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Today's Topics:
1. Earn-a-Bike Programs (Nicole Muratore)
2. Re: Earn-a-Bike Programs (Scott Long)
3. Re: Earn-a-Bike Programs (cyclista@inventati.org)
4. Re: Earn-a-Bike Programs (Carlyn Arteaga)
5. Bike!Bike! ?Dondequiera! / Everywhere! 2021 in review / en
revisi?n (Angel York)
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Nicole Muratore <nicole@bikesaviours.org>
To: thethinktank@lists.bikecollectives.org
Cc:
Bcc:
Date: Tue, 11 Jan 2022 14:54:39 -0700
Subject: [TheThinkTank] Earn-a-Bike ProgramsThe last iteration of ours required an individual to volunteer 12 hours of time in exchange for a bike we'd teach them to fix up, a set of lights, and a lock. These folks are already facing transportation issues and have difficulty returning to the shop to complete the hours they started.Separate from earn-a-bike we offer work trade at a rate of $10/hour for shop credit that can be used for stand time or regular-priced parts needed to fix one's bike.If your shop has an earn-a-bike program or similar, how does it work? And is utilization of the program high? Any input, documentation, etc. is appreciated!Cheers,Nicole Muratore, Shop Manager (she/her)Bike Saviours Bicycle Collective(602) 429-9369 | bikesaviours.org | @bikesaviours
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Scott Long <scott.m.long@gmail.com>
To: The Think Tank <thethinktank@lists.bikecollectives.org>
Cc:
Bcc:
Date: Tue, 11 Jan 2022 17:34:33 -0500
Subject: Re: [TheThinkTank] Earn-a-Bike ProgramsHi Nicole,I'm the Executive Director of BikeAthens here in Athens GA. I've been the administrator for our Earn A Bike Program for over five years. We use social service partners in our area to refer clients to us that need transportation.How do you avoid means testing? You do that by letting it be someone else's job. In theory, you and the other collective members are a) excited about bikes and b) have other jobs and responsibilities that don't revolve around being full-time social workers. I don't decide who gets a bike. I just decide which one they get. The referring organization does the heavy lifting by having interviewed and worked with the potential client. Often they are licensed social workers to some extent or another. They are in a much better position to make that judgment call. It also gives me an easy way out of the conversation when a random person shows up telling me that they heard if they come down here they can get a free bike. I even have a pamphlet I give them that explains our referral process.
We have a very low threshold for what types of organizations we partner with. Any reasonably legit third party that is willing to email or call on behalf of someone they know that needs a bike is in. That is to say, pretty much any 501c3 non-profit, school or church organization can send a request on behalf of a client. Our expectations are just that they believe that having a bike would help their client better find a job, get to school, and access social services or healthcare. We don't require an MOU unless they want one. Some partner organizations have their own criteria for whether or not they will send us a request. For example, the Salvation Army in Athens will only send a referral if the client already has a job. A local addiction recovery organization requires the client to sign a contract that they will take care of the bike, keep it locked, and return it if they are no longer using it. If the partner organization would like to protect a client's identity, that's fine. They can make up a client number or send me initials. As long as they tell me how tall they are, we're good.
You may not have the same community partners over time, there is decent turnover in a lot of other social service organizations and sometimes new people aren't aware they can even help their clients find help with bikes.Let me know if that is helpful or if you have any other questions.ThanksScottOn Tue, Jan 11, 2022 at 4:54 PM Nicole Muratore <nicole@bikesaviours.org> wrote:____________________________________The last iteration of ours required an individual to volunteer 12 hours of time in exchange for a bike we'd teach them to fix up, a set of lights, and a lock. These folks are already facing transportation issues and have difficulty returning to the shop to complete the hours they started.Separate from earn-a-bike we offer work trade at a rate of $10/hour for shop credit that can be used for stand time or regular-priced parts needed to fix one's bike.If your shop has an earn-a-bike program or similar, how does it work? And is utilization of the program high? Any input, documentation, etc. is appreciated!Cheers,Nicole Muratore, Shop Manager (she/her)Bike Saviours Bicycle Collective(602) 429-9369 | bikesaviours.org | @bikesaviours
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---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: cyclista@inventati.org
To: thethinktank@lists.bikecollectives.org
Cc:
Bcc:
Date: Tue, 11 Jan 2022 23:22:48 +0000
Subject: Re: [TheThinkTank] Earn-a-Bike Programs
Hi Nicole,
At RIBs, for many years, we had similar requirements to those you
describe for your shop. At one point we also had a different, simpler
system, wherein the applicant was required to fix up one bike for
someone else in order to be allowed to fix up one bike for themselves.
What we found was exactly what you have found, which was that the
highest need groups found both of these bars too high to reach. In many
cases, the policy was also seen as unfriendly: some people needing the
resource were in an especially high state of life stress, as well as
being subject to social ostracism generally, and being told they must
not only navigate this difficult learning curve, but do work that didn't
further their own immediate (read: urgent) needs was, frankly,
inconsiderate. Even though we at the shop were good people only trying
to help, we just didn't understand.
So the lesson was that higher order concepts like community development
and mutual aid aren't really great to evangelize to people undergoing
crisis. In kind, that we in the shop had bad calibration wrt what
represented crisis. We might have thought of it as extreme things such
as "are you being evicted" or "have you lost housing because your
partner threatened your life and your only other housing options are
with substance abusing people you had been trying to separate yourself
from because you are trying to stay clean to regain legal custody of
your children", but in reality significant states of crisis can be much
more insidious and mundane. Someone can be in a state of significant,
ongoing crisis simply because they are disrespected at their job and
their childcare involves significant emotional burden, and they feel
unloved in their partner relationship. Crisis can be difficult to
recognize for someone not familiar with it, especially where it stems
from conditions such as generational poverty and trauma. And crisis
isn't necessarily a transitory state. It can last for most or all of a
person's life, especiallly where generational effects are involved.
So what we did was entirely remove our requirements for volunteering in
return for use of the space, and replaced them with only a
pay-what-you-want requirement for parts and a polite reminder that we
accept donations.
What we saw was a dramatic reduction in ghosting. Nearly all
participants of every demographic returned to complete their projects. A
rough guess would be that around 2% abandoned projects they started,
most of those being students with busy academic/social schedules or
hobbyists who lost interest in a frivolous idea. Over the four years we
had these relaxed policies, nearly all in-need participants completed
their bikes (or repairs) and left with safe and satisfying wheels under
them.
This higher rate of effectiveness did come at a cost, however. When we
had volunteer requirements, it did force a lot more people to stay and
be part of the environment for longer periods of time, contributing to
shop culture and character. Requirements also forced kids to learn: most
of the street-level kids in our community don't stay and learn unless
they are made to. In these cases the reward-incentive-for-work concept
seems to be something that must be imposed, rather than guided or
facilitated, in order to take root. So though we retained significant
child attendance in the case of those visiting with various guardians,
we also lost a lot (actually most) of our solo child participation by
removing requirements.
In general, I'd say our volunteer community was reduced by about half by
these measures, with only people who volunteered out of passion and joy
remaining. Our shop was small and had never really run on exclusively
volunteer labor except at the beginning (thirty years ago) when it was
even smaller and being run out of random garages, so this wasn't a
lethal change for us. It did create much greater demands/stress on paid
staff and primary volunteers.
I think it's possible to not go entirely one way or another, for
instance to have volunteer requirements for children but not adults
(though it might be painful to justify to kids who noticed the
disparity), or create tiers of service/use some of which would required
volunteering. We just basically treated the shop as a library and the
staff and primary volunteers as librarians, and let the community use
the space so long as they did so without harming it.
An idea for a tier of access that could require volunteer hours might be
keyed off-hours access. This is really only sustainable now with the
advent of [more] affordable electronic locks - in the past people with
keys made copies, kept them essentially forever, and any abuse would
require changing the locks. I'd encourage shop budget to be spent on
this kind of lock, or even the more expensive mechanical versions, even
though it involves significant expense. In retrospect, it was the lack
of this investment that prevented us from exploring options such as the
one suggested above, and eventually we were making enough money that we
could have afforded it. It's so difficult to see every option in every
moment when you're busy af with so many things.
~cyclista Nicholas
On 2022-01-11 21:54, Nicole Muratore wrote:
> The last iteration of ours required an individual to volunteer 12 hours
> of
> time in exchange for a bike we'd teach them to fix up, a set of lights,
> and
> a lock. These folks are already facing transportation issues and have
> difficulty returning to the shop to complete the hours they started.
>
> Separate from earn-a-bike we offer work trade at a rate of $10/hour for
> shop credit that can be used for stand time or regular-priced parts
> needed
> to fix one's bike.
>
> If your shop has an earn-a-bike program or similar, how does it work?
> And
> is utilization of the program high? Any input, documentation, etc. is
> appreciated!
>
> Cheers,
> *Nicole Muratore, Shop Manager* (she/her)
> Bike Saviours Bicycle Collective
> (602) 429-9369 | bikesaviours.org | @bikesaviours
>
> ____________________________________
>
> The ThinkTank mailing List
>
> Unsubscribe from this list here:
> http://lists.bikecollectives.org/options.cgi/thethinktank-bikecollectives.org
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Carlyn Arteaga <carlyn.arteaga@bicas.org>
To: The Think Tank <thethinktank@lists.bikecollectives.org>
Cc:
Bcc:
Date: Tue, 11 Jan 2022 16:49:11 -0700
Subject: Re: [TheThinkTank] Earn-a-Bike ProgramsHi Nicole,Carlyn from BICAS in Tucson, AZ here. Our Earn-a-Bike program is encapsulated into our Work Trade Program -- Folks earn $12/hr to help us out around the shop and they can use that credit towards 1 bike per year, used parts, and Community Tools (stand time) to fix it up. All the bikes in our shop are priced, so folks just calculate how much work they need to do to earn whichever bike they like. It is a very heavily-used program and we get referrals from social services orgs all over the county. We currently have a cap of $200 per person per year, although we are currently evaluating that cap as well as the Work Trade rate. Feel free to reach out if you have any other questions.Sincerely,~CarlynOn Tue, Jan 11, 2022 at 3:34 PM Scott Long <scott.m.long@gmail.com> wrote:Hi Nicole,I'm the Executive Director of BikeAthens here in Athens GA. I've been the administrator for our Earn A Bike Program for over five years. We use social service partners in our area to refer clients to us that need transportation.How do you avoid means testing? You do that by letting it be someone else's job. In theory, you and the other collective members are a) excited about bikes and b) have other jobs and responsibilities that don't revolve around being full-time social workers. I don't decide who gets a bike. I just decide which one they get. The referring organization does the heavy lifting by having interviewed and worked with the potential client. Often they are licensed social workers to some extent or another. They are in a much better position to make that judgment call. It also gives me an easy way out of the conversation when a random person shows up telling me that they heard if they come down here they can get a free bike. I even have a pamphlet I give them that explains our referral process.
We have a very low threshold for what types of organizations we partner with. Any reasonably legit third party that is willing to email or call on behalf of someone they know that needs a bike is in. That is to say, pretty much any 501c3 non-profit, school or church organization can send a request on behalf of a client. Our expectations are just that they believe that having a bike would help their client better find a job, get to school, and access social services or healthcare. We don't require an MOU unless they want one. Some partner organizations have their own criteria for whether or not they will send us a request. For example, the Salvation Army in Athens will only send a referral if the client already has a job. A local addiction recovery organization requires the client to sign a contract that they will take care of the bike, keep it locked, and return it if they are no longer using it. If the partner organization would like to protect a client's identity, that's fine. They can make up a client number or send me initials. As long as they tell me how tall they are, we're good.
You may not have the same community partners over time, there is decent turnover in a lot of other social service organizations and sometimes new people aren't aware they can even help their clients find help with bikes.Let me know if that is helpful or if you have any other questions.ThanksScott____________________________________On Tue, Jan 11, 2022 at 4:54 PM Nicole Muratore <nicole@bikesaviours.org> wrote:____________________________________The last iteration of ours required an individual to volunteer 12 hours of time in exchange for a bike we'd teach them to fix up, a set of lights, and a lock. These folks are already facing transportation issues and have difficulty returning to the shop to complete the hours they started.Separate from earn-a-bike we offer work trade at a rate of $10/hour for shop credit that can be used for stand time or regular-priced parts needed to fix one's bike.If your shop has an earn-a-bike program or similar, how does it work? And is utilization of the program high? Any input, documentation, etc. is appreciated!Cheers,Nicole Muratore, Shop Manager (she/her)Bike Saviours Bicycle Collective(602) 429-9369 | bikesaviours.org | @bikesaviours
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--Carlyn Arteaga
pronouns: they/them/theirs
Youth Program Coordinator
BICAS
2001 N. 7th Ave. | Tucson, AZ 85701 | Shop: 520-628-7950
carlyn.arteaga@bicas.org | www.bicas.org | Facebook | Instagram
Through advocacy and bicycle salvage, our mission is to participate in affordable bicycle transportation, education, and creative recycling with our greater Tucson community.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Angel York <aniola@gmail.com>
To: The Think Tank <thethinktank@lists.bikecollectives.org>
Cc:
Bcc:
Date: Tue, 11 Jan 2022 20:03:14 -0800
Subject: [TheThinkTank] Bike!Bike! ¡Dondequiera! / Everywhere! 2021 in review / en revisión_______________________________________________Español abajo
Hi everyone,
Thanks for helping make Bike!Bike! Everywhere! 2021 such a hoppin' weekend!
OVERVIEW
There were a couple dozen events over 3-4 days (depending on how you count time zones).
About 175 people registered. Or maybe 198! Anyway, lots of people came.
About 1400 US dollars were donated and are being distributed as a stipend to the interpreters (minus fees).
Piles of people volunteered in one way or another.
New connections have formed.
Friends were made.
100% of all germs stayed local.
ARCHIVED VIDEOS
Workshops are nearly all posted in English and are still going up in Spanish. Here's the link to the archived videos: https://archive.org/details/@bikebikeeverywhere . If you want to help organize the archive data, please send an email to bikebikeeverywhere@gmail.com.SURVEY RESULTS
Results from the survey were overwhelmingly positive. Suggestions were mostly things we know we need to work on, and we're working on them. They'll happen faster with more committed volunteers, so come join us! We can find a place for you for a wide range of roles/interests and at every skill level.GET INVOLVED WITH BIKE!BIKE! EVERYWHERE!
If you've tried to reach out and get involved before and didn't get to put your awesome skills to their best use, please try again. We'd love to have you. We have a better sense of what needs doing. There's more work than volunteers, we're all having a lot of fun, and we'd love your company.
If there is enough core volunteer availability, there will probably be another B!B!E! in early November 2022. We need you to help make it happen! Here's how:
Join the new planning email list at http://lists.bikecollectives.org/listinfo.cgi/bikebike-everywhere-bikecollectives.org and start attending meetings (https://www.bikecollectives.org/wiki/Meetings_and_minutes).
Find something to do the volunteer roles list at https://www.bikecollectives.org/wiki/Bike!Bike!_Everywhere!_Volunteer_Roles and email bikebikeeverywhere@gmail.com.
BIKE!BIKE! MEXICO CITY 2022
Mujerxs al Pedal (mujerxsalpedal@gmail.com) is hosting an in-person Bike!Bike! in Mexico City (CDMX) June or July 2022. They are planning to do a partial hybrid with online streaming. B!B!E! and B!B!CDMX are in contact and working together to share resources. Stay tuned at bikebike.org for B!B!CDMX sign-ups (coming soon).
Hola a todxs,
Gracias por ayudarnos a que Bike!Bike! En todas partes! 2021 fuera un fin de semana tan animado.
INFORMACIÓN GENERAL
Hubo dos docenas de eventos a lo largo de 3 o 4 días (dependiendo de cómo cuentes los husos horarios).
Se registraron alrededor de 175 personas ¡o tal vez 198! Como sea, mucha gente vino.
Fueron donados alrededor de 1400 dólares y están siendo distribuidos (menos algunas cuotas) como remuneración entre lxs intérpretes.
Montones de personas voluntariaron de una manera u otra.
Nuevas conexiones han sido formadas.
Amistades han sido hechas.
100% de los gérmenes se quedaron en su lugar.
VIDEOS ARCHIVADOS
Casi todos los talleres fueron subidos en inglés y están siendo subidos en español. Aquí hay un link a los videos archivados: https://archive.org/details/@bikebikeeverywhere. Si te interesa ayudar a organizar la información del archivo, por favor manda un correo a bikebikeeverywhere@gmail.com.
RESULTADOS DE LA ENCUESTA
Los resultados de la encuesta fueron abrumadoramente positivos. Las sugerencias fueron mayormente cosas que sabemos que tenemos que trabajar, y estamos trabajando en ellas. Se lograrán más rápidamente con más voluntarixs dedicadxs, ¡así que únete a nosotrxs! Podemos encontrar un lugar para ti dentro de un amplio rango de roles/intereses y en cualquier nivel.INVOLÚCRATE CON BIKE!BIKE! EN TODAS PARTES!
Si trataste de acercarte e involucrarte antes y no pudiste aprovechar tus geniales habilidades, por favor inténtalo de nuevo. Nos encantaría tenerte. Ya tenemos una mejor idea de lo que necesita hacerse. Hay más trabajo que voluntarixs, todxs nos estamos divirtiendo mucho y nos encantaría contar con tu compañía.
Si hay suficiente disponibilidad de voluntarixs, probablemente habrá otro B!B!E! a principios de noviembre de 2022. Necesitamos de tu ayuda para hacer que eso suceda! Aquí está cómo apoyar:
BIKE!BIKE! CIUDAD DE MÉXICO 2022
Únete a la nueva lista de correo de planeación en http://lists.bikecollectives.org/listinfo.cgi/bikebike-everywhere-bikecollectives.org y empieza a asistir a las reuniones (https://www.bikecollectives.org/wiki/Meetings_and_minutes).
Encuentra algo que hacer en la lista de roles para voluntarixs, en https://www.bikecollectives.org/wiki/Bike!Bike!_Everywhere!_Volunteer_Roles/es y manda un correo a bikebikeeverywhere@gmail.com.
Mujerxs al Pedal (mujerxsalpedal@gmail.com) serán anfirionxs de un Bike!Bike! en persona en la Ciudad de México (CDMX) en junio o julio de 2011. Están planeando hacer un evento parcialmente híbrido con transmisiones en línea. B!B!E! y B!B!CDMX están en contacto y trabajando juntxs para compartir recursos. Mantente al pendiente de bikebike.org para los registros para B!B!CDMX (próximamente).
This was issue #5 of Bike!Bike! Everywhere!.
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