PSUK

From Fen Spinner Wiki

PSUK stands for Pen Spin UK, an English-speaking Pen Spinning Community that was originally active from late 2007 to late 2011, with members from the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland.

In August 2021 PSUK was reopened as a discord server run by Eman and V 0 1 D.

History

Active period 2007-2008

The PSUK community was initially formed in October 2007 by asakawa[1], with their first collaboration video, PSUK 1st being released four months later on January 31st, 2008. The domain www.penspin.co.uk was registered and a forum was hosted there since December 8th, 2007[2] using Freeforums.org as a platform. On August 8th 2008 the forum was updated[3] to phpBB3, which brought across multiple features including a shoutbox and simplified YouTube video posting.

The first gathering of the community was held on the 24th May 2008[4]. Notably IVESOUND and CrAsH were present with videos and photos taken, but these have not been recovered.

On the 9th November 2009 the PenSpin.co.uk domain name expired, but the forum still remained up at penspinuk.freeforums.org[5] until 2015 when it was removed by FreeForums for inactivity. When FreeForums was acquired by Tapatalk in 2017, this meant that penspinuk would not migrate to their platform, as the forum and all the data had been deleted, unlike UCPSB. The board still had some activity and further gatherings were arranged. In December 2009 there was a Christmas gathering for the community held at a Costa Coffee in Leicester Square, London[6]. It was recorded by Darkgenesisspinner-XD and CrAsH was again present.

On Feburary 1st, 2010 the second official collaboration video, PSUK 2nd, was released 2 years after the previous collab. This was the final official collaboration from the board. Later that year on the 13th April an Easter gathering was held[7] in Leicester Square, London at the train station's snack bar. IVESOUND, Darkgenesisspinner-XD and CrAsH attended.

The last group activity of the board was a meetup that occurred at Oakwood Theme Park, Wales on the 2nd September 2011[8]. This was again recorded by Darkgenesisspinner-XD.

Inactive period 2011-2020

The active userbase of PSUK dwindled towards the end of 2011 and the beginning of 2012. Many of the original teenage spinners had moved on to university or work, until the board became devoid of activity. The forum site still remained up until 2015, but there were no further meets or collaborations between members. Despite being effectively defunct, a few UK spinners have used the board name since, notably Juminuwo in popular CVs and Ceru entering under the community's name in WT15. Despite being a UK citizen, AfroSquared entered under UPSB when competing in the Pen Spinning World Tournament 2019, and is not known to have been a member of the original board.

There has also been controversy over spinners attempting to enter competitions under the community's name despite not being from the UK to gain extra spaces in competitions. In the Pen Spinning World Tournament 2017 Wayne and Isa from PSH attempted to register under PSUK, but were caught and re-entered under the wildcard system, eventually making it into the competitive event despite this.

PSUK V2 Reopening

In August 2021 Eman reopened PSUK as a discord server, with the resurgence of pen spinning in the UK brought on by the Tik-Tok app, social changes surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic and the success of the Pen Stock channel. From November to December in 2021 a PSUK Beginner's Tournament was held, won by ZeGentleman with JustVoxPop coming second place. On November 6th 2021 an express CV[9] for the board was made, the first collaboration in over 10 years.

In the Pen Spinning World Tournament 2021, V 0 1 D entering under ESPC came 5-8th after reaching the quarter finals. Later on, V 0 1 D and fellow PSUK member ZeGentleman would go on to take part in the Pen Spinning World Cup 2022 under the team "Final Boss".

Notable PSUK members

References