Get Your Skates On For The Uk's First National Inline Skating Week
The UK Inline Skating Association (UKISA), a nationwide association responsible for skate instructor certification and the promotion of safe skating today announced the UK's first National Inline Skating Week, running 9–15 May 2005. National Inline Skating Week aims to encourage people of all ages to get their skates on and participate in rollerblading activities that are being arranged by volunteer groups throughout the UK. Group activities similar to the popular Friday Night Skate (FNS), Sunday Rollerstroll and the recently launched Saturday Easy Peasy skate for beginners (all founded by Citiskate in London) are already planned in Birmingham, Edinburgh, Glasgow, London, Swansea and Weymouth. UKISA is aiming to raise support for local skate events in more towns and cities across the country. "Inline skating is a growing sport in the UK and we receive lots of enquiries about activities outside of the capital," said Andreas Kolattek, UKISA director and Citiskate founder.

"Whether you are new to the sport or interested in becoming an instructor, the emphasis is on giving it a go and having fun. Building on the great success of our London skates and courses, we are branching out to encourage more people nationwide to participate in group skating activities." In association with National Inline Skating Week, UKISA will be launching the ‘CLASS' safety campaign, providing guidelines for skaters to be Considerate, Legal (follow the Highway Code), Aware, Safety conscious and to gain the basic Skills for recreational skating. The guidelines are available on the UKISA website at www.ukisa.org and will be a core element taught at all Citiskate and UKISA training courses. National Inline Skating Week also coincides with the second London Skate Festival (9-15 May 2005), which aims to introduce families and individuals of all ages to rollerblading by focusing on teaching basic skills and safety guidelines in a safe environment.

The Festival offers free workshops and lessons run by qualified instructors at venues around the capital, where people of any ability can simply turn up and skate.

The London FNS planned for National Inline Skating Week will be the first ever ‘Circle Line' skate, taking place on Friday 13 May 2005. More than 500 street skaters are expected to join the 15-mile route, starting from Hyde Park Corner at 8.00pm, which will follow all of the tube stations along the Circle Line. "Last summer's Monopoly skate, though challenging, was a phenomenal success with London's street skaters," said Andreas Kolattek. "For National Inline Skating Week we were looking for something similarly unusual and the Circle Line – more traditionally known for stag party pub crawls – is perfect! The circular route will take us past many well-known London landmarks on an interesting tour that people of intermediate level can join." To register an activity for National Inline Skating Week, or for more information on organizing a local event, please visit www.ukisa.org or contact Andreas Kolattek on +44 (0)20 7731 4999.About UK Inline Skating Association - UKISA was set up in 2002 to promote responsible inline skating and certify inline skaters to instructor level. As well as holding a national qualification UKISA instructors also have top level background checks with Disclosure, the government backed organization that offers access to Police, Department of Health (DH) and Department for Education and Skills (DfES) records About Friday night skate - The FNS is a free weekly skate around town that started in 2001.

Weekly skater attendances now regularly pass the 500 mark. The only legal requirement to skate on London streets is to be able to safely stop on skates and to wear lights at night. The FNS does not have a political agenda and aims to promote skating to Londoners as an alternative means of transport..