Free ride meeting 10 June 2007.

Volunteer coordinator: Johny: had a trainee training day.  Signs and slips explaining calendar.  Pulled tags off of delinquent projects.  Made spreadsheet of volunteers, we decided not to post it to the wiki.  Discussion about taking earn-a-bike off delinquent projects; we will put them in the reject folder not the departed bikes.  

Financial corner: new money storage.  Kitty seems satisfied with the cash register, the cash logs, etc.  Problem: if money storage is mostly 50s + 20s we may have to run to the co-op with a 50 and buy a candy bar.  We have a discussion of keeping 2 dollars in quarters in the drawer.  We had a discussion about when we buy materials for the shop and how that affects the register.  Shaun says don’t take money out of the register to buy stuff for the time being.  If we have an expense take it out of the register that day and write it on the z report that day.  Only get your pay out during shop hours.  

Scribe:  want to find a replacement to scribe to maintain the coordinator ship as defined in the words.  

Feedback meeting minutes more on time.  

Propose buy a scribe a flash drive if it’s under thirty dollars: voted adopted.  

CJ liaison: no updates since last month.  Q: any feedback from the bathroom?  A: no.

General announcement the water in CJ is not potable “you guys don’t drink that water do you?” 

We should start using the 5-gallon jug. 

Shaun: we are still on rent strike since January. 

Bruce stopped by to say we could pay our rent by volunteering.  We should draft a letter to them.  

Proposal: buy a second water container keep it full. Voted adopted.  

Review of the CJ free ride rent struggle.  

Trying for a proposal for rent situation.

Should we try to get new liaison

Letter to provide continuing documentation

Should try to get a meeting with the CJ board

Just do this like proper rent strike set up an escrow account. Set up a 3rd party facilitator

Proposal: put rent in an escrow account. Voted.  Adopted.

Proposal: send a letter informing of the escrow account, and the rent strike send the letter to Mike Gabel and Deb. Voted adopted.  Jessica will talk to Mike.  Stuart will draft the letter.  

Youth works: grant did not get renewed, kids helped staff open shop.  Students are graduating and doing other things and leaving so without hiring new student the program will “fizzle out” discussion of what to do about left over funding.  Decided to talk to Kitty and talk to jenn.

Programs:

• Wednesday June 19 in afternoon 1-3 eight weeks. 
• Frick environmental center 2 times. 
• Homewood YWCA Monday through Thursday four hours a day, four days in a row. 
• May have some fall programs. 

These are opportunities to get paid for working on bikes.   Discussion on whether these opportunities have been transparent enough.  

Fix for sale discussion:

Scott would like to see fix for sale resurrected.  

Matt: "fix for sale" would be a bad idea but generally fixing bikes not for specific people but for a general sale is acceptable.

Volunteer organization important, specific night of fix for the shop,

Check in what about a night of fix for the shop: 4 neutral 5 positive.  

Current staffing levels we should just make one of the two weekday nights a volunteer for the shop only night.  

Concern that free ride may not be a volunteer supported project, rather a few members of volunteers support people getting bikes.  

Should have as many bikes for sale as we can shouldn’t have

Inreach coordinator: scribe must bold tasks that we need to do.  Has trouble maintaining the direction of the discussion will have a meeting about more facilitators.  

 Pay attention to how long how much one is talking.  And pay attention to if your paying attention.

Q: how do you feel about how this process is going?  How is it panning out in the larger scheme of things?  A: yeah I thought facilitating meeting and “institutional memory” remind people about wiki.  But edit the wiki yourself, including tasks etc.  

Make sure that you are communicating group decisions to those not at meetings etc.  

We should have other big signs.  

Morgan will institute a policy of saying “its too early for a proposal” if the discussion hasn’t matured.  

We should use more check-ins.  

Finding small bits that we can consensus on will help streamline the process.  

Having the patience for the process is necessary.  

Shop coordinator: Answering the phone must be done; Scott has hung up two notes by the phones.  Announcement: the welder is in the “welder cabinet” the backmost metal cabinet gray with two doors.  The key is on the chain ring.  The spare is in the safe.  

Proposal: Morgan will buy materials to construct a welding set up and is empowered to spend 100 dollars to that end.  Voted.  Adopted.

Discussion of fire safety.  Decided we will buy an oscar the grouch style metal can to keep oily rags in, Morgan will pick it up.

Proposal: the welder may only be used in the presence of a collective council member.  Voted. Adopted. Some neutral.  Amendment is: no use of the welder during open shop.  

Update on limiting people in the shop.  Scott, Johny, and Matt have all told people if there aren’t stands and aren’t toolboxes that they must wait.  Scott emphasizes that we need to be vigilant about stopping people who randomly flip their bike over and start working.

Scott: we should buy a new Barnett’s manual.  A thread chaser and a fork threaded.  But these would be kept locked up.  

Tasks: Scott will get Erok to buy the tools and Shaun will get the Barnett's manual.  At the meeting there was consensus on buying these things.  

Discussion about the coordinator roles without intention to make proposals:

Stuart has put a page up on the wiki

We should look into the cost of mimicking Santa Cruz bike church of many volunteers doing 5 hours of work a week for a livable wage.

Kitty agrees that we should have the capacity of paying people.

Concerns about paid positions being self-perpetuating and unsustainable.

Concerns about transparency the possibility of doing these things at intervals

Make sure that the people who are making the decision are the people who have free rides best interests in mind.  

Paid staffers would steer free ride in the direction that some wouldn’t want to see it go.  

The co-op is something that moved from membership based to full-service model.  Is that something that we want?  

Is it our function to be a bike shop or is it our function to be a community of bike technical savvy?  

Sliding scale? Targeting the fix-for-sale audience. We should have more forums for building a community parties etc.

Proposal: we will look into having a party of anyone who has done and earn a bike. Voted.  Adopted

Staffing discussion:

Big problem staffing.  Shaun brings up the learning experience embodied “hitting rock bottom” especially in terms of announcing to the larger community that free ride could really use some help.   “We honestly need your help”

We need help.  Ways to make shop more accessible.  2 hour shifts?

More schedules of individuals to johny.

Shortening shifts

Communication of need for staffing to community.

More signs