Paul,

I'm totally with you and much of our focus has shifted in this direction, to the point where we are offering as many hours of structured education as we are Open Workshop. Most weeks, depending on class schedule, we are open 6 days a week. This is a huge shift from 3 years ago when we had no classes at all.

"I think this connects with maintaining a more "mainstreamed" appeal if we see that we are serving people of all kinds and creeds, and being welcoming toward beginners rather than bring more of a clubhouse for the initiated."

We had a divisive (combative) restructuring of Plan B a few years ago. On one side were a group of people that felt that "We have the right to be exclusionary" (a direct quote). My response was that elitism had no place in a community bike project. It says community right on the front door, and I suppose it all depends of what your interpretation of "community" is. Thankfully, the "volunteers" that showed up drunk and rarely and that were protesting inclusion and accountability quickly gave up the fight. The clubhouse mentality is shitty and is in direct opposition of creating any kind of real social change or impact. As a consequence, those of us that remained vowed to become as equally welcoming to the spandex clad bike jock as we were to the service worker in need of transportation as we were to the crusty bike punk.

Personally, I'd rather be viewed as "Mainstream" or a "sellout" than have the work of a community organization be completely decimated by exclusionary practices that would impact different communities, including marginalized and oppressed ones.

Thanks for writing this; it felt nice to see a lot of what I've been internalizing expressed in print. Kepp up the good work!

PS. Come to Bike!Bike! 2013 in New Orleans. Woot!
 
Victor Pizarro
Project Organizer
Plan B, The New Orleans Community Bike Project
On 6/7/2013 2:11 AM, Paul Nagel wrote:

Forgive the long email, please!

With respect to workshops where the public can repair their own bikes:

Does your organization perceive and market your workshops as being more about

A) learning bike maintenance (particularly basic skills, i.e. most people come to learn) or
B) an opportunity to use tools and equipment to do it yourself and save money (it's "ok" (tolerable?) if you don't know much)

I imagine many reading this will want to answer "both" or more probably "both and much more". My thinking about this until now has basically just been "both and much more". The answer must vary depending on location, demographics served, the size and proportion of bicycle users in your area, the nature of your local cycling culture, etc.

Here in beautiful Orange County, our visitors are from diverse backgrounds but they almost all come with very little knowledge of how to repair their bikes and a strong majority want to learn more (I don't have survey statistics or anything, this is just based on talking with people at workshops).

This has me realizing that my group might bring more people in and clarify our purpose if we were to emphasize the learning aspect. This can have significant impact in terms of the primary wording of our flyers, the staffing of our workshops, the descriptions of our workshops, even the visual styling of our materials. It might shift our focus in terms of our target audience. Off the bat, I think it implies we should continue to present ourselves as an organization with broad appeal and strive to improve in this regard.

In other words, conceptualizing things more as "come learn how to integrate bikes into your life" and not so centrally "come work on your bike using shared tools and used parts with the help of volunteers because its cheap and more fun and the capitalist exchange economy is destructive, etc."

I believe the latter statement is valid. I also recognize bike co-ops are often complex organizations that serve many purposes and have a variety of symbiotic elements.

However, to return the focus specifically to do-it-together bike repair, I'm just getting a strong feeling that we should be presenting ourselves as "Learning with a repair side effect" rather than "Repair with a learning side effect". Some might object to putting one before the other, but, again, I've been feeling that the reality of what people are looking for when they come to us and other stuff like the task of describing what we do is sort of calling for a priority to be chosen. 

I believe that if "learning" is put completely front and center, then you are sending a very clear message that people with few skills are totally welcome. I guess this is the meat of what I'm getting at. It helps take away ALL anxieties people might have about not knowing stuff about bikes. It makes it very clear that no humiliation awaits you if you come to a workshop and need step-by-step assistance. It also makes it clearer to ourselves that we need plenty of able volunteers to facilitate learning. It might furthermore give the other volunteers a clearer picture of their purpose at workshops, and they might even find the teaching part more inspiring than merely repairing bikes.

I think this connects with maintaining a more "mainstreamed" appeal if we see that we are serving people of all kinds and creeds, and being welcoming toward beginners rather than bring more of a clubhouse for the initiated. This doesn't involve a major shift or wholesale whitewashing, but perhaps points toward the importance of doing all we can to keep things clean, organized, attractive (while still feeling free to express diverse opinions and tastes). Perhaps this balance between maintaining an uncomplicated welcoming atmosphere yet not suppressing the free expression of a co-op's regulars, volunteers, and staff is another discussion.  

I'd really like to know people's thoughts and definitely experiences with the learning-beginner/D.I.Y-initiated dynamic. For example, has anyone shifted their marketing/mission/image one way or the other (or honed down this image) and noticed any changes? Did this shift in image occur as a response to changes in clientele, or an improvement in assessing their needs?

Supplementary thoughts: one concern is presenting too much of an image of being "for beginners" and turning off people with more experience. Another concern is not clearly communicating that people can actually repair their bikes, not just learn about doing it. Also, these thoughts come in conjunction with our group getting more involved in bike advocacy and also doing more bike rides (potentially getting League Certified Instructors involved), so that we can be a bit of a "one stop shop" for people looking to improve and increase their bicycle use.
 
I hope this wasn't too much thinking out loud, I'd really love to hear any experiences with this stuff, because we are making some significant changes and opening a shop in half a year or so and I'd like to have our energies properly focused.
 
Thank you,

Paul Nagel
The Bicycle Tree
P.O. Box 11293
Santa Ana, CA 92711
http://www.thebicycletree.org
info@thebicycletree.org


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