Input on Tasks for Drop-In Volunteers
Hello Pals!!!!!!!! Systems are shaping up at the Mechanical Gardens in NYC, and we're looking to develop more structure for drop-in volunteers. This includes irregular volunteers and regulars too. *What are some of the ways **you'd recommend **to do this well?* And what resources can you share?
- PDFs of handouts from your shops or snapshots of things like task
boards would be super helpful, as would other advice!
- We want a balance of "low barrier for entry" tasks and "guidance or
skill required" tasks.
- We would love to hear your insights on how to frame these things to be
learning and empowerment experiences instead of just "hey do this thing bye" or "hey do this thing while I hover over you."
ALSO ALSO PLEASE LOOKIE: We're posing this as a question to everyone, *but* would primarily love to hear from some women/trans/femme/gender non-conforming organizers, if anyone who identifies that way is inclined to jump into the thread. Partly this is because the ThinkTank is often very male-dominated, and partly it's because in our shop, at least, cismen are way more likely to jump into / blunder through participating without structures to invite them in or help them contribute in the best way possible. For this reason, insights from non-cismen organizers would be great here.
xox to all of course though :)
Josh
Josh Bisker 914-500-9890 New York Mechanical Gardens Bike Co-op http://bikecoop.nyc/ 596 Acres http://596acres.org/ Bindlestiff Family Cirkus http://bindlestiff.org/
Hey Josh and everyone,
Great to hear things are shaping up at Mechanical Gardens!
We have been running an internal spreadsheet (primarily google sheet) with dates so we know who is expected (but not obligated and has opted in) to open, close and a space for a volunteer to just attend with no obligation to open or close. Anyone else is considered a drop in volunteer.
If they've been before, awesome. They sorta know the scene and we have 1 minute, 5 minutes and 10 minute tasks on a whiteboard for them to do. If they regularly show up, they get added to the group who has access to the spreadsheet.
We also have a hand painted sign that says how RAD Bikes works on the side of our shed. One of the work flow options is "I wanna help!" In which they are instructed to see the head volunteer for the day for a quick intro or tour and can select from some small tasks.
Hope that helps. It's pretty loose, as always, down here but keen to hear other methods that work or don't from others.
Catarina
On Sat, 18 Nov 2017 at 4:13 PM, Josh Bisker jbisker@gmail.com wrote:
Hello Pals!!!!!!!! Systems are shaping up at the Mechanical Gardens in NYC, and we're looking to develop more structure for drop-in volunteers. This includes irregular volunteers and regulars too. *What are some of the ways **you'd recommend **to do this well?* And what resources can you share?
- PDFs of handouts from your shops or snapshots of things like task
boards would be super helpful, as would other advice!
- We want a balance of "low barrier for entry" tasks and "guidance or
skill required" tasks.
- We would love to hear your insights on how to frame these things to
be learning and empowerment experiences instead of just "hey do this thing bye" or "hey do this thing while I hover over you."
ALSO ALSO PLEASE LOOKIE: We're posing this as a question to everyone, *but* would primarily love to hear from some women/trans/femme/gender non-conforming organizers, if anyone who identifies that way is inclined to jump into the thread. Partly this is because the ThinkTank is often very male-dominated, and partly it's because in our shop, at least, cismen are way more likely to jump into / blunder through participating without structures to invite them in or help them contribute in the best way possible. For this reason, insights from non-cismen organizers would be great here.
xox to all of course though :)
Josh
Josh Bisker 914-500-9890 New York Mechanical Gardens Bike Co-op http://bikecoop.nyc/ 596 Acres http://596acres.org/ Bindlestiff Family Cirkus http://bindlestiff.org/ ____________________________________
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Catarina Gutierrez 022 154 5049 T: @meCatarina
Hello Josh,
We had a similar issue on our last forum in our bicycle collective. There are many things we want to do but the labor is not enough. As we don't have a physical place, and don't have any issue board, we thought probably someone who came up, doesn't have any idea about what we do and what we plan to do. So, somehow, we need to put what we are doing to online.
Someone proposed using Trello [1] or a similar simple issue board. I'm not sure about Trello because it is mostly used by commercial projects and we try to be completely voluntary. However, we might use it a bit different. Someone might see a card and think they can do it and put their name on it. If they cannot do it, they can remove themselves or another person might notice that there is no action in a card can remove people on it to make it look available to the others.
These are just ideas in my head right now, didn't even discussed with the community. So, I would love to hear from everyone.
-- Ege - Don Quixote Bicycle Collective
On 11/18/2017 06:12 AM, Josh Bisker wrote:
Hello Pals!!!!!!!! Systems are shaping up at the Mechanical Gardens in NYC, and we're looking to develop more structure for drop-in volunteers. This includes irregular volunteers and regulars too. *What are some of the ways **you'd recommend **to do this well?* And what resources can you share?
PDFs of handouts from your shops or snapshots of things like task boards would be super helpful, as would other advice!
We want a balance of "low barrier for entry" tasks and "guidance or skill required" tasks.
We would love to hear your insights on how to frame these things to be learning and empowerment experiences instead of just "hey do this thing bye" or "hey do this thing while I hover over you."
ALSO ALSO PLEASE LOOKIE: We're posing this as a question to everyone, /but/ would primarily love to hear from some women/trans/femme/gender non-conforming organizers, if anyone who identifies that way is inclined to jump into the thread. Partly this is because the ThinkTank is often very male-dominated, and partly it's because in our shop, at least, cismen are way more likely to jump into / blunder through participating without structures to invite them in or help them contribute in the best way possible. For this reason, insights from non-cismen organizers would be great here.
xox to all of course though :)
Josh
Josh Bisker 914-500-9890 New York Mechanical Gardens Bike Co-op http://bikecoop.nyc/ 596 Acres http://596acres.org/ Bindlestiff Family Cirkus http://bindlestiff.org/
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All, Our system for vol task guidance has grown into "How-to guides"; standardized format checklists for Key Vols to use in training drop-in (or any) vols, for the most education and productivity. Some examples are here https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B1seEpGFxli9Qkk4U216WS1EcEU, and we will publish more openly this winter.
Since it was presented at B!B! Detroit in 2016 we decided we needed to add a step (especially needed for sorting tasks) to have knowledgeable staff or KV look over the parts or work before and disassembly, say, or finally declaring "done" or scrapping, to avoid downstream frustrations, and waste of time or material. We're calling it "staff intervention" for now, but some less weighted term would be nice -- your ideas welcome.
This system evolved so we have a familiar format for the KV to work from, and that is kept in three-ring binders so they can be referred to wherever the task is being done. Formerly we used a "Shop Manual", in an online narrative format ( that we just printed out anyway) which is still on our old wiki http://ohiocitycycles.org/wiki/tiki-index.php?page=ShopManual (and was originally part of the basis of the bikecollectives.org wiki).
Josh, All of these Shop Manual tasks are still being done (the "ten tasks" are the most educational ones we want Earn A Bike students to experience), so the basic answer for your question are there, but I'll add that "De-spoking a wheel https://docs.google.com/document/d/1kfsMr_nQxAQasfGopuEeFDyPMyVHVFD55wWcxg-qLf0/edit?usp=sharing" is what we have most work-trade drop-ins do, because it is productive, educational (at least at first), it takes a chunk of time; we have an endless supply of raw material ( if we run out of aluminum-rimmed wheels, we'll even despoke steel-rimmed ones if they have brass nipples [but all-steel wheels go straight to scrap]; and it can be repeated until one enters a transcendental state, and emerges from it to find they have enough credits to replace their chain and cogs, and crank.
Catarina, your wrote, "... we have 1 minute, 5 minutes and 10 minute tasks on a whiteboard..." I can assume these are times needed to train the volunteers, not times to complete the tasks, right?!
Hope this helps!
Best regards, Jim
Jim Sheehan Executive Director Ohio City Bicycle Co-op 1840 Columbus Rd Cleveland, Ohio 44113 216 830 2667 OhioCityCycles.org jim@ohiocitycycles.org
On Sat, Nov 18, 2017 at 4:41 AM, Ege Sertçetin ege@sertcetin.com wrote:
Hello Josh,
We had a similar issue on our last forum in our bicycle collective. There are many things we want to do but the labor is not enough. As we don't have a physical place, and don't have any issue board, we thought probably someone who came up, doesn't have any idea about what we do and what we plan to do. So, somehow, we need to put what we are doing to online.
Someone proposed using Trello [1] or a similar simple issue board. I'm not sure about Trello because it is mostly used by commercial projects and we try to be completely voluntary. However, we might use it a bit different. Someone might see a card and think they can do it and put their name on it. If they cannot do it, they can remove themselves or another person might notice that there is no action in a card can remove people on it to make it look available to the others.
These are just ideas in my head right now, didn't even discussed with the community. So, I would love to hear from everyone.
-- Ege - Don Quixote Bicycle Collective
On 11/18/2017 06:12 AM, Josh Bisker wrote:
Hello Pals!!!!!!!! Systems are shaping up at the Mechanical Gardens in NYC, and we're looking to develop more structure for drop-in volunteers. This includes irregular volunteers and regulars too. *What are some of the ways **you'd recommend **to do this well?* And what resources can you share?
PDFs of handouts from your shops or snapshots of things like task boards would be super helpful, as would other advice!
We want a balance of "low barrier for entry" tasks and "guidance or skill required" tasks.
We would love to hear your insights on how to frame these things to be learning and empowerment experiences instead of just "hey do this thing bye" or "hey do this thing while I hover over you."
ALSO ALSO PLEASE LOOKIE: We're posing this as a question to everyone, /but/ would primarily love to hear from some women/trans/femme/gender non-conforming organizers, if anyone who identifies that way is inclined to jump into the thread. Partly this is because the ThinkTank is often very male-dominated, and partly it's because in our shop, at least, cismen are way more likely to jump into / blunder through participating without structures to invite them in or help them contribute in the best way possible. For this reason, insights from non-cismen organizers would be great here.
xox to all of course though :)
Josh
Josh Bisker 914-500-9890 New York Mechanical Gardens Bike Co-op http://bikecoop.nyc/ 596 Acres http://596acres.org/ Bindlestiff Family Cirkus http://bindlestiff.org/
The ThinkTank mailing List
Unsubscribe from this list here: http://lists.bikecollectives.o rg/options.cgi/thethinktank-bikecollectives.org
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participants (4)
-
Catarina Gutierrez -
Ege Sertçetin -
Jim Sheehan -
Josh Bisker