Free Ride Pittsburgh » Changes for Spring 2009

Changes for Spring 2009

What’s up at Free Ride? Lots of new stuff!

Through our winter meeting process, the collective has decided to enact a number of changes that we hope will make Free Ride more sustainable, more useful, and more fun. The overall purpose of these changes is to create a culture at Free Ride where people participate more equally in both the benefits and the responsibilities of operating the project. To do this, we have instituted a co-op structure, and we have rearranged our schedule to make open shop less structured, while providing dedicated opportunities for learning and volunteering that we hope are accessible to all. We felt that the previous structure of open shop in which “staff” people taught and directed volunteering was overly hierarchical and created too much burden on staffers, and frequently resulted in frustration for casual users.

CO-OP

As of February 28, 2009, Free Ride operates as a Co-op! There are three levels of participation at Free Ride: non-member, member and collective council. We have created this structure to encourage greater participation and involvement of Free Ride’s users. We hope this structure embodies the principle that free ride operates upon, that people should get out what they put in. We hope it gives people a way to get involved in a way that fits into their lives, and provides meaningful benefits for doing so. We are making a number of other changes to make it easier and more rewarding to give back to Free Ride.

Open Shop

Free Ride will continue to be open on Thursdays and Saturdays for Open Shop, during which people are invited to fix up their bikes, repair their Earn-A-Bike, or offer volunteer mechanical help. However, Free Ride no longer guarantees the assistance of a trained mechanic during open shop. We hope that the co-op environment will encourage “neighbors helping neighbors” and a wide range of volunteers to give advice, instead of the customer-service style model that was used previously. Additionally, we have created numerous self-instruction workstations and will continue to add more.

Drop In Classes

Free Ride will offer Monday Night drop-in classes every week for people looking to expand their mechanical knowledge. Classes will be on six main areas of bike repair: Tires & Wheels, Forks, etc full list. Fee for the class is $15 (or pay-what-you-can, with no one turned away for lack of funds). We hope this opportunity for structured learning will improve upon the

Volunteering

We have created a dedicated time for collaborative volunteer work. Tuesday evenings are now open for volunteering only. We hope this will make volunteering more fun, more collaborative, and more educational – and that it will also allow us to keep the shop in much better working order, and do a better job with recycling. This is the best time for new volunteers to get oriented to Free Ride. Volunteering may still be done during open shop, but only if it is self-directed. There will be no volunteer coordinator.

Earn-a-Bike

Free Ride will continue to offer Earn-A-Bike. However, two significant changes have been made in the enrollment procedure:

First-time EAB participants now must complete 2 drop-in classes on the topics of their choice in order to enroll.
EAB sign-ups will be processed at specific times, rather than at any time during open shop. After completing their drop-in classes, EAB participants should come at these times to complete their enrollment forms and choose a bike.

What does this mean for me?

MEMBERSHIP

: You can have membership status upon signing up today (you have a 1 month grace period to meet the membership requirements, 4 hours of volunteering). Or you can enter Open Shop as a non-member for a donation of $2 per bike.

IF YOU ARE PARTICIPATING IN EARN-A-BIKE:

New Earn-a-Bike participants are required to attend two drop-in classes as their “fee” for using the EAB program. (This is intended to address the issue of people signing up bikes and then abandoning them!)
Getting your volunteer hours done now has its whole own night! Volunteer Nights will be a fun, social way to contribute to the major growth taking place at Free Ride. People who are looking to volunteer mechanical help may still offer their assistance during Open Shop and receive credit for their hours.

Check out our calendar (link) to see when our Classes and Volunteer Nights are happening!

Why all these changes?

In the fall of 2008, Free Ride reached a critical point where increasing demand on Free Ride’s open shop resources and Earn-A-Bike program had exceeded the capacity of its dedicated volunteer staff. This situation would have led to the collapse of Free Ride if not for our “restructuring” break this winter (why Free Ride was closed from December 2008 through February 2009). Free Ride has always aimed to be a project supported by the community of people who use it. It also aims to be an enjoyable and community-building experience. However, in order to continue operating, we believe we need to do a better job of realizing these goals. We need to diversify both the responsibilities and the benefits of running Free Ride among many more people, to avoid burnout among volunteers. We hope the new changes will do the following: