hi everyone,
josh from community cycles in boulder, co here.
we discussed with many of you at bike bike, and have brought the idea home, that we could offer some sort of work-for-parts deal. right now, we're thinking of some sort of "after you voliunteer 6 hours per week, any hours you work count towards your shop credit at $x/hr" set up. i believe some of you have similar programs.
what kind of systems do you all have with regards to this? what kind of problems have arisen? solutions?
i believe someone before mentioned cherrypicking. what we're thinking is that once volunteers have reached a set number of hours per week, they become eligible to work for shop credit (most likely not new parts). at that point, they choose a part/parts/bike/bikes they would like to earn, and then begin working towards that with hours spent in the shop, working on other shop/organizational needs. (volunteers couldn't get credit for working on a bike they're going to take home with shop credit earned working on...you get the idea.) obviously some sort of "if you choose a part, work towards it, and then we don't see you in two weeks" policy would need to be in place, but that's not hard to keep track of.
thanks for your help, and i'm sure i'm not the only one to see bikebike emails popping up already!!!
josh/community cycles