Most of the readers of this listserv are in winter now, which means your community bike shops are, too. It's the slow season! Some of you may have reduced your hours for winter, fewer people show up with injured bikes, etc.
With volunteer-run organizations (and mostly volunteer-run organizations) there's a fair bit of volunteer turnover. This means that the volunteers who are around this year may not know what the volunteers knew last year, or the year before.