A little thing to add to the badge concept, Competition and Mentorship. 

Mentors learn soft skills (communication, eye contact, smiling, listening, probing questions, quantifiable quality answers) that are important in any job in the future. Most students have a hard time identifying with the needs of others and focus on the inanimate bicycle. People skills are earned. 

Competition, When you have races to see who can over haul, or adjust a hub to perfection, who can lace a wheel fastest, who can round dish true and tension a wheel the fastest. Then the program is focusing on students having both knowledge and efficient skills. Who needs another slow mechanic in their store who sorta knows what they are doing? focus on quality and challenge speed with games. Make learning fun.

Christopher Wallace
Holistic Cycles
140 Harrison St
Oak Park, IL. 60304


-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [TheThinkTank] Earn-a-bike skills documenting
From: <DCoppley@intercitytransit.com>
Date: Wed, April 30, 2014 10:24 am
To: <thethinktank@lists.bikecollectives.org>

Hey Lauren,

I was thinking about your idea of documenting skills and progress of youth. I had worked on related ideas at a previous job, but never got to implement them. I really like the idea of having an analog to merit badges and ranks in the boy/girl scouts. It provides youth something tangible to mark their growth and offers a chance to celebrate achievements. Also, by having both individual 'badges' and class/ranks you can bundle skills. Say for example you wanted to move from a green wrench to a yellow wrench, you would have to not only get your 'badge' for brake and derailleur adjustments, but also a social component (Introducing yourself & others) and a general skills (computer related, inventory?). This could capitalize on bike programs as an opportunity to engage in broader education, particularly if you could find community partners willing to donate trainings.

David

David Coppley
Walk n' Roll Program Assistant
Intercity Transit
360-705-5817
PO Box 659 Olympia, WA 98501
dcoppley@intercitytransit.com
Find us on Facebook!



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From: thethinktank-bounces+dcoppley=intercitytransit.com@lists.bikecollectives.org [mailto:thethinktank-bounces+dcoppley=intercitytransit.com@lists.bikecollectives.org] On Behalf Of thethinktank-request@lists.bikecollectives.org
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Today's Topics:

1. Earn-a-Bike documentation and reporting? (Lauren Warbeck)
2. Instruction for Marginalized Communities: Women on Wheels and
Multilingual Nights (Lauren Warbeck)
3. Re: Earn-a-Bike documentation and reporting? (DancesWithCars)
4. Re: Earn-a-Bike documentation and reporting? (Lauren Warbeck)


----------------------------------------------------------------------

Message: 1
Date: Tue, 29 Apr 2014 14:35:52 -0700
From: Lauren Warbeck <lauren.warbeck@gmail.com>
To: The Think Tank <thethinktank@lists.bikecollectives.org>
Subject: [TheThinkTank] Earn-a-Bike documentation and reporting?
Message-ID:
<CAAr69eVf7QH_toU1Syq6XjFtKKuYZiWtyS+g8YvMxtQoK3xyhA@mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

Hey Folks!

When not immersed in planning an Ohio-themed Bike! Bike! fundraiser dance party (!!!), I'm actually doing other for real work. Including the exploration of formats, documentation, and reporting for our youth volunteering and Earn-a-Bike programs.

Here in British Columbia, high school students are required to complete something like 30 hours of work experience (ie free labour) to graduate, and we get a lot of youth completing this requirement at our shops. We also run pretty informal Earn-a-Bike programs for youth who are in unconventional education settings, accessing social services, in alternative programs, or can't access our in-school programming for any variety of reasons. Lots of these kids are really focused on getting a job, but we can rarely accommodate that.

I'm in the process of creating a checklist/worksheet of mechanical and interpersonal skills acquired by youth as they volunteer in our spaces.
The idea is that it would include gradients of skill, becoming increasingly more complex as time goes on. It would be used to guide their time in the shop, and also document what they've learned. It would be the youth's responsibility to fill the checklist out over time and have staff sign off on it, and when it's completed, we would write them a letter of recommendation to be used in applying for jobs, school, whateva.

So....do yall have anything like this in place? Or any other relevant Earn-a-Bike or alternative youth programming materials I can creep and reap?

SEND THEM TO ME!

Thanks buddiez!

Lauren @ OCB
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Message: 2
Date: Tue, 29 Apr 2014 15:20:31 -0700
From: Lauren Warbeck <lauren.warbeck@gmail.com>
To: The Think Tank <thethinktank@lists.bikecollectives.org>
Subject: [TheThinkTank] Instruction for Marginalized Communities:
Women on Wheels and Multilingual Nights
Message-ID:
<CAAr69eWCJ3OYEj8Z-pjdKNdmgoY-gt9gd60hoG0FDneJB5rpng@mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

Oh HEYYYY again...

It's a double email kinda day.


1) Multilingual Nights

We're hosting our first ever multilingual nights YAYYYYY! We now have a posse of rad mechanics who are fluent in English, Spanish, French, Cantonese, and Mandarin and we are planning to hold a series of multilingual instruction nights. We're about to have our first sub-committee meeting about how we're going to go about the planning of these nights (ie: Do we have a strictly Spanish night, or a Spanish & French night? What is the role of Anglo mechanics in these nights? What are the underlying needs of these communities beyond language instruction?), but first I wanted to find out if any of you have feedback or resource materials about your own experiences hosting multilingual nights. What did you set out to do? Did it work? What did you learn?

2) Women on Wheels

We're in the process of reconsidering the reach and name of our women's night, Women on Wheels. This name has been revisited several times by our collective, and again we're feeling the need for change. Those of you who commit energy to thinking about providing services across the gender/sexuality spectrum...I'm looking for your input. The key challenges for us, (and maybe all of us?) I think, are two-fold:

First, it's about holding space for those who adhere to identity politics (tangible and named - Woman, Lesbian, Dyke, sometimes Transwoman etc) while also holding space for folks who exist all along the gender and sexuality spectrum (intangible and variably named - Queer, Tomboi, sometimes Transwoman, Genderqueer, etc ). As in, how do we hold safer space for butch grandmas and trans women and gender queer folks all at once? Is it feasible or possible to hold safer space strictly around gender variance?
Or is it presumptuous as fuck to try to lump these diverse communities together? Or reductionist to assume gender experience is the key connecting factor between these individuals (and not race, or class, or ....)?

Second, it's about negotiating the instances of inclusion and exclusion that emerge as a result of differing levels of awareness and knowledge around these varied philosophies and ways of identifying. This is the crux of why we've called it Women's Night for so long. While in practice our "women's night" is attended by trans-women, cis-women, femmes, masculine-identified genderqueers, tombois, etc etc, we have continued to call it women's night to make sure that people who aren't familiar with the world of post-modern gender identity know they are welcome, and cis-men know easily and clearly that it is not for them. I guess, to make it legible to mainstream communities, while still welcoming to non-mainstream communities.

Meanwhile, we've also had interest from femme-identified cis-men and trans men in having services for masculine-presenting folks or folks who are presumed masculine (which again, is on a really broad spectrum). We're in convo with folks about their needs and wants, but it would also be great to have input from other shops. Where I'm really seeking is input about how your shops are drawing the lines around participation in nights for marginalized communities (including communities bonded around race, ethnicity, ability, etc) and/or how to meld diverse communities in appropriate and supportive ways.

I know that Plan B has Ladies, Trans, and Sissies Night, and BICAS has Women, Trans, and Femme night. Where are folks at with their organizing process around this? What are other shops doing?


You are all so great.

Lauren
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Message: 3
Date: Tue, 29 Apr 2014 18:37:11 -0400
From: DancesWithCars <danceswithcars@gmail.com>
To: The Think Tank <thethinktank@lists.bikecollectives.org>
Subject: Re: [TheThinkTank] Earn-a-Bike documentation and reporting?
Message-ID:
<CA+zqz3XP_S7FbFLatK0zXD__iH2gtb__iy68PVZsBu8O4rhWVA@mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

Maybe have kids create their own goals and yardsticks?

~~~~~~~~~~~ typing impaired by device, so phlat. NB: BB monitors all, dude/[ette].... BNF forgotten. Lied to re: Del msgs. MHA* On Apr 29, 2014 5:35 PM, "Lauren Warbeck" <lauren.warbeck@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hey Folks!
>
> When not immersed in planning an Ohio-themed Bike! Bike! fundraiser
> dance party (!!!), I'm actually doing other for real work. Including
> the exploration of formats, documentation, and reporting for our youth
> volunteering and Earn-a-Bike programs.
>
> Here in British Columbia, high school students are required to
> complete something like 30 hours of work experience (ie free labour)
> to graduate, and we get a lot of youth completing this requirement at
> our shops. We also run pretty informal Earn-a-Bike programs for youth
> who are in unconventional education settings, accessing social
> services, in alternative programs, or can't access our in-school
> programming for any variety of reasons. Lots of these kids are really
> focused on getting a job, but we can rarely accommodate that.
>
> I'm in the process of creating a checklist/worksheet of mechanical and
> interpersonal skills acquired by youth as they volunteer in our spaces.
> The idea is that it would include gradients of skill, becoming
> increasingly more complex as time goes on. It would be used to guide
> their time in the shop, and also document what they've learned. It
> would be the youth's responsibility to fill the checklist out over
> time and have staff sign off on it, and when it's completed, we would
> write them a letter of recommendation to be used in applying for jobs, school, whateva.
>
> So....do yall have anything like this in place? Or any other relevant
> Earn-a-Bike or alternative youth programming materials I can creep and reap?
>
> SEND THEM TO ME!
>
> Thanks buddiez!
>
> Lauren @ OCB
>
> ____________________________________
>
> The ThinkTank mailing List
> Unsubscribe
> from this list
>
>
>
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Message: 4
Date: Tue, 29 Apr 2014 17:57:06 -0700
From: Lauren Warbeck <lauren.warbeck@gmail.com>
To: The Think Tank <thethinktank@lists.bikecollectives.org>
Subject: Re: [TheThinkTank] Earn-a-Bike documentation and reporting?
Message-ID:
<CAAr69eUeXnK3+S0A9fzuN6DzYh3EYzpGDhNpxRthcRNYajuL6Q@mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

That's a great idea, and I think a really necessary feature of any youth program. I struggle with negotiating how much to lead/guide and how much to follow/facilitate on youth projects. Do you have input about that from your own experience? In this case, we've had a youth specifically request some way of gauging his progress so that he can take it to another bike shop, sort of like a resume.


On Tue, Apr 29, 2014 at 3:37 PM, DancesWithCars <danceswithcars@gmail.com>wrote:

> Maybe have kids create their own goals and yardsticks?
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~ typing impaired by device, so phlat. NB: BB monitors all,
> dude/[ette].... BNF forgotten. Lied to re: Del msgs. MHA* On Apr 29,
> 2014 5:35 PM, "Lauren Warbeck" <lauren.warbeck@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Hey Folks!
>>
>> When not immersed in planning an Ohio-themed Bike! Bike! fundraiser
>> dance party (!!!), I'm actually doing other for real work. Including
>> the exploration of formats, documentation, and reporting for our
>> youth volunteering and Earn-a-Bike programs.
>>
>> Here in British Columbia, high school students are required to
>> complete something like 30 hours of work experience (ie free labour)
>> to graduate, and we get a lot of youth completing this requirement at
>> our shops. We also run pretty informal Earn-a-Bike programs for
>> youth who are in unconventional education settings, accessing social
>> services, in alternative programs, or can't access our in-school
>> programming for any variety of reasons. Lots of these kids are
>> really focused on getting a job, but we can rarely accommodate that.
>>
>> I'm in the process of creating a checklist/worksheet of mechanical
>> and interpersonal skills acquired by youth as they volunteer in our spaces.
>> The idea is that it would include gradients of skill, becoming
>> increasingly more complex as time goes on. It would be used to guide
>> their time in the shop, and also document what they've learned. It
>> would be the youth's responsibility to fill the checklist out over
>> time and have staff sign off on it, and when it's completed, we would
>> write them a letter of recommendation to be used in applying for jobs, school, whateva.
>>
>> So....do yall have anything like this in place? Or any other
>> relevant Earn-a-Bike or alternative youth programming materials I can creep and reap?
>>
>> SEND THEM TO ME!
>>
>> Thanks buddiez!
>>
>> Lauren @ OCB
>>
>> ____________________________________
>>
>> The ThinkTank mailing List
>> Unsubscri
>> be
>> from this list
>>
>>
>>
> ____________________________________
>
> The ThinkTank mailing List
> Unsubscribe
> from this list
>
>
>
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