We've had similar experiences in our space. I keep coming back to the same philosophy - you don't fight something by pushing against it, because resistance is met with resistance. There is a reason we have unskilled, but enthusiastic people, myself included at times - because they have not really learned the proper way to do things. And there are is a reason that they help others with wrong information - because they want to help and nobody else is there to do it. We all know how frantic it can get and they jump in and help because they really want to.

So the solution we came up with is that we need to be more intentional about our volunteer training. Most organizations like ours rely on volunteers but don't really spend the time to really train them. It's always 'learn as you go' mentality and that can be pretty haphazard and incomplete. Many years later a core volunteer may never even know how to overhaul a headset or understand all the different types of brakes and how to adjust them. One way we are dealing with this is by creating a new volunteer only night, with no sales, no open shop and an organized agenda which includes instruction for volunteers. Part class, part work on bikes we need fixed. It's a good start. We are kicking it off with a volunteer appreciation party and then it will run every Monday night from 6-9pm. And we are looking for other ways to be more intentional about an internal training program for volunteers. The new progam will definately create more skilled volunteers and helps enthusiasm across the board. People like having the right information to pass on to others. It's empowering.

Anyway, being intentional about helping our volunteers learn more and do things the right way creates a new thing and makes the old irrelevant. So any ideas for us also, on how all of you do internal training for volunteers/staff would be really helpful to us. Let us know your ideas!