Dear collectivistas, I'm looking for advice from folks who use bike repair as a community building tool. What do you think about building bikes as a corporate team building exercise? I work for the League of American Bicyclists, and someone pitched a project to us called Bikes for Goodness Sakehttp://bikesforgoodnesssake.org/ that does this; they have teams build kids' bikes and then give them away at the end of the day. The dude doing this, Mark Smith, wants to partner with the League in some capacity to help hire a staff person who could coordinate these activities around the country, including hiring local mechanics to do quality control and connecting with local kids' groups. Does this seem weird to you? I told my boss I'd ask around about this model because something about it raises my hackles a little. I like the idea of paying local mechanics to participate, and it seems like there could be a more formal relationship with co-ops or community bike shops as partners. Then maybe participating in an activity like this could be an avenue for the corporate types to get involved with the bike community. At the same time, I'm wary of a model that frames needy kids as some tool for corporate team building. Let me know if you have any questions or thoughts.
Thanks!
Adonia E. Lugo, Ph.D. Bicycle Anthropologist www.urbanadonia.com