Free Ride, Pittsburgh's DIY Recycled Bike Collective

January 28, 2009 Meeting Minutes!

(Additional notes posted on crabgrass, if any, will be added) – Rachel

(Please complete and correct any parts that you find missing or incorrect in these minutes)

Some council members who wanted to attend could not due to bad weather. Therefore, no big decisions will be made at this meeting.

Agenda

• Finance position to replace Shaun (sp?) (15 minutes)
• discuss Earn-a-bike (EAB) proposal (45 minutes)
• discuss co-op proposal
• talk about the process of meetings and decisions

Finance position

Need to fill the finance committee and replace Shaun (sp?). Also, Bike Pgh’s accountant (Kitty) left her job, and BP will need to find a new accountant soon.

Responsibilities that Shaun had:

• count money, don’t lose it
• write rent check every quarter
• pay the phone bill (monthly?)
• liaison with BP accountant
• answer questions about where checks went
• report Kitty’s findings to the group
• liaison with other members about how to handle money
• maintain the cash register, support staffers
• deposit money at Free Ride’s bank account at PNC Bank and at the bank account at the East End Co-op Credit Union, which is in Shaun’s name
• mail report for cash register to BP
• maintain the credit card for QBP
• write checks
  (Kitty does the data entry)

Shaun wants the EEFC account and QBP credit card to be changed from his name to a different name. He is willing to wait till the end of February, and instruct anyone about the tasks he has been performing. We should not ask anyone to take a personal account in her/his name. Ideally, we want one bank account with credit card at a credit union, but EEFC does not offer business accounts or credit cards. Massimo and Philip will look for an appropriate credit union.

Proposal: tell Shaun to close his personal account at EEFC and transfer the money to the PNC account. Tested for consensus; three neutral votes, the rest agree.

Jessica said: Proposal: set a timeline for transferring to a new credit union.

Proposal: get a focus group to work on the financial issues, if there are already people interested. Even though no decisions will be made, research can begin.

Morgan said: Ordinary non-profit organizations deal with finances by having all members prepare reports about how they spend money. Then the board of directors typically hires someone to review and summarize the reports, so the board can make decisions. We should consider hiring someone as an accountant to have the “feduciary” responsibility.

EAB restructuring proposal

Goals:

• limit participation
• low administrative overhead
• avoid having a waiting list

Proposal:
Everyone who enrolls in EAB must begin by taking two drop-in lessons of their choosing. EAB enrollment is only done on specific days.

The two classes will be useful for the EAB participants.

Will Pgh said: there are six lesson topics, and EAB participants will only take two lessons. Is that a good idea? He thinks not. May be better to restructure one or both lessons as a more general intro.

What about people who have already done EAB once? They still have to take classes.

How to synch the online and in-person sign-up lists?

Massi: we can incorporate tracking of classes on the members’ ID cards.

(Mick had volunteered to count the EAB projects completed last year.)

Morgan: people should be vetted to be class instructors.

Jessica: dilemma about having sign-up only in-person at the shop: it is restrictive, but signing up online is so easy that people sign up but do not show up.

Massi: according to the proposal, people can’t sign up for EAB at the shop and start EAB right away. But can people sign up for classes and attend right away?

Will: there is a problem that people don’t know what classes will be most useful to them, because they don’t know what work their new bike will need, because they have not seen the bike.

Philip: can’t they pick a bike before the first class? Or during the first class, if it can be restructured as an intro class?

Philip: the problem of people signing up but not showing up is usually solved by taking money at sign-up, then allowing the time up to (say) 2 days before the class to reschedule or cancel.

Some additional EAB Notes

Ideas:

• People must attend 2 classes to start EAB (Monday drop-in)
• Fixed time to enroll in EAB program (weekly?)
• People can’t go to shop and start an EAB on that day, they have to do some stuff first
• Limit on simultaneous EAB’s in process
• Doing 2 (of 6) classes at a greater level of detail is perhaps better than trying to quickly skim over everything (i.e. making a 2 class EAB 101 curriculum)

Potential Problems:

• Proposed Monday drop-in schedule is on a 6 class rotation (vs. 2 class EAB requirement)
• What to do with people who have done an EAB already and already taken 2 classes?
• Synchronizing signup for Monday Drop in between those who show up at the door and those who sign up by Internet or at Open Shop
• Who teaches? (equitable distribution of opportunities for paying work)
• What to do about slots reserved for people who sign up in advance and then don’t show up?

Data We Need:

• How many EABs did we do per week/month/season last summer (someone though Mic was going to count the forms)

Co-op proposal

Propsoal (as detailed in the proposal on the wiki): there are three types of shop users: non-members, members, council members. These are in increasing level of participation in the collective and increasing benefits. Non-members pay $2 per bike they work on during open shop. Members have free use of open shop, free use of small parts, discounts to classes and social events, access to paid opportunities. Members have 1 month grace period to pay $32 or work 4 hours, or a pay part and work part. If they pay, they can later earn their money back through work. (Council members must be members and have more contributions, and have benefits.)

Rachel: if people can earn back their money, we will not know how much money we have.
Jessica: we can have a set period for earning back membership fees
Morgan: is it necessary to offer earn-back, considering there is a grace period?
Will: How to pay people back – cash? check? How to document it?
Jessica: it’s already practiced in the shop, but probably not documented as a transaction

Will: the two novel things about this proposal are:

• closing the shop somewhat to those who want to use a tool on their bike and leave
• adding lots of volunteer hours. Need to think how to use those.

Morgan: some co-ops use a barcode scanner to sign in. Morgan and Philip are interested in investigating this idea and computerization more generally.

Morgan, Rachel, Erok: the barrier to staffing and paid opportunities is too low. Paid opportunities should require familiarity with issues (coming to meetings)
Jessica: they still require training

Morgan, Rachel, Erok: the administrative overhead may be too high.

Morgan: QBP benefit for members?
Erok: It’s not legitimate, strictly speaking. Distributors allow shops to sell parts at wholesale prices only for employees. Council members can be argued to be employees thanks to their higher involvement. But probably not members. But he thinks some bike collectives still do it. He will investigate.