<p>So stoked to be a member. My name is Vaughan Smith-Neville. I was one of a handfull of founding members of the Vancouver Skateboard Coalition alongside Cory Macintire. In fact Kyle Dion was president for a term or two&nbsp;before he started NewLine and the rest was history.</p>

<p>It was right about that time that I had the opportunity to travel to Taiwan to live and teach English. Skateboard advocacy is in my blood so natually my desire to protect the interests of skateboarding and grow it never left me. I lived there for about 9 years, and in that time myself and a small group of like-minded local&nbsp;skaters started the government-recognized Taichung Skateboarders' Association (The TSA).</p>

<p>While we constantly&nbsp;lobbied whoever would listen to stop building these non-skater, enormously expensive-but-janky steel frame "-Parks", we&nbsp;also set up a skate school which saw about 1000 kids graduate before we could no longer maintain the mobile courses. At one point we even held a contest in the middle of an indoor shopping mall and built one of our halfpipes inside a dance club. I wish I could show the photos on here!&nbsp;</p>

<p>In the last decade since then I've been laying low to raise my two&nbsp;boys...now aged 9 and 11, and have since moved back to Vancouver.&nbsp;</p>

<p>However recent developments surrounding new opportunities to build parks in Taiwan and the region have re-sparked a huge flame in me and my old Asian team. A decade has gone by and things have really&nbsp;matured, both our connections and our professionalism. I feel like this round will be like no other, and we will be much more successful this time in finally bringing&nbsp;REAL skateparks and plazas to Taiwan and the rest of Asia!&nbsp;</p>

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<p>Wish us luck!</p>
