Hello Think Tank!

Arik here from Bikes Not Bombs in Boston. I've been on the list
since it started but I only find time to check in occasionally and
briefly. (and I think maybe someone administering Think Tank just
subscribed some more of our staff members to the list ... )

First off, the Instructor Training manual we use to prepare our
teachers to run Earn-A-Bike ... sorry it was off our website for
awhile at the end of last year but it is back up now. I'm glad that
you found it, and YES that is meant to share. Make copies, make use
of it for any good purpose, just make sure to keep our name with the
materials. Dave gave the URL but here it is again: http:// www.bikesnotbombs.org/EarnABike

Someone else mentioned the YBEN site (Youth Bicycle Education
Network) http://www.yben.org, which has been a great place for
resources, but the site is currently down. Hopefully it will be back
up soon. Recycle-A-Bicycle (RAB) in NYC is managing YBEN now,
right? Our Instructor Training manual is focused on mechanics lesson
plans, so it combines well with RAB's manuals which cover other, non- mechanics issues of running a youth program, at http:// recycleabicycle.org/resources/publications.

We've just recently had two short documentary movies made about BNB
by some motivated volunteers. You can see them online at http:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRzSvVXVYrM and http://vimeo.com/1706577 ,
but note that the one on Vimeo will probably stutter - we'll be
moving it to YouTube soon and also embedding on our website.

We ALMOST sent two staff members to Bike!Bike! this year: Elijah
Evans our Earn-A-Bike Coordinator (and originally a graduate of the
program himself many years ago), and Jasmine Laietmark is our
director of Grassroots Fundraising & Events. Then last minute we
balked at buying the plane tickets. We've had some dreams that we
would love to offer to host a Bike!Bike here in Boston in some future
year, but don't quote me on that. It is really inspiring to know
that there is a network of bike groups out there, and we would LOVE
to be more involved. But we had to move 2 years ago, took on debt
for our new space, took our full-service bike shop to 6 days a week,
we're processing 5,500 donated bikes a year and sending trainers to
Africa to start new programs, supporting our existing partners in
Guatemala, Nevis Island, South Africa, Ghana, Tanzania, developing an
appropriate technology working group to help spread knowledge about
pedal-power designs, running Earn-A-Bike, summer youth programs,
girls programs here, barely staying involved in official bike
advocacy at the city level ... getting bigger and catching up with
our growth ... basically we're overcommitted to everything we're
already doing so it is hard to find any time to connect with this
network.

We're starting a new phase of updating and improving our website, and
maybe we'll be able to post more resources. The applications for
programs that we usualyl have up for downloading can be useful to see
how programs are structured. It would be interesting to know what
people most want to know that BNB would be better at answering than
other groups. Also if we're not so active on this list, you can
email our staff directly - use the website to find the right person
to ask. We can often accommodate visitors from other programs to sit
in on activities and learn here - let us know if you want to visit.

As to the nonprofit question, here's a quick answer. Bikes Not Bombs
started in 1984 as a volunteer-run solidarity effort with the people
of Nicaragua when the Reagan administration was funding and running
the Contra war, and the work was all in Nicaragua developing bike
projects with donated bikes collected in the States. In 1991 we
started youth programs in Boston. In 1994 we got our own physical
space and added a teen-job training bike shop open a few days a week,
and also started paying two staff - at that point we became an
official nonprofit, and have developed that way ever since. In
December 2006 we moved a few blocks and split into 2 spaces: the Bike
Shop now has its own space and is open 6 full days a week and is
employing 15 people, in addition to our Hub staff of 7 running the
international work, youth programs, administration, plus the 8 teens
who work part-time as assistant teachers in the youth programs (this
is a new exciting development - more and more . We probably have 300
people who plug in as volunteers at some point in any given year.
Over half our budget is the Bike Shop, which covers it's own expenses
thru sales and service and makes profit that goes into supporting the
youth program and international work. The rest of our budget is
raised through a small amount of grant income, and much more
significantly by the two to three thousand people who make a donation
to support BNB in any given year.

OK!

-Arik Grier Outreach Coordinator, Office Manager Bikes Not Bombs 617-522-0222 www.bikesnotbombs.org

Message: 1 Date: Wed, 8 Oct 2008 15:08:14 -0600 From: "Jonathan Morrison" jonathan@slcbikecollective.org Subject: Re: [TheThinkTank] Bike Education/Clinic curriculum? Bike Not Bombs? To: "The Think Tank" thethinktank@bikecollectives.org Message-ID: 4dd29fd10810081408q64d37233u14dbb1fc08b6454@mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

There is no question there is a tremendous amount of information that
the 130+ organizations on this list could use from well established
groups like Bikes not Bombs and the Community Cycling Center. The question is,
what do we have to offer them?

At a minimum it would be good to interview some of the longer standing members of each of these organizations and figure out what hard
decisions they had to make and what the out come was.

One thing I have observed with some of the larger organizations is
that they went more in the direction of a traditional non-profit. I would be
curious to find out if it started out that way, or if that was an active choice.