June 2022 - TheThinkTank - lists.bikecollectives.org

Webhosting/domains
by Bike City 25 Mar '25

25 Mar '25

Well, I recently threw together some hand-written HTML and slapped it onto a free (and ad-less) webhost. This seemed great at first, regardless of the weird URL. But after lots of other publicity and potential traffic, I've seen it get hacked twice (by a radical Islamic group after the whole host, nothing personal), and lately it's either painfully slow to load or completely down. So, I haven't done this for about a decade and I'm out of the loop. I'm really not willing to suffer any ads, but since our budgeted is obcenely limited for such fluff, does anyone have recommendations? Are there any more reliable ad-free free hosts? (Probably not, for obvious reasons.) Otherwise, how do you guys handle web hosting? How much does it cost? What's a good balance between reliable and affordable? How much is domain registration nowadays? We don't have our 501(c)(3) status yet so we won't get a deal until later this year, by the way. Anyway, please help. It's rough to find time to FTP an update and find the site's down. Thanks, andrea Bike City Recyclery of Fayetteville, Arkansas http://bikecity.uuuq.com/ (hahaha)

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Reusable Repair Checklist Tag
by director 03 May '23

03 May '23

Hey All, We just spent some time and redid the tag we use to track repairs on a bike. I'm sure your shops are similar to ours in that many mechanics of varying skill levels will work on a single bike before it's distributed back to the world for use. This make it challenging to ensure a standard of quality on any given bike leaving the shop. As we fleshed out the tag we realized that it could function loosely as a curriculum. For most mechanics, especially students we suggest starting at the top and working down the list. I've come to realize that no two mechanics will do things in the exact same way, everyone has their own style. We've been suggesting that folks do the first two items in order and then address the rest of the repairs at their discretion. Of course we couldn't put everything on a half page so we had to make compromises. You'll notice as you get closer to the bottom of the tag the categories are a little more broad and don't get into the finer details. We're working on a final check list that will include finer details like checking bearing play, tire wear, fine tune derailleurs and brakes... The final checklist won't hang on the bike but it'll be around the shop and part of our training. Stay tuned for this. We print these double sided, cut them in half and laminate them. We hang them on the handlebars and fill them out with a Sharpie. When the bike is done and gone we clean the Sharpie off with 90% rubbing alcohol and a rag. This allows us to use one tag over and over and over. We've been using these tags for about 2 weeks now and it's been awesome. Communication between mechanics is much clearer and bikes are getting done faster. It's really helped orient Earn-A-Bike students to what needs to be done next on their bike. Anyway if you think it's a good idea feel free to adapt it to your shops needs. -- Ride On! Rich Points http://communitycycles.org Executive Director (c)303-589-0597 (w)720-565-6019 Community Cycles is Boulder's only bike shop dedicated to bike commuting. Find us on facebook https://www.facebook.com/CommunityCycles

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Service Tickets and Bike Tags
by Amanda Chilson 29 Apr '23

29 Apr '23

Good Afternoon, I am wondering if bike collectives and shops could share what they are using for service tickets or slips when a bike is being purchased, when preparing a bike to sell, when people drop off a bike to be fixed/tuned and/or a bike that was donated? Thank you so much for your help! Amanda Chilson Health and Wellness Coordinator Northern Berkshire Community Coalition 61 Main St. Suite 218 North Adams, MA 01247 413-663-7588 Ext. 16 www.nbccoalition.org

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Onboarding and Volunteer Training
by Todd Spinner 16 Jun '22

16 Jun '22

Greetings Thinktank folks. Does anyone have any resources that you use to onboard and or train new volunteers? We would be appreciative of any materials that you may want to share with us. Thanks, Todd Spinner The Bike Project of Urbana-Champaign Illinois

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Re: [TheThinkTank] Boards, Thethinktank Digest, Vol 188, Issue 1
by Robert Rands 03 Jun '22

03 Jun '22

Boards need to exist to felicitate the organization, not to be vehicles for a bullet point on someone's resume. The legal fiction is so that coöperatives can run unmanaged by others, particularly the government, outside of providing a framework of rights and legitimate responsibilities. As such, boards should be both organically formed from within and by the organization, while seeking out to strengthen the organization in its structure and goals by adding any necessary elements. Maintaining both a sense of empowerment and agency, for each individual within the organization as well as for the organization is a key factor. Being self-strong, while reaching out to increase strength within the community and of the community is integral. The organization should be self-formed, with guidance by the board and the participating community, within a framework of rights and responsibilities, with structural mechanisms and principles, such as Roberts Rules of Order and coöperative principles. ~Robert Allan Rands Board member, SoPo Bikes (SoPo Bicycle Coöperative), Reynoldstown Atlanta, Georgia On Thursday, June 2, 2022, 09:03:40 PM GMT+1, <thethinktank-request(a)lists.bikecollectives.org> wrote: Send Thethinktank mailing list submissions to thethinktank(a)lists.bikecollectives.org To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit http://lists.bikecollectives.org/listinfo.cgi/thethinktank-bikecollectives.… or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to thethinktank-request(a)lists.bikecollectives.org You can reach the person managing the list at thethinktank-owner(a)lists.bikecollectives.org When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: Contents of Thethinktank digest..." Today's Topics: 1. Re: Governance Transitions? (cyclista(a)inventati.org) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message: 1 Date: Thu, 02 Jun 2022 00:39:17 +0000 From: cyclista(a)inventati.org To: thethinktank(a)lists.bikecollectives.org Subject: Re: [TheThinkTank] Governance Transitions? Message-ID: <c181ccaf5487d5b8b13ef049265569d3(a)inventati.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed We had to consider this extensively; never got to exactly where you are but one important thing stood out in the consideration over time: nobody should be on a board unless they have strong standing in running the day-to-day of the shop, or, at the least, the board should have a required majority of members having that qualification. Don't go down the path of a board with an agenda that doesn't fit with what the organization needs in order to thrive on a daily basis - and more broadly, accomplish its mission. It's one thing to have stakeholders on the board *in addition* to former staff or experts; it's completely another to seat people who simply want to have some measure of leverage or influence for their own reasons. The purpose of a board, from the federal government's perspective, is so that the government may retain a reliable point of contact through any potiential changes or adversity. It's s huge deal to the feds to remove the requirement to pay taxes, and they don't want to grant that status without assurance that the entity will remain responsive and responsible from a federal standpoint. What this means is that there is no requirement for the board to do any particular thing other than exist and be prepared to liase with the feds should they require it. The board can be a board of directors, who exert vision and authority, or it can simply be a board of advisors, assisting those who already run the organization. Really it can be a board of [anything]. It just has to fulfill the few barebones duties demanded by nonprofit specifications. So be careful how you choose them and appoint them. Do set out very carefully right away who gets to choose them; one of the worst configurations, because nepotism and incest, is the current board voting on the new board members. Any good idea might be protected in this way long-term (which is why a lot of organizations cling to this method), but it can also mean bad ideas have the ability infect a board for generations, even outliving the tenure of the members who originally set them in motion. Probably better to identify stakeholder groups (whom are served or targeted by the organization) and operational groups (staff, volunteers, other support personnel), and extend the right (or requirement) to vote to them. As for accountability, elections play a part in that - not only the initial elections themselves, but the frequency of them. More frequent elections, for instance, might mean more opportunities to cut off bad work or behavior. ~cyclista Nicholas On 2022-05-27 08:23, Thomas Butler wrote: > Austin's Yellow Bike Project is going through a governance transition. > We > used to be a fairly horizontally organized consensus-run collective of > volunteers who did the day-to-day of what happens at the shop, and our > size > wasn't limited. We are becoming an exclusive board of probably 6-9 > people. > Some of us are still running shops, but about half are not. > > We're currently trying to work out (among many other things) how board > members are (s)elected and to whom the board is accountable. Or more > concretely, how the board is held accountable. We don't have "members," > so > the questions of "who gets to vote" is among the ones we're trying to > answer. > > If you have thoughts or if your org went through something like this > I'm > interested to hear about it. In particular what best practices and > pitfalls > you encountered. > > The board also has appetite for working through this with a > professional. > Some of us are less psyched about people who don't have experience with > groups that have our consensus- / volunteer-run d.i.y. culture, > horizontal > organizing history, etc. Many of them have experience only with the > more > traditional non-profit board model and struggle to wrap their heads > around > how we used to operate and why. Suggestions are welcome. > > Feel free to email me privately if you like at > thomas.unavailable(a)gmail.com > Or you can reply here. > > Thanks > Thomas Butler > he | him | his > Austin's Yellow Bike Project > austinyellowbike.org > > ____________________________________ > > The ThinkTank mailing List > > Unsubscribe from this list here: > http://lists.bikecollectives.org/options.cgi/thethinktank-bikecollectives.o… ------------------------------ Subject: Digest Footer _______________________________________________ Thethinktank mailing list Thethinktank(a)lists.bikecollectives.org http://lists.bikecollectives.org/listinfo.cgi/thethinktank-bikecollectives.… ------------------------------ End of Thethinktank Digest, Vol 188, Issue 1 ********************************************

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Governance Transitions?
by Thomas Butler 02 Jun '22

02 Jun '22

Austin's Yellow Bike Project is going through a governance transition. We used to be a fairly horizontally organized consensus-run collective of volunteers who did the day-to-day of what happens at the shop, and our size wasn't limited. We are becoming an exclusive board of probably 6-9 people. Some of us are still running shops, but about half are not. We're currently trying to work out (among many other things) how board members are (s)elected and to whom the board is accountable. Or more concretely, how the board is held accountable. We don't have "members," so the questions of "who gets to vote" is among the ones we're trying to answer. If you have thoughts or if your org went through something like this I'm interested to hear about it. In particular what best practices and pitfalls you encountered. The board also has appetite for working through this with a professional. Some of us are less psyched about people who don't have experience with groups that have our consensus- / volunteer-run d.i.y. culture, horizontal organizing history, etc. Many of them have experience only with the more traditional non-profit board model and struggle to wrap their heads around how we used to operate and why. Suggestions are welcome. Feel free to email me privately if you like at thomas.unavailable(a)gmail.com Or you can reply here. Thanks Thomas Butler he | him | his Austin's Yellow Bike Project austinyellowbike.org

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