I am going to pick up a couple of threads here: Hours:We have really focused on trying to be open as many hours a week as possible as the demand is extremely high. We are currently open Wed, Thur, Fri, and Sat. year round. We are thinking of adding Tuesdays in the summer with doors closed to the public. This rarely works, if we are working at midnight we still get people knocking and trying to buy stuff. We get about 50-70 people a day enter our space for one reason or another. Our model is similar to most regarding teaching and free use of tools/stands and a desire to get more people on bikes. Our desire to please, meant that our volunteers started doing jobs for people who didn't want to do it themselves and would rather pay us. Our volunteers were really stretched and the number one comment we got from homeless/street involved kids was, "I love volunteering and feel like I have found a place to belong but what I really want is a job." This changed our focus slightly. We now have 3 part-time "skilled staff" and 3 part-time "unskilled staff" plus lots of volunteers. Of the 3 unskilled, one is living in a homeless shelter, and two are 14 year old kids living in the neighbourhood. 2 street involved youth who worked for us have now moved on to full-time jobs! Kids are welcome if they are volunteering or working on their own bike, otherwise they get kicked out. The appeal of getting a job if they are a helpful volunteer also helps as an incentive. With all this help, we are refurbishing and selling about 20-30 bikes a week. This helps us to become sustainable and we are teaching important employment and entrepreneurial skills. Because we can only create so many unskilled jobs at the bike co-op, we are now in the process of starting a human-powered lawn care service (bikes pulling trailers with reel mowers) targeting youth in our neighbourhood looking for summer employment. Labour Rates:Interestingly enough our labour rates have become an issue. We were charging $3 for a tube or $5 installed. We thought low cost was good for the community but no one wanted to install their own tube as the $2 extra was a good deal. We have actually started raising our labour rates to give people a motivation to fix their own bikes. Receipt Policy:Regarding money transaction procedures: We run our finances through a church so we have to have accurate sales receipts and account for every penny. To help this we have a cash register and debit machine. Jeff Neven, volunteerNew Hope Bike Co-opHamilton, ONFrom: director@communitybikeshop.org Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2011 15:50:26 -0400 To: thethinktank@lists.bikecollectives.org Subject: Re: [TheThinkTank] assigning value to our work
We didn't deal with this very well at the outset and ended up having to put the kibosh on kids using the space for a few months after a particularly bad week that involved many thefts and some vandalism / destruction (kids could access other parts of building not related to the shop when we were open). Anyway, we've got a better grasp on it now. A few things I try to do:
- if it's "can we just pump up our tires / tighten our handlebars", I just pass them the tool. - if it's next level stuff, I try to be really involved so they understand that this is a workshop/learning space. Oftentimes they just want you to go away and let them monkey around, but I think always going through the teachy motions is important even (especially) if they don't want to hear it. That will help it avoid becoming a situation where they just grab some tools and head to a dark corner. - the most effective thing we did was to make a deal with the most frequent kids using the space. I laid it out clearly how most everyone else pays to be there, and that we were making a special case for them. They could use the shop so long as it wasn't busy and wouldn't interfere with the volunteers / members working on bigger projects. The kids, at least the group we predominately deal with, really understood this and have been surprisingly respectful about it.
- finally, when it comes to buying new/used parts, i break it down like this:- free things: used parts that cover basic safety stuff like one set of brakes, saddle, or a tire with a sidewall that isn't about to explode. The caveat is I / volunteers choose what is going on the bike.- barter things: used parts that they want to add as a blingy upgrade to their bike. I get them to tear rags to useable sizes, or to sort used tubes.- things they gotta pay for: any new parts. We can't afford to give away that stuff, and it sends a bit of a message.
Obviously you've got to be careful, especially with the "barter" system as there will definitely be kids who will pick out soft targets to manipulate. I was burned a lot before I decided to draw a hard line around what they could get. Clifford
On 2011-08-10, at 2:13 PM, ryan jenkins wrote:Dear ThinkTank, I am writing to inquire about how any of your organization have dealt with the issuing of assigning value to the services that a non profit community bike space provides (ideally in creative ways outside of our money transaction economy), particularly with pre-teenage youth in urban areas. Troy Bike Rescue functions strictly on donations and a sliding scale pay system where patrons are asked to pay for specific items based on what it is worth to them and what they can afford. This sliding scale pay system applies to the 5 or 6 floor bikes we may have at any one time as well as a small selection of tires, bells, locks, and other very basic bike necessities.
What we are struggling with is how to become not just a "place to get your bike fixed for free". How do we handle the swarm of kids, convey a message about WHAT we are doing, and also provide the services needed to keep bikes on the road?
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