On Tue, Jul 21, 2009 at 12:30 PM, Jason Tanzman <jason.tanzman@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi everybody,

I'm putting together a workshop for Bikebike on how to organize and teach bike maintenance classes, and I would love some feedback from different sho Stps on their community education programs.  Info I'm interested in includes:

-Do you charge for your classes?  If so, how much?
-How many hours/weeks does your class last?
-How many participants do you allow in each class?  How many staff/core volunteers help teach the class?
-How regularly do you offer classes?
-How do you publicize your classes?
-What classes do you offer? (Basic Bike Maintenance? Wheel Building? Safe Cycling/Commuting classes?  Advanced Mechanics classes?

I work with Sibley Bike Depot in St. Paul, MN; we teach all our classes for free which has been awesome.  We've thought about charging for classes but decided that the benefits of bringing new people into the shop and educating current volunteers outweighs the revenues that we might get from charging for classes.  We also receive about $1800 per year from a free community education program in the Twin Cities for teaching classes for free, which helps offset our costs of paying staff to teach classes.

I would love to get information/feedback!
Jason Tanzman
Sibley Bike Depot
www.sibleybikedepot.org