Hey Brian,
Yeah we have similar issues at Community Cycles. We have a dozen or so
core volunteers who show up each week for a three hour shift, we call
the facilitators. Most of these folks have worked in bike shops or are
advanced shade tree mechanics. By and large most of our facilitators
are limited when it comes to people skills. In addition, even though
these facilitators show up on a regular basis it's been almost
impossible to schedule them for a shift. And a lot of times
facilitators show up and don't even work on bikes they just hang out.
We do have a monthly facilitator meeting which has been sparsely
attended at best.
Currently we don't have a mechanism for interested volunteers to become
facilitators or high level volunteers. The result is our facilitator
pool has become old, stagnant and untrained. To address this we've
been working on developing a facilitator training process.
The training process, still in it's first draft, is broken into four
training sessions. The trainings are focused on admin/greeter, daily
shop ops, mechanics and community outreach. Once you've gone through
the training you'll be qualified to schedule a three/four hour
facilitator shift each week at the shop or work on a special
project/event.
As you mentioned a lot of enthusiastic volunteers are not particularly
mechanically inclined. One perk we've talked about is if a new
facilitator commits to 6 months of shifts they can take our Bike
Mechanics 101 class for free
http://communitycycles.org/programs/classes.html
We'll be launching this new training program at our next facilitator
meeting at the end of this month. Wish us luck.
Ride On!
Rich
CC Facili(Tator) Training Manual
To become a facilitator or high level volunteer at Community Cycles,
you need to go through a series of simple trainings. Once you've gone
through them, you're qualified to represent Community Cycles at events
outside of the shop. Facilitators gain privilege to order from our
wholesalers at 10% over cost.
Criteria
- To be a facilitator you must have completed the training
and commit to one shift per week for a minimum of a three month
period. If you are unable to make your shift it is your responsibility
to have it covered by another facilitator. If you cannot cover your
shift please let staff know asap that you will not be able to attend.
- Attend a mandatory monthly facilitator meeting at the shop.
Usually the third Tuesday of each month.
Trainings
You'll need to schedule to complete four trainings during open shop
hours. Each training session is 3 - 4 hours. You must complete the
trainings within two months of your start date.
- Greeter
The greeter is one of the most
important roles in the shop. Functioning as greeter is a quick way for
you to get oriented to Community Cycles and what we do. We've put
together an awesome Greeter manual that will help you answer the most
common questions we hear in the shop each day.
- Kids Bikes and New Donation processing
- Strip bikes for parts as needed
- Check - Frame and wheels for cracks, dings and bends
- Fix Tubes - patch tubes and replace as needed
- Replace - Rotten tires, seats, grips, frayed cables and
rotten cable housing
- Remove - light and lock hardware, seized rusty chains...
- Clean - Drive train, wheels and hubs, frame, handle bars...
- Install - Missing reflectors, valve caps
- Flatten Bikes
- Sort parts
- Shadow Facilitator
Shadow a certified tater for a
shift helping EABers in progress, tune
ups or sale bikes. Shadow taters will do one tater chore; i.e. clean
bathroom, take out trash, sweep... After this shift you will be
"qualified" to help EABers and work on in shop tune ups.
- Grab Bag - Would be taters can choose from any of these
activities.
Repeat any of the first three trainings
Greeter Trainer
Finisher/Sales
Community tabling event
Street team
UCAR
CHaRM
Farmers Market
North Storage staff assistant
Tune Ups
RBC
Special event
Super Facilitator
Volunteers who demonstrate mastery of bike mechanics and/or volunteer
beyond one shift per week. Super facilitators gain access to the key
code on a case by case basis.
- Complete the six week bike mechanics course or other bicycle
mechanics training course.
- Demonstrate bicycle mechanic mastery
- Complete a bike safety instruction course
- Demonstrate bicycle safety and be capable of teaching a short
bike safety seminar
- Volunteer for 2 or more shifts per week
- Be active on a sub committee of the CC board of directors
- Work on a special event or campaign.
Urban Bike Project Wilmington, DE wrote:
Hi All,
Since we opened shop I've observed that our best volunteers are those
that hardly know anything about the mechanical side of bikes but have
enthusiasm and a desire to learn. They end up being the most patient
with customers and eventually the best teachers/passers on of bike
knowledge. On the flip side are experienced bike mechanics. Most, but
not all, are pushy, completely disregard our "hands off the tools
philosophy" and don't understand when we ask them to "please attend
volunteer orientation" if you would like to volunteer as a mechanic
here ("but i'm already a mechanic!").
Recently a bike mechanic of thirty years came in because he heard about
us and wanted to observe what went on. To make a long story short, he
did everything BUT observe and I had to ask/tell/almost yell at him
several times to let people in the shop "do it themselves". The last
time I told him to "let him do it himself" he responded with "but i
have so much knowledge to share!", to which I replied "here we let
people get that knowledge themselves and don't watch over them
constantly or take tools out of their hands", which he didn't seem to
understand ("what if they make a mistake and something breaks?!"). To
lighten the mood (they'll probably laugh, or cry...), bring a hammer
out and explain that this is your "rim straightener" or "frame
alignment tool".
My questions to the other collectives out there:
1.) Do you have a similar issue? or is it just us, haha
2.) How have you gotten experienced mechanics (like the above example)
to "buy-in" to your system if at first they resisted?
Brian
Urban Bike Project of Wilmington
-a 501(c)3 non-profit bike shop-
1908 N. Market Street (entrance is in the parking lot behind the
building)
Wilmington, DE 19802
Hours:
Thursday 6:30-9:00
Saturday 1:00-4:00
Visit us online at
http://urbanbikeproject.org
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