Hi:

We started a very small bike co-op at the University of San Francisco about 2 years ago.  

1. Sure, feel free to email me directly as well.  It has really just been a very small offshoot from a larger push to get students more engaged in direct hands on work/learning/engineering (and art).  but its been a great way to build bridges with many departments and groups- bringing together a diverse community from every discipline.    last semester we had a class from environmental studies do projects, and we also have the gardening class building mobile seed libraries etc, but also more engineering focused with workshops with bici-tec, that builds bike machines in Guatemala to do work like pump water, or power all sorts of agricultural and household machines. 

2. nothing to help.  i would like to know myself.  we are pretty much doing this on a shoe string so only borrow or build.. rarely buy anything. 

3, 4, &5. Our plan changes a lot as its a shared space with a woodshop, so things shift as needed.  if you have a dedicated space I am quite jealous!  I would like to know how you managed to get such an expansion into your own large space!


On 7/5/18 1:40 PM, Parag Kapoor wrote:
Hello all,


We're close to launching a new bicycle co-operative at York University, Toronto, ON, Canada!

I had some requests to ask the community:

 1. I would like to connect with the managers of other University/college campus based bicycle co-ops to discuss practices and business models, go over past decisions made to get to where they are now.

2. Are there any tool bench designs that are favorites? I really like the tool benches @ Charlie's in Toronto, but would like to see other examples of well thought out tool benches.

3. Could we look at examples of shop layouts? Has any co-operative made a floor-map with the furnishings placement on it? We have plans as well to share!

3. Do creature comforts matter? I wanted to be double sure. Normally I would not hesitate myself to say A/C is definitely not needed at first, but for context we are moving from a hidden closet in terms of operations into a 1500+ sq ft. new storefront.

We have big glass windows that face east, which means that by 10 am the place is a broiler. Installing an A/C system feels like the right thing to do....

As well I have a whole bunch of photos of our space and shop logo to share to anyone interested!

Best,

Parag

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