Re: [TheThinkTank] Thethinktank Digest, Vol 104, Issue 6
I'd love to hear the rationale for phasing out membership. Do share! Marissa Pherson
Marissa,
At least for us, Membership has offered access to shop tools and workstands (after completing our Shop Class series), loaner bikes and parts, 15% off new parts, and free access to our Traffic Skills riding class. More details here! http://ohiocitycycles.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=21&Itemid=69
As part of our currently underway, grant-funded strategic planning process, we've decided to suspend and likely phase out the loaner bike/parts system, and prior to that, we made the decision to make access to our shop and tools public, since we were ALWAYS making exceptions to the 'members only' rule to allow people to work on their own bike with our tools.
With regard to shop use, our working policy that will be revamped over the next couple months is that we allow people to check out tools and a stand for $5/hour and we assess fees if they need specific assistance, such as $5 to show a shop user how to install a derailleur.
The snafu comes when someone thinks they don't need help but then they do, since we have a finite capacity to assist people with everything else going on. We're currently encouraging appointments during lower traffic times for 'assisted shop use' and otherwise operating on a first-come, first-served basis. We may end up restricting shop use hours in one way or another as we're currently understaffed and don't derive much income from shop use.
Regarding the income derived from membership, ours was always fairly low - maybe 2% of our operating budget based on my memory. We're instead planning to shift towards a 'donor level' system. I personally like Bike Depot's system here http://www.thebikedepot.org/index.php/support/memberships, though they refer to theirs as membership levels and have 'members only' benefits that we plan to forego, instead encouraging people to give what they can at some predetermined levels, or at their own level, but illustrating at least a theoretical connection between the amount someone contributes and what that amount can support in the context of our programming. Our current board tends to feel strongly that there is an element of exclusivity in our current arrangement that we want to get away from, including potentially changing our name, but that's another story... :)
Hope this helps!
*----------Joshua GoranAdministrator, Ohio City Bicycle Co-op* 1840 Columbus Rd Cleveland, Ohio 44113 216 830 2667 OhioCityCycles.org http://ohiocitycycles.org/
On Mon, May 18, 2015 at 4:15 PM, < thethinktank-request@lists.bikecollectives.org> wrote:
Send Thethinktank mailing list submissions to thethinktank@lists.bikecollectives.org
To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
http://lists.bikecollectives.org/listinfo.cgi/thethinktank-bikecollectives.o...
or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to thethinktank-request@lists.bikecollectives.org
You can reach the person managing the list at thethinktank-owner@lists.bikecollectives.org
When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: Contents of Thethinktank digest..."
Today's Topics:
- Re: Rental Reservation Systems (Ron Kellis)
---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Ron Kellis ron.kellis@velocitycoop.org To: The Think Tank thethinktank@lists.bikecollectives.org Cc: Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 12:04:00 -0400 Subject: Re: [TheThinkTank] Rental Reservation Systems Our parts go one of two places: High end go in a displace case. Priced by the more knowledgeable. Not me, I'm not a bike builder and have no idea. Everything else goes in simply wood bins made from upside down pre-cut stair treads. $5 for what ever. And that's sometimes negotiable. Used tubes go in marked boxes. As tubes are $5, most used (though often as good as new) never get taken. I use them in fix-a-flat classes. matched to a patron's bike if possible and it's theirs if they want it.
R
On Sat, May 16, 2015 at 3:08 PM, Marissa Pherson <marissapherson@gmail.com
wrote:
I'd love to hear the rationale for phasing out membership. Do share!
Marissa Pherson
On Fri, May 15, 2015 at 3:29 PM, Josh Goran josh@ohiocitycycles.org wrote:
We currently have paper release forms which include time out and time returned, but we schedule using a Google calendar and a Google form for sizing information for our "Performance Rentals." We're scaling back our rental program, though, and I would not be surprised if we phase it out or dramatically simplify it.
We've historically loaned out bikes for free to members, but we're phasing out membership and I'll be happy to see the end of people borrowing bikes and returning them late/beat up/etc and not doing their share to re-tune them. Also, it will probably mean that we'll sell/let volunteers earn at least some of our coveted rental bikes, and they'll then get used all the time rather than a few times a year.
Relatedly, we are phasing out our parts library, as well, which often had similar results: underutilized except for well-meaning but problematic users who kept things out too long or needed to be reminded to return something.
I mainly share these details because I think it is important in the early stages of your organization to keep things simple - we're currently in the process of intensely scaling back and simplifying policies and programs that have been in existence for a decade and it takes a lot of work to eliminate work - being more deliberate and analytical early on would have things much simpler and more efficient now :)
*More details if you want:* Library http://ohiocitycycles.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=113-library&Itemid=53 Rentals http://ohiocitycycles.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=15&Itemid=53 Performance Rental form http://goo.gl/forms/cKTKgNJmr1
*----------Joshua GoranAdministrator, Ohio City Bicycle Co-op* 1840 Columbus Rd Cleveland, Ohio 44113 216 830 2667 OhioCityCycles.org http://ohiocitycycles.org/
The ThinkTank mailing List <a href=" http://lists.bikecollectives.org/options.cgi/thethinktank-bikecollectives.org">Unsubscribe from this list</a>
The ThinkTank mailing List <a href=" http://lists.bikecollectives.org/options.cgi/thethinktank-bikecollectives.org">Unsubscribe from this list</a>
Thethinktank mailing list Thethinktank@lists.bikecollectives.org
http://lists.bikecollectives.org/listinfo.cgi/thethinktank-bikecollectives.o...
participants (1)
-
Josh Goran