The Davis Bike Collective has bylaws that took like a year to put together because they're consensus-based but designed to accommodate hierarchical legal requirements (the major takeaway is that if you want to do consensus-based, have your "board" have no decision-making power and have them beholden to the core group of key holders).
The Santa Cruz Bike Church has an interesting payment structure. They don't have one or a few paid employees and they don't have no employees. They pay people a bit, not much, to do the tasks that nobody would otherwise want to do. If you want a low-hierarchy organization, this seems like a good way to go.
volunteer roles: post volunteer role descriptions on your website. this
takes a little volunteer management, but then you have more people to
split the work amongst
One of the major challenges, in my experience, is in cultivating a physical space that is emotionally welcoming for everyone. If you don't have clear shop guidelines for behavior at the outset, you'll find yourself developing them eventually anyway. Also, it's better to frame things where possible in terms of expected behavior, rather than what not to do. It's good to get everyone on the same page from the outset. Look to libraries and other publicly-owned spaces for expectations of
behavior while in the shop. They may have a lot of don'ts, but they're
there to serve every single person who comes through their doors for
library-type activities.
What are the norms for volunteers at your bike co-op during off-hours? At meetings? How do you feel about drinking? What about spending the night occasionally? These sorts of norms seem to vary and what you choose in each case will make some people feel more welcome and other people feel less welcome, so they're probably good topics to consider and occasionally do a check to see if there's still a general consensus.
When I think of bike co-ops (etc.), I'm thinking of a place where people can go to learn how to work on their bikes. Is this what yours will be? You'll get people who urgently need to fix their bikes. Having the mechanical skills to be able to help them is important, but equally valuable is having the pedagogical skills to be able to help them. Are you going to have a maximum student:teacher ratio? Quality vs quantity of learning. Are you going to do appointments, drop-in, or a mix? Are you going to have a volunteer-only night? Will that be for volunteering, or for volunteers?
is when you're showing up and your bike is broken and you don't know how to fix it and you don't know how to get as much help as you need and you need your bike to get home tonight. A