Sure thing! Here's our story in short:

I started Bike Broward in high school, mostly on my own and at a small scale. In June of 2011 I recruited some friends, and we decided to attempt to expand the project (in fact, I modeled our programs largely after those of the Salt Lake City Bike Collective).

We had a great, hardworking team, but I had little experience (and was a little shy) and failed to approach many folks in the community who could have helped us. The $180-a-month storage unit was too costly, and our limited workshop hours made it difficult to sell excess bikes to cover rent. Our other volunteers (all high school students) had only basic mechanical knowledge, I had just graduated and was living in another city, and more experienced volunteers were difficult to recruit. The project was losing money, my co-directors had other obligations, and we amicably agreed to end the project.

In terms of lessons learned, I should have kept the organization cautiously small, simplified earn-a-bike and our other programs, searched hard for a free storage space and a small team of skilled volunteers, spent less time fine-tuning bikes and made repairs only when necessary, and kept costs at a bare minimum. Jax ReCycle http://www.jaxrecycle.org/, in my current hometown, does this very well with limited resources.

Our website http://bikebroward.weebly.com/ is still active, and has a bit more information about us and what we did. Any other questions are welcome :)

Ryan Feller

On Sun, Feb 19, 2012 at 8:40 PM, Jonathan Morrison < jonathan@slcbikecollective.org> wrote:

Ryan,

What happened? Any lessons learned that are worth sharing?

https://www.facebook.com/bikebroward

Sincerely,

Jonathan Morrison Executive Director Salt Lake City Bicycle Collective 2312 S. West Temple Salt Lake City, UT 84115 w: 801-328-2453 c: 801-688-0183 f: 801-466-3856 www.slcbikecollective.org

The mission of the Salt Lake City Bicycle Collective is to promote cycling as an effective and sustainable form of transportation and as a cornerstone of a cleaner, healthier, and safer society. The Bicycle Collective provides refurbished bicycles and educational programs to the community, focusing on children and lower income households.

On Sun, Feb 19, 2012 at 3:25 PM, Ryan Feller ryansfeller@gmail.comwrote:

...

Our now-defunct bike collective in Fort Lauderdale has a leftover Park stand. It's in solid shape, only used it for a few months. I believe it's this model: http://www.hucknroll.com/park-tool-home-mechanic-repair-stand-pcs-10

I may not be able to access it for a few weeks (it's in storage and I currently live out of the area), but we'd be happy to sell it to you at below market value.

We also have lots of Park tools, accessories (new locks and saddles, etc), and a truing stand or two available if you or anyone else is interested. We're trying to recuperate some lost investment, but we're more than happy to take a loss to sell it to a fellow community bike org.

Ryan

On Sun, Feb 19, 2012 at 7:48 PM, Chris Kelly cpeterkelly@gmail.comwrote:

...

Looking for a better than consumer grade, single or dual, floor, counter or wall mount repair stand. Prefer PRS series Park, but ugly and older please, as our budget can't yet manage new and shiny.

Will consider anything under $300, prefer that number include shipping to a commercial address in zip code 33701.

Will give you right of first refusal if we upgrade, so if there's a piece of steel you're not using but would like to see get some use... Gosh, would my back appreciate it.

Chris Kelly St Pete, FL

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http://www.bikecollectives.org/wiki/index.php?title=Bike_drive

This is also something we do to streamline requests: http://www.bicyclecollective.org/en/get-involved/volunteer/104-recycling-org...

Sincerely,

Jonathan Morrison Executive Director Salt Lake City Bicycle Collective 2312 S. West Temple Salt Lake City, UT 84115 w: 801-328-2453 c: 801-688-0183 f: 801-466-3856 www.slcbikecollective.org

The mission of the Salt Lake City Bicycle Collective is to promote cycling as an effective and sustainable form of transportation and as a cornerstone of a cleaner, healthier, and safer society. The Bicycle Collective provides refurbished bicycles and educational programs to the community, focusing on children and lower income households.

On Sun, Feb 19, 2012 at 4:15 PM, Carl Voss carlvoss@mac.com wrote:

It's spring cleaning time!

A property manager of several rental and owner complexes has asked for our help in cleaning out some tenant bike racks loaded with long-abandoned bikes.

I checked our Bike Collectives Wiki and didn't see anything specifically related to how to kick this off and tag bikes owned by current residents.

Do any of you have suggestions on a program that has worked for your community project?

Carl Voss Des Moines Bicycle Collective carlvoss@mac.com Mobile: 515-210-0237

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