area would ideally include several boulder 6+ of 2-6 meters in height.
These boulders should be sourced from a robust rock type sourced from local area where they may have been revealed through excavation, mining or foundations work. This will reduce transport costs and ensure the rock type is of a local variety helping to fit into the image that you are creating for the park.
Not only will these boulders create an excellent training facility for established climbers in the region but they will also act as a lightning rod to the activity for the youth of the region to stimulate uptake of the sport.
A grassroots facility like this can be considered like a skatepark, basketball court or other sports facility that may be included into a council built park. Notably with the perk of looking like a sculpture in its downtime from use (unlike other sports facilities).
The brief for the rejuvenation of the Victoria park includes: "natural retreat, an urban park for adventure, discovery and reconnection"
Climbing uniquely amongst most sports fits all these categories.
It is inherently found in nature and the obstacle is formed by nature itself.
It is classified as an adventure sport and any climber that has ventured outdoors to find real rock would tell you it has lead them to an adventure or two in their explorations.
Discovery of new areas to climb, boulder fields, areas of your regions bush or new places/countries that you were attracted to by your curiosity for the sport is a mainstay of climbers experience. Not to mention the discovery of what movement your body is capable of and what feats it can achieve with due training and perseverance. Both mental and physical limits are pushed and superceded in this sport on every outing!
As for reconnection, there is no better sport for meeting social groups, connecting to people new and old, connecting generations and reconnecting to nature and your own mind through the meditation of training and movement.
For these reason we request that you include as large a bouldering area as you can feasibly achieve into the plan for the park.
Why is this important?
This is important as it will help to fight the worldwide obesity epidemic, it will encourage uptake of a new Olympic sport, it will help generate new climbers (boulderers in particular) to support the local bouldering facilities that are burgeoning in the region.
It will provide economic stimulus to the area of climbing provision be it outdoors shops such as K2, pinnacle, wildfire kathmandu etc, gyms (urban climb, 9 degrees, rockit, rocksports, core climbing, alpine, urban extreme etc, or even local guides and coaches. It will also support the local campsites in and around rural Queensland as boulderers love to travel to find climbing areas and it is usual to stay in a campsite near to the boulderfields for the weekends/weeks if further afield.
Not to mention that with climbing being one of the fastest growing sports in the world and a soon to be newly minted olympic event (in the 2020/21 olympics) it will no doubt see a further surge in participation. Some of the climbers that will be competing on that world stage found their passion for the sport on boulders similar to those proposed in this petition (Ashima Shirashi for example (A world leading American Boulderer) first climbed on her local boulder in a park in New York).
So for these reasons please include bouldering into the park.