Rich, this is a great question, and one i've often thought about posting here! We deal with trying to keep folks busy as well on a daily basis. We're always running around asking each other what those is to be done for the earn-a-bikers! Here's a couple things we do to help keep poeple busy:
-We have a dry erase board in the shop, and we try to update it with the stuff that needs to get done the next time the shop is opened.
-We've also started giving repair lessens to our earn-a-bikers instead of actually requiring them to do "work". So for example, we'll sit a group of them down and teach them fix-a-flat or wheel trueing, and the time they spend learning skills counts toward their EAB hours. It is after all the goal of our EAB program for people to come out with more bike know how than when they started.
-A lot of our EABers spend time stripping bikes and wheels. We've been getting enough donations lately, that it seems like there is always a bike and some wheels to be taken apart. These also leads to parts that need to be sorted and filed.
-Checking, Patching, and labeling tubes is another common task that always needs doing.
-We also try to get EABers helping us to further organize the shop by sizing and seperating parts like spokes, BBs, Cable Housing, etc.
Anyway, these are the sort of things that we do to keep folks busy at our shop. And it is not always enough! We are often running around trying to keep 5-10 folks occupied with something to do, and we don't want to have to turn people away. I'd be interested to hear how other shops keep poeple busy as I'm sure it will help us out. I'd also like to further develop a sort of skill block program that EABers could work on towards their required hours. Do any other shops do this?
Doug 1304bikes Raleigh, NC
On Mon, Jun 2, 2008 at 3:15 PM, Rich Points rich@richpoints.com wrote:
How many times do we hear this question every day? Our Earn-A-Bike program consists of 10 hours of community service doing chores around the shop. We've had record numbers of EABers this spring and our list of chores is burned through in the first couple hours of any given day. So for the rest of the time the shop facilitators make up chores on the fly. This is particularly hard when the 20 people in the shop are asking two or three facilitators a constant stream of questions. Maybe we have too many people in the shop but I think if we had a better way to keep people working on projects.
How are you keeping people busy in your shop?
Peace
-- Rich Points Community Cycles Director http://CommunityCycles.org Rich@CommunityCycles.org 720-565-6019
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