The beauty of partnerships is that they create the opportunity to pool resourses and build upon the strengths of each partner. The draft agreement does not include clauses that impact decision-making at a local organizational level, so those fears have no way to manifest themselves. Very few financial resources are being committed. It assumes that start-up efforts piggyback upon existing activities and assumes staff time that is already being dedicated to collective capacity building.  Using the plant metaphor, the seed has been planted and begun to sprout. For this initiative to truly blossom, we need to educate and create broader consensus among community groups - which is what is happening now- set priorities & create a plan of action on how best to partner in a mutually beneficial way - which the draft agreement offers a starting point - and then raise money to fund the needs (specific publications, workshops, etc.) that meet the needs of BCN members - which is proposed in a way that allows us to build trust by starting small. 
 
I am interested in this partnership for 3 main reasons. First, as the former director of Recycle-A-Bicycle, I spent years giving advice to start-up initiatives and brokered many local partnerships with time and resources to help them grow. Most of those local initiatives failed after a few years. I never had the capacity to spend the time/resurces on helping these efforts as much as they needed. At the time, RAB was in survival mode. A group whose primary goal is to help build the capacity of start-ups and then advise on sustaining them is greatly needed. Luckily, RAB is currently able to support at least 9 local initiatives through partnerships with public schools, the health department and community based organizations (none of which interfere with internal decision-making).
 
The first Youth Bike Summit surprised us at RAB. We had planned this as a way to support local activity and did not dream that it would attract so many people from across the country. This demonstrated a very strong desire for the need to share ideas among youth bike education groups. In order to build on this energy, I believe that a partnership with the Alliance for Walking and Biking would be beneficial.  This group has resources on building organizations, works at a national level, and is making the effort to better understand our community work and figure out how best to design a mutually beneficial arrangement.
 
The fact that we all introduce people to bikes is the first step in creating a base for advocacy.  Our community efforts reach a much broader spectrum of people than the advocacy groups attract. Advocacy efforts would benefit from a more diverse base. However, this is not an attempt to coerce people into advocacy campaigns they do not have a voice in. What is interesting is whether and how cooperation on a capacity building level can lead to a more inclusive political process. 
 
In my humble opinion, we are rolling in the right direction.
Karen Overton
 
 
On Thu, Mar 29, 2012 at 1:22 PM, Mike Samuelson <Mike@peoplepoweredmovement.org> wrote:
I think Joshua's last sentence stated what we are trying to do better than I could have.  The Alliance does not position ourselves as "experts".  Through our programming, we try to share the successes of local organizations, and provide a space for discussions on topics that interest them.

Just to reiterate, we don't have a hidden agenda, and to provide new opportunities while not tampering with the resources that have already been created.  I appreciate those of you who have taken the time to respond with your thoughts, and I'm looking forward to hearing more people's opinions.

Best,


Mike Samuelson 
Member Services and Open Streets Coordinator
Alliance for Biking & Walking

P.O. Box 65150
Washington, DC 20035



The Open Streets Project has just released the Open Streets Guide!  A great resource for anyone looking to further open streets in their community.

From: Joshua Hoffman <joshua@healthykidsinitiative.org>

Reply-To: The Think Tank <thethinktank@lists.bikecollectives.org>
Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2012 11:17:07 -0500
To: The Think Tank <thethinktank@lists.bikecollectives.org>

Subject: Re: [TheThinkTank] Partnership with the Alliance for Walking and Biking

There are two wonderful things about community bike shops that will ensure their continued existence. The first is that they are like weeds (pioneer plant species). They can grow anywhere, don't need much water, and are essential to restructuring (healing) the soil. The second great thing about community bike shops is that they are like infectious diseases. They have no regard for income, skill level, skin tone or creed and will make anyone and everyone lovesick for bikes. As long as ABW and the bicycle advocacy machine don't begin to think of themselves as a landscapers or doctors trying to tidy everything up, and instead considers themselves coauthors and biographers helping to write/tell the unfolding story of bicycling, we'll all be okay.  




On Wed, Mar 28, 2012 at 2:09 PM, Wanda Pelegrina Caldas <wanda@communitycycles.org> wrote:

I think the ABW is doing great things! We've (Community Cycles in Boulder, CO) used their resources/help/guidance since they were the Thunderhead Alliance. They (and LAB and Bikes Belong) have been supportive of our efforts.

I agree with all of Jonathan's comments especially the ones abt how we can benefit as collectives. CC is also an advocacy organization and we're growing like crazy and making big differences in our community. The support of the Alliance absolutely gives us much higher level resource and credibility. (FYI: CC was one of the shops that received the donations of fixtures, racks, etc that Jonathan mentions below. CC has a small space and these items have much helped us...but that's a side note)

BUT: I understand the concerns that not all of us are advocacy orgs, not all of our goals, etc are 100% the same to AWB, but bottom line, they're looking to put people on bikes as we are. Yes, we have different ways to go abt this, different philosophies, different reaches, different community-oriented goals specific to where we're located -and that's fine. We all cater to our communities and that's what makes us really succeed at what we do.

I would love if someone from AWB could come to Bike Bike so we can continue discussing these possibilities/concerns/questions/needs/how we can work together...all that good stuff. When CC started 6 yrs ago, I felt like orgs like the League and Bikes Belong were so up there, so out of touch with collectives, so inaccessible but I've seen change that Jonathan describes. While there's still higher level advocacy efforts that might not pertain to all of us, they definitely have put grassroots back into their efforts.

I don't think there's any veiled agenda or a desire to take over the little guys. I just think they realize the work we do and that working together -them at their level, us at ours- only makes our efforts stronger and our voices louder.

Wanda


Wanda Pelegrina Caldas
Community Cycles, Boulder's only non-profit bike shop
Become a member today. using the secure online donation form.
Thanks!!

Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2012 12:37:09 -0600
From: jonathan@slcbikecollective.org
To: thethinktank@lists.bikecollectives.org
Subject: Re: [TheThinkTank] Partnership with the Alliance for Walking and Biking

Godwin,

This is an open discussion, there is nothing closed.  Let's help them keep it open.

The Alliance wants to keep all the information free and open, on an international level.  They want to help smaller organizations get started, and they want to help larger organizations grow.  In particular, they are experts at helping organizations get their non-profit paperwork done, find spaces, find people, build a sustainable organization that is able to raise funds -- regardless of what their goals are.  We have an opportunity to help the Alliance help us, which is fill in the gaps in their current knowledge base, specifically how Community Bike Shops and youth programs work.  Which will enable them to help more organizations like ours get started.

What is the catch, how would the Alliance benefit?  As organizations grow, such as Community Cycling Center (Portland), Recycle-a-Bicycle (NYC), and the Bicycle Collective (Provo - Salt Lake - Ogden), we need higher level resources to grow that we are willing to pay for -- as a result we are paid members of the Alliance.  Again, we weren't forced into it, their member resources are just that good.  

Here is a fun example of something the Alliance did; a little while ago one of the largest bicycle manufacturers in the world contacted the Alliance and asked them which non-profit Community Bike Shops they knew of needed a donation of [brand new] fixtures (bike display racks, counters, displays, etc.,...) that they decided not to use for all of their concept stores.  Raise your hand if your Community Bike Shop could have used a donation like this!

Keeping an open mind and an open heart, please read the following redundant mission statements:

"The Alliance for Biking & Walking creates, strengthens and unites state/province and local bicycle and pedestrian advocacy organizations."

"The mission of the Bike Collective Network is to strengthen and encourage communication and resource sharing between existing and future community bike shops. Collectively we can improve a bigger wheel as opposed to re-inventing smaller ones."

Now let's take a deeper look and put faces to the young people behind the Alliance for Walking and Biking ("Alliance").  This is most of the staff (http://www.peoplepoweredmovement.org/site/index.php/site/about/C190), which lacks a new Communications Coordinator who ironically is from the Bloomington Community Bike Project.  

Frankly, they are a small bunch of young, idealistic, bike obsessed, passionate people who strive to get more people riding bikes more often and get paid virtually nothing compared to the energy they give.  Most republicans would call them a bunch of dirty hippies.  Sound familiar?  It does to me, because that is how I describe the people from Community Bike Shops including myself.

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

The mission of the Salt Lake City Bicycle Collective is to promote cycling as an effective and sustainable form of transportation and as a cornerstone of a cleaner, healthier, and safer society. The Bicycle Collective provides refurbished bicycles and educational programs to the community, focusing on children and lower income households.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Personally I love this quote from Steven seagal's film, Under Seige II (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wg4trPZFUwc).  While crude, it gets to the point.  So let's start with identifying some assumptions.

"Representatives from 100% of all Community Bike Organizations attend Bike!Bike!"
"Representatives from 100% of all Community Bike Organizations that attend Bike!Bike! represent everyone else."
"Representatives from 100% of all Community Bike Organizations attend the National Bike Summit"
"Representatives from 100% of all Community Bike Organizations that attend the National Bike Summit represent everyone else."
"Representatives from 100% of all Community Bike Organizations attend the Youth Bike Summit"
"Representatives from 100% of all Community Bike Organizations that attend the Youth Bike Summit represent everyone else."
"Representatives from 100% of all Community Bike Organizations are members of TheThinkTank email list"
"Representatives from 100% of all Community Bike Organizations represented on the TheThinkTank email list actually read their email"

All of these assumptions have a common truth hidden in them, which is that there is no single forum that will accurately represent all of "us."  The only thing we can strive for is that all of "us" reach out in all forums, including calling people, and give enough time for information to trickle out to those that aren't represented in the known forums above.




On Wed, Mar 28, 2012 at 10:52 AM, Godwin ! <goodgodwin@hotmail.com> wrote:
This involves all of us, why not keep the discussion open for now?

My first thoughts are that an alliance (with the alliance) would be of interest, however a partnership may be going too far. We have similar interests and possibly end goals, however I feel that our immediate goals are very different.

The mission of the Bike Collective Network is to strengthen and encourage communication and resource sharing between existing and future community bike shops. Collectively we can improve a bigger wheel as opposed to re-inventing smaller ones.

From what I have understood of the AWB is that the primary interest is advocacy in general while to me, the BCN exists to help people start up their own collectives and keep them going. While most of us are likely advocates and want to promote cycling (and walking I guess), that I feel comes second or is even a byproduct of what we do.

I'm not sure where this would go in the end but we had some initial discussions at last year's Bike!Bike! concerning creating stronger ties between our organizations and possibly making the organization more formalized. There seemed to be some interest, however there was some backlash at the thought of a having a parent organization to encompass all of our organizations. The consensus seemed to be that this would not be of interest, however creating a third party organization to help with research and funding may be. Perhaps this is where such a partnership could take us.

My other concern is that the AWB is a US/Canada wide project, while it's awesome to hear that we've been included up here, the BCN has been helping organizations world-wide. I'm not sure how such a partnership would effect these relationships.

I really like that we're talking about this! Is there any chance that anyone from the AWB will be able to make it out to Vancouver this June? It would be a great opportunity to get this discussion going in person and gauge the feelings of the general community.

.godwin




Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2012 11:47:54 -0400
From: Mike@PeoplePoweredMovement.org
To: thethinktank@bikecollectives.org
Subject: Re: [TheThinkTank] Partnership with the Alliance for Walking and Biking


As Jonathan mentioned, we have been in discussions about establishing a partnership with the Bike Collective Network as part of a larger effort by the Alliance to work with Community Bike Shops. I encourage you to call or email me with your thoughts and ideas as we continue to determine how this partnership will look.

Best,

Mike Samuelson 
Member Services and Open Streets Coordinator
Alliance for Biking & Walking

P.O. Box 65150
Washington, DC 20035



The Open Streets Project has just released the Open Streets Guide!  A great resource for anyone looking to further open streets in their community.

From: Jonathan Morrison <jonathan@slcbikecollective.org>
Reply-To: The Think Tank <thethinktank@lists.bikecollectives.org>
Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2012 15:43:32 -0600
To: The Think Tank <thethinktank@bikecollectives.org>
Subject: [TheThinkTank] Partnership with the Alliance for Walking and Biking

We have been working with the Alliance for Walking and Biking to establish a partnership that will help Community Bike Shops grow and achieve their goals, as well as help bridge the gaps in the bicycle advocacy community at large.


We invite you to join in the conversation.

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

The mission of the Salt Lake City Bicycle Collective is to promote cycling as an effective and sustainable form of transportation and as a cornerstone of a cleaner, healthier, and safer society. The Bicycle Collective provides refurbished bicycles and educational programs to the community, focusing on children and lower income households.
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--
Joshua Hoffman 

Safe Routes Organizer 
Rosedale Development Association
Rosedale Healthy Kids Initiative
1403 S.W. Boulevard
Kansas City, KS 66103


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