i am finaly a senior studying news media broadcasting with a concentration in print. it is required of us that we write a feature story on anything that we wish to do. i had finished a paper about a friend’s mom who had been diagnoised with thyroid cancer a while back.( shes all better now, by the way its the best kind of cancer you can get, 97% survival rate.)
but after monday’s event i decided to trash the story and write one about this monumental event instead.
so heres what i am looking for i need as many stories as you guys want to tell me about your concerns and the effect that this will have on your livelyhood. glassers, backyard guys, smaller time shop owners and you big guys would be great to.
theres so much info in the other threads and its all great, but i need your name and your business name and so on and so forth.
and greg if you read this some info about the future of the industry would be great. by the way i love your resin.
when i finish i will post it here first and you can let me know what you think.
thanks
comeone guys i know your out there. this isnt going to get published. the only people who are going to read it are me, a friend who helps edit my papers and the teacher.
Thats cool . . . whats your thesis? Are you going to focus on personal lives or industry or both? Is it going to be open ended or is going to favor a direction (pu or eps or . . .)
some hints
might want to build it up to show the dynamics of the industry . . . how surfer mentality is (soul anti industry etc) and the pro, beginner, pro “ho” (following industry, buys the mags, wears brand name only, buys popular magazine, wears the street clothing), how shapers / glassers aren’t getting paid, but the pro’s, how shops are hard to run, etc . … especially how surfboards supports the industry. The surftech . . .
Then research clark foam, its biz stats etc . . . what volume they get (I saw it on here), and the market stats for boards sold etc. . . get list of top shapers. Then check into the stats given here by at sways. Key is build the importance and how clark foam shouldered the industry and build that sudden bomb drop type thing. Also go into the small niches carved out by alternative materials . . . you could also go into how guys like Greg or Bert had some new stuff but no one wanted because of the mentality . . . and now this change is opening up people.
Then hit up shapers, glassers, retail or industry related in your area. And Email or PM people here and ask for their stories . … if they choose to let them go. If people don’t want names printed, use alias. Check out fellow surfers and heavy locals . . . visit the Clark distributor . . .
I hated preping bibliographies . . . but they help make a good paper . . . have fun!
Couple of thoughts for you turbo - There is a papers worth and then some on that clark closes thread that went to 10 pages in a day and a half. You could look through that and see if there seemed to be folk who would “work” for you.
As for me, a “back yard”/shead guy - I wrote basically, I don’t care. I feel bad for the people who work in the industry and may experience finacial hardship, but I switched to RR epoxy and ps, thanks in big part to Dale S. and this site. So my feedback to you would be, as a backyarder doin’ the epoxy/poly styrene thing, it doesn’t effect me. (Of course it effected me to the degree that Sway’s went nuts over it for some days!!!) I have no plans to make boards for anyone even if they asked… Unless of course they were buying all the supplies, and letting me shape what I wanted for them, but that’s just me and my “artsy fartsy” side.
I will say this, I just hope this doesn’t make RR epoxy more expensive and harder to get, but it seems economis would suggest Greg might be able to up production and thus keep the cost the same even if his demand goes up… Some of us hope any way! Ha!
That’s all I got for you man, good luck. TaylorO