All,
Our system for vol task guidance has grown into "How-to guides"; standardized format checklists for Key Vols to use in training drop-in (or any) vols, for the most education and productivity. Some examples are here, and we will publish more openly this winter.

Since it was presented at B!B! Detroit in 2016 we decided we needed to add a step (especially needed for sorting tasks) to have knowledgeable staff or KV look over the parts or work before and disassembly, say, or finally declaring "done" or scrapping, to avoid downstream frustrations, and waste of time or material. We're calling it "staff intervention" for now, but some less weighted term would be nice -- your ideas welcome.

This system evolved so we have a familiar format for the KV to work from, and that is kept in three-ring binders so they can be referred to wherever the task is being done. Formerly we used a "Shop Manual", in an online narrative format ( that we just printed out anyway) which is still on our old wiki (and was originally part of the basis of the bikecollectives.org wiki).

Josh,
All of these Shop Manual tasks are still being done (the "ten tasks" are the most educational ones we want Earn A Bike students to experience), so the basic answer for your question are there, but I'll add that "De-spoking a wheel" is what we have most work-trade drop-ins do, because it is productive, educational (at least at first), it takes a chunk of time; we have an endless supply of raw material ( if we run out of aluminum-rimmed wheels, we'll even despoke steel-rimmed ones if they have brass nipples [but all-steel wheels go straight to scrap]; and it can be repeated until one enters a transcendental state, and emerges from it to find they have enough credits to replace their chain and cogs, and crank.

Catarina,
your wrote, "... we have 1 minute, 5 minutes and 10 minute tasks on a whiteboard..."  I can assume these are times needed to train the volunteers, not times to complete the tasks, right?!

Hope this helps!

Best regards,
Jim

Jim Sheehan
Executive Director
Ohio City Bicycle Co-op
1840 Columbus Rd
Cleveland, Ohio 44113
216 830 2667
OhioCityCycles.org


On Sat, Nov 18, 2017 at 4:41 AM, Ege Sertçetin <ege@sertcetin.com> wrote:
Hello Josh,

We had a similar issue on our last forum in our bicycle collective. There are many things we want to do but the labor is not enough. As we don't have a physical place, and don't have any issue board, we thought probably someone who came up, doesn't have any idea about what we do and what we plan to do. So, somehow, we need to put what we are doing to online.

Someone proposed using Trello [1] or a similar simple issue board. I'm not sure about Trello because it is mostly used by commercial projects and we try to be completely voluntary. However, we might use it a bit different. Someone might see a card and think they can do it and put their name on it. If they cannot do it, they can remove themselves or another person might notice that there is no action in a card can remove people on it to make it look available to the others.

These are just ideas in my head right now, didn't even discussed with the community. So, I would love to hear from everyone.

[1] https://trello.com/

--
Ege - Don Quixote Bicycle Collective

On 11/18/2017 06:12 AM, Josh Bisker wrote:
Hello Pals!!!!!!!! Systems are shaping up at the Mechanical Gardens in NYC, and we're looking to develop more structure for drop-in volunteers. This includes irregular volunteers and regulars too. *What are some of the ways **you'd recommend **to do this well?* And what resources can you share?

  * PDFs of handouts from your shops or snapshots of things like task
    boards would be super helpful, as would other advice!

   * We want a balance of "low barrier for entry" tasks and "guidance or
    skill required" tasks.

  * We would love to hear your insights on how to frame these things to
    be learning and empowerment experiences instead of just "hey do this
    thing bye" or "hey do this thing while I hover over you."

 ALSO ALSO PLEASE LOOKIE: We're posing this as a question to everyone, /but/ would primarily love to hear from some women/trans/femme/gender non-conforming organizers, if anyone who identifies that way is inclined to jump into the thread. Partly this is because the ThinkTank is often very male-dominated, and partly it's because in our shop, at least, cismen are way more likely to jump into / blunder through participating without structures to invite them in or help them contribute in the best way possible. For this reason, insights from non-cismen organizers would be great here.

xox to all of course though :)

Josh


Josh Bisker
914-500-9890
 New York Mechanical Gardens Bike Co-op <http://bikecoop.nyc/>
596 Acres <http://596acres.org/>
Bindlestiff Family Cirkus <http://bindlestiff.org/>


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