Birmingham Blitz Dames

Watch out world! Birmingham Blitz Dames and Central City Roller Derby have merged and become Birmingham's new super league!

More info to come in the next few weeks, in the meantime check out the following link: https://www.birminghamrollerderby.co.uk



📷 Photo by Anja Wettergren Photography
https://www.facebook.com/anjawettergrenphotography

While many of us were enjoying being able to sit in parks and beer gardens without wearing multiple layers over the Bank Holiday weekend, 2 of skaters were running through the Lake District!🏃🏼‍♀️

Roisin and Pina took part in a Trail Pursuit race which saw them running 13.8km through the Lake District and past Lake Windermere. They finished off their day with some yoga, food by the lake and a medal for completing the race. 🏅

What a day! We got hit with a localised hail storm in Cannon Hill Park, then we were politely asked to leave 2 car parks (one had beautifully smooth concrete! 😭), but undeterred and powered by our love of skates we made our way to our 4th and final venue of Handsworth Park!

Big thanks to Sisterhood On Wheels for organising this event, we look forward to the next one. ✊🏿😎

The world has started to open up again and the sun has began peaking from behind the clouds. So if you haven't already this year, now is the time to think about getting your skates back on! We are most definitely dusting the cobwebs off our skates here at the Dames.

Tomorrow, Saturday May 1st, Violet Attack, Tantrum, Bowser, Prisoner Sel Block and Basha Fierce will be representin' the Dames in Cannon Hill Park at Black Women Skate. They'll be there to offer some skating advice and just generally sharing the derby love.

The event is being hosted by Sisterhood On Wheels who are a community of black women who love to skate. The group was only founded a month ago and already has over 500 members! ✊🏿

Here's a collection of Dames Christmas trees to bring you some festive cheer! 🎄

Whatever your Christmas looks like this year, we hope you have a great one. 🤗

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from all of us at the Blitz Dames.

💚❤️🎅🏼🎄🤶🏼🎁❤️💚

More Friday night quizzing with the Dames! 🤓 This week's awesome quiz was hosted by Dames alumni Penny Block and Rollo Tomasi.

There was many a furrowed brow and stressed phone calls amongst teammates as these two had our brains working in overdrive! But in the end it was the pairing of Han and Nico who came away victorious, finishing far ahead everyone else! 🧠

Today we are catching up with Dames rookie, Zoe:

Zoe's Lockdown

"The first few months of my lockdown were spent in a mild panic. I’m a freelance translator and attempting to find work as more and more businesses started to close was a little bit daunting, to say the least! Luckily, I found a new job working as a freelance editor a few months ago and things are going a lot more smoothly now (despite having to press pause on my PhD for a while).

The highlight of my summer was definitely getting new outdoor skates – a decision motivated by the realisation that my existing skates were not going to cut it, since they tried to kill me at the sight of even the tiniest of rocks! I was lucky to be able to skate with some of the Dames over the summer too, which was great fun!

I managed to sneak in a day at the lakes in August and had a make-shift beach day with my housemate during the heatwave (it was a paddling pool... we were desperate and hit a new low!) Embarrassing moments aside, I spent the rest of my lockdown re-centring and focusing on the basics. My fitness was abysmal after the first few months of sloth behaviour, so I joined the self-torture tribe and started doing at home workouts. I’ve done some painting and a little bit of sewing and started learning Japanese too (definitely a work in progress!) All this time at home has definitely turned me into an even crazier cat/bunny lady, too...

I miss derby and more importantly, all of you, enormously. Hopefully see you all soon!

Zoe x"

Friday night quizzing with Dames old and new! 🥰

Thanks to Quiz Master, Ballance of Power, we now know a lot more about the Soviet Union and Canada. 🇨🇦

And shout out to the quiz champions Attack and Yelmet, who won bragging rights for the next few weeks! 🤓

With roller derby training suspended for the unforeseeable future 😭 we're all looking at ways to stay active, as well as keeping in contact with members of our leagues.

This has been leading us all to try new things, including things that we wouldn't normally consider.

Last night, a few Dames went over to the dark side and played badminton! 😲

As we are in 'unprecedented times', we all need to do what helps us best get through this Pandemic. But, when normal service is resumed and we're all back to training, be rest assured that badminton will go back to being the nemesis of roller derby leagues everywhere!

This week we're catching up with Bomb Squader, Sheer Vooght Force:

"Vooght's Lockdown

Lockdown has been a pretty busy time for me work wise. I’m a diagnostic radiographer and both my hours and workload have increased as a result of Covid. It’s been quite strange being on the frontline during this time but I’m lucky to work with such a great team that’s really good at supporting each other and we have a laugh together. The weekly NHS clap on Thursdays nights was also really good while they lasted. It was the first time I’ve really felt appreciated by the general public for what I do.

Outside of work my life hasn’t been too exciting.

Fitness wise I’ve been trying to skate once a week, and completed the ‘all in: skate marathon‘ a few weeks ago. I was also one of these sad people who did the Chloe Ting summer workout challenge, which literally killed me, although would highly recommend to anyone who wants to know what pain is.

Like other folk I’ve attempted to improve my garden, have done a little bit, but then lost all interest and for the time being have decided to embrace the jungle it wants to be.

I’ve also been back home to Scotland recently to see my family, and most importantly my baby Jake (pic above 🐶). My family lives on the coast so was great to go to the beach and skate along the beach promenade, although discovered that skating and dogs do not mix as well as Instagram would lead you to believe.

Miss you all and hope to see you again soon,

Vooght x"