• Final check-ins about stuff before opening
• Fill the staffing calendar
• Decide about womens’ night
• Brainstorm Code of Conduct
• How to strengthen & improve the FR community

Final check-ins about stuff before opening

what to call “volunteering”?

• free ride night
• community building night
• give-back night
• housekeeping
• organization
• team night
• member night

Info from the EAB committee meeting:

• new form for volunteering for classes – like a ticket that shows you have done their hours before taking a drop-in classes
• We are using Google Checkout for registering for program classes – won’t pay a fee because BP has already done
• enrollment for EAB will be done at a set time on each open shop, maybe 8pm
• Monday drop-in classes – will allow a set number (e.g. 4) of the participants to pre-register.
• will we not set a hard limit on the number of EAB’s in progress at any time?
  no – because there are all the other limits
• reminder about who can get trained – only council members until we feel we have straigtened out our finances – you also need a key
• training to be an instructor – shadow, then co-teach respective (or all) drop-in classes

Village Bikes project – in a couple of months, contact them. They give us a container, we fill it up with ~ 560 bikes, they send it to Ghana.

What needs done before the shop opens

• Women’s night: backup person with a key; if there is no female staffer, fall back to a male staffer to offer women participants to staff women’s night.

• Who qualifies as council members at this point: people who spent time on restructuring meetings and work? Yes.

• Who should get a key?

• Fill the staffing calendar: send an eamil about it!

• Need to make posters about new organizations

• Order general parts (not funky parts for very specific types of bikes) that we are short on in order to build bikes
  • need to find out what
  • create a system to know which parts are low
    • rrevise the parts drawers, especially the small parts
  • may buy some used parts from Kraynick

• functional gauge for easy sorting of tubes and tyres by diameter and maybe thickness – WillW will make one
• Could make and hang more charts around the shop explaining e.g. which tubes fit on which rims

• Website can be easier to understand – Philip and WillW will consider and offer suggestions.

Brian organized four light fixtures for free – need to

• organize with CJ to put them up
• drop them lower and spread them around the shop, esp. the back dungeon
• will organize lights in the corridor

How to strengthen & improve the FR community:

• more the black community
• what about donating bikes to the local communities?
• more communication among FR for the ones that have the contact with organizations we deal with.
• documentation about the organiations that we dealt with in the past and have some more info about how we dealt with them in the past (pros and cons)
• how do increase more access for kids to the shop?
  • what about a parents’ night?
• advertisement so that we advertise the shop more around Pgh
  • to increase the number of kids we cuold target schools
  • there was a suggestion about coming up with a strict and organized program to go to schools and see if they are interested
  • Jessica said that there is a brochure about it already and people interested about it can see it and see what they think about it and maybe suggest changes if needed
• We need a sign for the top of the door.
• social events:
  • rides
  • special topics event
  • quarterly
• Philip is interested in createing a teach class for how to ride safely

How to improve conflict resolution between individual members?

• there is nothing concrete to unify the collective like sports teams might
• need more guidelines about when you can act autonomously and when do you have to consult the group?
• discuss issues non-personally
• more focus on collaborative work – many people don’t have experience
• we are a group that changes people a lot
• bylaws – objective criteria for what’s ok, so it’s not
• conflict resolution team or mediator
• vibe monitor person
• check out ideas from other groups

Brainstorm Code of Conduct

• check out other groups, companies and the Quakers
• cover the legal stuff
• something about pro-active resolution of conflicts
• how to ask other people to leave the 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. ]]> http://freeridepgh.org/2009/01/29/january-28-2009-meeting-minutes/feed/ 2 http://freeridepgh.org/2009/01/04/winter-restructuring-meetings/ http://freeridepgh.org/2009/01/04/winter-restructuring-meetings/#comments Sun, 04 Jan 2009 21:25:46 +0000 Jessica http://freeridepgh.org/?p=449 During the time the shop is closed this winter, Free Ride will be having a series of meetings to discuss re-structuring our programs, and restructuring the physical organization of the shop.  We are at a point where we need to find creative ways to make our programs more sustainable, as currently we have too few volunteers to meet demand in Open Shop.  We have compiled the results of the survey we launched this fall, and you can view them here:  (link).  Many people expressed interest in taking part in future discussions to improve Free Ride.  To keep the Free Ride community involved in this process, we are creating this blog to serve as a discussion forum.  We will also post our meeting schedule here, so people can show up in person if they wish.

Take a look at what we’ll be discussing this winter below.  If you have ideas on these topics, or other ideas about how to improve Free Ride and make it a more sustainable operation, please post them to this blog thread!  (scroll all the way down past the schedule to post).

Winter Meeting Schedule:

Every Wednesday January 8th through February 25th.  We’ll provide dinner at 6 pm, meeting starts at 7 pm.  Location will rotate among volunteers’ homes, email for directions.

Week One, Jan 7

Location: Jessica’s house, (for directions call 412-310-4641 or email jessica_mcp at yahoo.com)

• Free Ride history and identification of problems
• Refer to mission statement and past strategies
• Express individual vision/goals for FR
• Discussion on cooperative module (maybe this is actually next week?)

Week Two, Jan 14. (at Jami and Erok’s house)

• Proposals of new ideas for how Free Ride operates.  This is aimed at the bigger picture of how the organization is structured, how our programs work.  This would be the time for proposals to reform earn-a-bike, establish a co-op model, etc.. Also the time for any proposals unrelated to physical shop organization that will solve the problems we identify in week one.

Week Three, Jan 21.

• Evaluate proposed new ideas.  If the group is ready we will also try to decide on them.

Week Four, Jan 28.

• Decision making on proposals (if it doesn’t happen last week)

Week Five, Feb 4.

• Discussion of physical shop organization.  How do we organize our stuff and keep it that way so people can actually use the shop efficiently?  (brainstorming, proposals)

Week Six, Feb 11

• Evaluate proposals for shop organization (also can decide if we are ready)

Week Seven, Feb 18.

• Decide on shop organization proposals

Week Eight, Feb 25.

• Strengthening FR
• Enrichment of FR community.  The number one thing people said they valued about free ride in the survey was the community.  How can we make it stronger, especially for volunteers?