94. Creating a Neighbourhood Skate Club to tackle sexism & women's issues, with Lyndsay McLaren

This week's guest is Lyndsay McLaren – account director at All Conditions Media and founder of Neighbourhood Skate Club.

Lyndsay has spent the past decade in marketing and creative communications for action sports, outdoors, fashion and lifestyle brands worldwide. We're talking Patagonia, Go Pro, Adidas, Arc’teryx, Yeti and many more. Originally from Scotland, she graduated in Corporate Communication from Robert Gordon University in 2008. But then went to the States to study Performing Arts at the University of Florida, where she discovered a passion for skateboarding.

That's where she stayed for a while, securing her first step on the career ladder at Bern Helmets in Boston before returning to the UK in 2014 to further her career in the outdoor and action sports world. It's been a whirlwind adventure ever since. She spent five or six years in London, where she continued her love of skating and also launched Neighbourhood Skate Club, which aims to create more opportunities for women in the UK to skate, connect and community-build. It's also designed to address issues such as consent, street harassment, domestic violence, sexual harassment, catcalling and male violence against women - while offering support to survivors and victims. 

Today, Lyndsay is based in Leeds after the pandemic forced her to take stock and realise she needed to leave the capital. It's where she continues to run the Club and work for All Conditions Media, immersing herself in the production and marketing world of extreme and outdoor sports. 

Her new project and short film, A Land For Everyone, is something she's also recently been involved with – it aims to show skateboarding in a new light while breaking down some of the barriers that exist within the sport - and in fact, action sports and the outdoor industry in general. We sat down with Lyndsay to discuss all of this and discover why – despite everything she's been through – she's hopeful for the future.