TheThinkTank April 2009

thethinktank@lists.bikecollectives.org

30 participants
34 discussions

no boys allowed zine from bikebike?
by veganboyjosh＠gmail.com 27 Sep '18

27 Sep '18

hey all, i'm looking to get in touch with the person who wrote/published the "no boys allowed" zine which was passed out at bikebike in san francisco. it was part of one of the oppression and gender identity issues workshops. we're looking to start a women's night here at community cycles, and i'd like to scan my copy as a pdf and email it to potential volunteers, as well as make some copies to have in the shop... if you're on the list, or if you know the person who wrote it (her name escapes me), please get in touch with me off list... thanks! josh. community cycles boulder

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Is there a collective in New Orleans?
by Jonathan Morrison 06 Dec '12

06 Dec '12

Email me if you know of one. -- Sincerely, Jonathan Morrison Project Coordinator Salt Lake City Bicycle Collective 2312 S. West Temple Salt Lake City, UT 84115 w: 801-328-2453 c: 801-688-0183 f: 801-466-3856 www.slcbikecollective.org

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Re: [TheThinkTank] non-petroleum lube
by Michael Wolfe 04 May '11

04 May '11

Page 13 of the 1992 Bridgestone bicycle catalog has a unique recommendation of using olive oil. http://www.sheldonbrown.com/bridgestone/ On 4/2/08, Bob Giordano <mist(a)strans.org> wrote: > > Indoor air quality is tops on our list for a healthy shop atmosphere. We > do not store anything that gives off harmful fumes. Tooth brushes and > simple green (highly diluted) in a small wooden bowl is our parts cleaning > station. We are even moving away from simple green (i've learned it is > harmful to some)- to a citrus based cleaner. > > I guess tri flow is the only thing with fumes in the shop. Often we ask > people to use it outside. I'd like to find a non-petroleum lube. > > -Bob Giordano, Free Cycles Missoula > > > Michael Wolfe wrote: > > Speaking of liver damage, etc.. Wondering if any shops out there have > had > > issues solvent tanks in their shop? The fumes give me a headache but > others > > don't seem to mind it. Mostly I worry about the health effects on the > full > > time people in the shop. Short of installing a hood or ventalation > system, > > what options are there to locate that stuff outside? > > > > > _______________________________________________ > Thethinktank mailing list > Thethinktank(a)bikecollectives.org > > http://lists.bikecollectives.org/listinfo.cgi/thethinktank-bikecollectives.… >

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110 Community Bicycle Organizations
by Jonathan Morrison 27 Nov '10

27 Nov '10

We aren't alone. http://www.bikecollectives.org/wiki/index.php?title=Category:Community_Bicy… -- Sincerely, Jonathan Morrison Executive Director Salt Lake City Bicycle Collective 2312 S. West Temple Salt Lake City, UT 84115 w: 801-328-2453 c: 801-688-0183 f: 801-466-3856 www.slcbikecollective.org

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your org's policy on working with kids?
by veganboyjosh＠gmail.com 19 Nov '09

19 Nov '09

we're hard at work on Community Cycles' shop manual, and we're wondering if any of you have any formal policies for shop volunteers and/or staff that you'd feel like sharing. i'm imagining something to the effect of "at least two staff must be present when kids are around..." or something like that. on a somewhat related note, have any of you had any experience with someone--staff, volunteer, customer, etc--being inappropriate around kids, (aside from normal bad language..) that you had to deal with a parent for? i'd be interested in hearing about that experience... thanks! josh.

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OpenSprints: Logo Artist needed
by Jonathan Morrison 06 Jul '09

06 Jul '09

You may or may not know that there is an open source goldsprints / roller racing project out there called opensprints (www.opensprints.org). One thing that we are truly lacking is a quality (vector drawn) logo, if you are interested in helping with this please contact me. Sincerely, Jonathan Morrison

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Insurance
by 1304bikes 01 May '09

01 May '09

Hi all, we here at 1304bikes in Raleigh are getting ready to possibly move out from the building of our fiscal sponsor. We have applied for our own 501(c)(3) status, and are going to start shopping around for insurance. The thing is, we have no idea what to look for in coverage, and what is an acceptable price range. If anyone would be willing to share how much they pay a year and what it covers, we would greatly appreciate it. We are incorporated as a non-profit, and all our bikes are either given away to children, earned through our Adult EAB program, or given out through other established non-profits. We do not sell anything, and don't have a business license, so we may not need any sort of business insurance if such a things exists. Thanks for the help! for 1304bikes, -Doug -- 1304bikes 2419 Mayview Rd. Raleigh, NC 1304bikes.org

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Insurance
by JGammell＠holmesmurphy.com 29 Apr '09

29 Apr '09

Greetings, Doug & Others - I sit on the board of the Des Moines Bicycle Collective, and by day I am an insurance broker focusing on bicycle retailers & related business. I'll share my thoughts to the group, and please feel free to comment. Anyone that hangs a shingle in business exposes themselves to liability in varying degrees, from simple slip & falls on premises, to more complex & costly products liability exposures. Even as a non-profit that doesn't necessarily accept payment for a manufacture a product , there is a payment of sorts in the form of volunteerism for product. Ultimately, an organization that puts a product in the hands of the public bears some product liability. Here in DSM, we sell/give away a number of older & vintage bikes, and the manufacturers of these bikes have long since ceased to exist. That makes your local co-op the last stop in who's responsible for that bike if someone is injured. As with any business endeavor, I would recommend purchasing insurance to cover this exposure. Insurance pricing from co-op to co-op can fluctuate based on any number of variables: square footage, type & age of building you're in, city, state, limits of coverage, etc. Directly comparing pricing can be a little misleading. Most co-ops would fall into a range of 800-1300 for Property & Liability coverage. More importantly, though, is that you're confident that the policy you choose has the coverage you need (coverage for other people's property, personal effects, property off premises, etc.) and is competitively priced for your location/city/state. The only way to do so is to get quotes from multiple carriers. You're not only protecting the co-op as a sustainable entity, but the board members and volunteers. I hope you find the information helpful. Don't hesitate to respond with questions. Regards - Jed Gammell jed gammell, cic account executive & bicycle program director - \o/ holmes murphy & associates p) 515.223.6853 f) 515.221.7155 "it is not enough to understand, or to see clearly. the future will be shaped in the arena of human activity, by those willing to commit their minds and their bodies to the task." - robert kennedy >From: "1304bikes" <1304bikes(a)gmail.com> >To: "The Think Tank" <thethinktank(a)bikecollectives.org> >Date: April 29, 2009 08:01:03 AM CDT >Subject: [TheThinkTank] Insurance > >Hi all, we here at 1304bikes in Raleigh are getting ready to possibly move >out from the building of our fiscal sponsor. We have applied for our own >501(c)(3) status, and are going to start shopping around for insurance. The >thing is, we have no idea what to look for in coverage, and what is an >acceptable price range. If anyone would be willing to share how much they >pay a year and what it covers, we would greatly appreciate it. > >We are incorporated as a non-profit, and all our bikes are either given away >to children, earned through our Adult EAB program, or given out through >other established non-profits. We do not sell anything, and don't have a >business license, so we may not need any sort of business insurance if such >a things exists. > >Thanks for the help! > >for 1304bikes, >-Doug > >-- >1304bikes >2419 Mayview Rd. >Raleigh, NC >1304bikes.org >

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Storing Bicycle Forks
by Urban Bike Project Wilmington, DE 29 Apr '09

29 Apr '09

Who's got a good way of keeping forks organized and accessible? We've been hanging them on water pipes, but most people cannot reach and its hard to tell what size they are looking up from the ground. Thanks, Brian Urban Bike Project of Wilmington -a 501(c)3 non-profit bike shop- 1908 N. Market Street (entrance is in the parking lot behind the building) Wilmington, DE 19802 Hours: Thursday 6:30-9:00 Saturday 1:00-4:00 Visit us online at http://urbanbikeproject.org

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Re: [TheThinkTank] How to welcome Hispanic women if LGBTQ issues are culturally taboo?
by Mario Bruzzone 28 Apr '09

28 Apr '09

I think Krista's on the right track. One of the tenets of community organizing and activism--and I believe strongly that everyone in the community bike shop movement is engendering social change--is that you can't address every injustice in a community at one time. You pick your first battle, learn from it, and apply the lessons from the struggle to the next battle. That said, shops ought to proscribe behaviors, not attitudes. Our proscribed behaviors are shaped by our politics, obviously, but our reach and ability to foment substantive change in our community cannot be limited to the narrow group of us who both share a common ethos and worldview *and* feel empowered enough to act. This applies even at the most basic level of most of our shops as a change in the economics of transportation; and moreso for shops whose mission, stated or otherwise, reaches broader. In a practical sense, it means that you do outreach to both the gender-disempowered community and the Latino community at once--but not as if they are the same community. LGBTQQI folks in our shops are not allowed to condescend to non-English speakers or persons of color, nor to make them feel unwelcome; Latinos in our shops are not allowed to make homophobic statements nor to practice other sexist or discursively violent behaviors. Hell, LGBTQQI folks are not allowed to make homophobic statements, and Latinos are not allowed to condescend to others based on English-speaking ability, color, or national origin. (Both happen.) Part of having a safe space is making it safe for people who do not share our politics to be *exposed* to our politics, so long as they do not through action or attitude create atmospheres that reinforce the systems of privilege that our shops are, at current, actively working to oppose. Within the situation that Josh described briefly before, if you have a core group working on a specific space-safe night for the gender-disempowered, *and* the shop or this group feels that the night is under-utilized by Latino women, that group needs to work hard to make their night accessible to the Latino community without changing the underlying value that drives the space on that night: You make flyers in Spanish that speak to Latino women in your community; you have Spanish-speaking mechanics *every* week; your website has information in Spanish; you have sensitivity to differential gender dynamics in the Latino communities that you want to link up with. You repeatedly encourage and invite your repeat patrons to become involved in operating the shop. You do *not* make any certain groups of women or trans folk feel unwelcome on the night that is there to combat gendered power-knowledge. People of any and every ethnicity will come to your shop and never come back because you don't match the conception they had of you in their heads, and that is ok. Finally, it is imperative that when incidents do occur--and they will--that the people in the shop be able to explain, in non-accusatory and non-violent methods of communication, why certain actions aren't acceptable at the shop. Not just that they aren't, but *why*--even people who practice discursive violence are adults, and it does little good to lecture or harangue or condescend. I feel strongly that as long as people are willing to abide by shop rules, they are welcome in the shop. Again, it's not attitudes or politics that we proscribe, not people, but behaviors. Mario Bruzzone San Francisco

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TheThinkTank April 2009