This meetings blog is meant to keep everyone up to date to what was discussed at Velocipede collective meetings.
Collective Meeting Minutes - March 1st, 2010
March 3, 2010
Collective Members Present: Doug Barcleft, Noah Bers, Boson Au, Tim Barnett, Anton Schaller, Peter Hegel, Lars Peterson, Ben Scully, Dileep Monie, Barbara Carignan
Visitors: Molly, Ian, Peter
Reports:
Education :
Still a steady turnout of people interested. Last class next monday, will take a short break and restart after.
Mission/Vision:
peter: big meeting: we had gotten together to come up w new mission however we got there we weren’t really prepared. instead we talked about what we do, how we do it. came up with a good list.
tim: out of that they made a committee, (lars, tim peter anna) had a meeting to push it forward, no real concrete… we developed a better idea of what a mission statement vs vision. peter brought forward a values statement. we came up with 3 points (bikes, hands on edu. shared workspace)
will continue working on statement.
volunteer:
working on a handbook. rough draft tomorrow. will be up on forum, will have something beautiful to look at next meeting.
vprom:
total made: 1853.02
net: 1503.91
tim: thought it was awesome better than what he feared what it’d be
barbara: people were so excited to give money and buy tickets
Anton: thought we were so great. “I got drunk and left my credit card”
Noah: We might have got the last vegan cake.
Boson: Thought it went really well, Russell already pened the date for next year
Lars: Thought it was awesome, astounded by turnout… raffle was cool but someone needs to be in charge
Ben: sad I wasn’t there. boson, tim eric, and anna were best dressed.
Doug: if any has pics of [people who won helmets get pics. we need to do thank you letters.
Peter: thought it was awesome and brought ppl together. 2 things needed improvement:
1.) raffle…
2.) we should’ve arranged cleanup.
Dileep: surprised that it went well . improvements: time and coat check
Proposals:
Homebrew/Chili Cookoff Event: (presented by Ian)
-trying to put on a homebrew competition / chili cookoff as a benefit for humane society and vpede. Will hopefully make it a conjunction of local lifestyles. trying to get local homebrewers and local agriculture. shooting for april 17/18. Vpede’s personal involvement isn’t really needed… we got picked as a recipient, altho we most likely should have a booth.
Clarifying ?’s (answers in parenthesis)
peter: is there anything besides publizing that we need to do? (not really)
doug: clarification: we just need to be there…
barbara: can we table? (yes!)
lars: they only rent the big room. are they giving you the regular rate? (they said a flat rate )
dileep: mentioned brew at the zoo, also asked about a liquor license. (Working with a local liquor store to deal with this.)
concerns:
tim: doesn’t want velocipede to be known as constantly asking for money…
peter: if we are careful about this (our awesome friend is doing this for us, that its not OUR event)
conclusion: Passed. Will need to remain in contact w/ ian to deal with logistics.
Bike Minded Velocipede Bike Share (Presented by Boson on Behalf of Alex K.)
-would like to propose a day (or a couple of days) where people can come and rent a bike out for a couple of hours so they can ride around the city and get a feel for what it is like to be a cyclist in the city. A booth will be set up and will provide not only a location to dropoff/pick up bikes but will be outfitted with resources about riding in the city as well as DIY maintance literature. It will also have the necessary waivers for the project. Alex is asking for us to allow her to fix up five(5) bikes and have it be used for this program and at the end of it, will be returned to us.
concerns:
doug: bikes come back in one piece
tim: a poorly run program will cause people to hate riding.
peter do you specific reasons?
tim: if there is no specific instructions/ideas of how to ride… then it’ll not be successful.
barbara: if she changes the proposal to make it a group ride I’d be more interested. as it stands, having just a booth where she gives out bikes might not be benefical.
doug: from talking to her there was an understanding that it’d be a more supervised ride.
lars: there needs to be adequate education.
peter: can she leave a deposit so it encourages those bikes from not being stolen?
we should make it very clear that we are signing it to her; that we are not liable.
noah: getting someone on a bike for a few hrs might not be enough… not necessary against the program.
dileep: we can be in trouble if someone gets hurt.
lars: if we don’t want to be not represented we can be divorced from association.
3 main concerns:
1.) we need more info how the program will be run
2.) what is the liabilty of us getting it back?
3.) our liabilty of what will happen to riders
4.) general pessimism of success of this program
need that to be addressed.
Pizzaz:
dileep signed us up 4/23rd to be bartenders (5-8pm) we get all tips for vpede+ 20% of total sales + promotion, etc. 50/50 raffle… questions is who’s doing the bartender, if we want to do the raffle, how we promote it?
PASSED! ( we are doing it, boson/doug/dileep are bartending… 50/50 rafffle)
pedal powered maintenance team for Gwynn oaks (30 youth workers, 3 team leaders) presented by Molly
-provide bike to kid w/ contract, ideally they pay/partially for ownership
-18-24 yr old, 6 week. they receive paycheck
- cleaning trail….
- they MIGHT have funding. maybe have $$ for eq
- might donate 40 a bike
- looking for ideas if this is even feasible.
tim:
clarification: split to 2 proposals
1.) build set bikes for programs (how many we can do, how many we charge each)
2.) do one or two classes for kids.
1st proposal
?s
lars: for this price, are we offering bikes as is? 40 a bike might be too little for ready to rides. ( molly: ready to ride)
pete: how do we size? (last year they were given a list of sizes)
ben: clarified age (18-24)
pete: start? june 21st. type of bikes? (gears… no other requirements )
doug: they keep the bikes? (ideally they can keep it…. work to own. will enable ownership of trail)
concerns:
(how many can we produce?)
ben: sounds great, we’d be interested… we are concerend with # of bikes we can produce… we hope you can supplement with other sources… we might have to diverge resources to this program…
Lars: as we finish bikes… we need storage area… we don’t have efficent space.. if you hvae storage (yes) we can use this. (they have transport and storage they have shipping containers.)
noah: when you say they are using the trail for maintance… do they need to haul stuff? (no…. molly is planning on carrying a trailer.)
Tim: we’ve built bikes for others but they give a lot more than 40 dollars. for us 40 is a bike in disrepair… so when its done it’s usually 40 dolalrs + time spent fixing it. we might need to raise the price.
peter: we only produce only 2-6 bikes a week… this will derail our program if we agreed to do this…. 40 a bike is probably not enough
dileep: if we gotta assign value, we add 10 dollars per hour for each bike.
molly needs answer in a month or so… they don’t really want to go to a supplier because brand new bikes usually disappear quickly. 4/1st is an ideal deadline
2.) part of this program is that it’s a green jobs corp. they usually always steer these ‘education’ type of things towards green things…. molly wants to steer bike maintance towards ‘green.
?s
anton: length of youth works (6/21 to aug 6- 8 weeks)
were these classes manditory? (yes this is considered paid training scheduled to happen during classes )
boson: location? (ideally on trail… or close to trail)
peter: class length? (last year: a hour a session… but this might change)
noah: what times are the workers avail? (usually mon - fri 7pm for 3pm )
peter: basic goal is basic maintance… (yes. )
lars: do they have a stock of bikes that need simple fixing? (not really)
concerns?:
peter: sounds great, much easier: however 90% of us might not be able to make this time. (7pm - 3pm)
barbara: if its basic, I might have time
doug: if they work nights/wknds overtime (no) location of gwynn trails, also we don’t want to be the sole rep for green jobs (they haven’t set an agenda of what a green topic is. we’re not going to be the sole rep)
ben: would it be possible for someone at the program to train w/ us to teach them? (they want the kids to see another face besides molly)
boson: reusing bikes and fixing them so they won’t be discarded IS a green thing. (to answer doug)
molly: there is a potential stipend for these classes. I need to have topics in advance.
tim: stopping place… we will contact them april 1st. anna will be contact
discussion:
sam weinberg wants our scrap metal for art.
lars: is this exclusively scrap? It needs to be exclusively scrap
tim: we should just have a policy to say they can have at it (NEXT MEETING)
peter: trade broken frames for welding demo mig welding.
tim/boson/lars we make sure they are truely scrap frames
peter can come in and if we have frames in scrap he can take it.
prom money:
tim expressed that he would like to strategically use this money.
peter: we should make a rainy day fund: we should be actively saving a specific amount for future move.
lars: agree
noah: maybe set up a beginning fund for this, save 150 a month or so to it.
tim: my general idea is to say take a 1000 towards saving, 500 towards immediate needs.
conclusion: lars will organize a wish list for a substantial amount of money from prom.
discussion of state of shop
Lars: we are in the busienss of having information…. to further of that I’ve created a folder called instructions in a folder in the gray cabinet… everytime we encounter instructions/info put it there.
dileep: we should scan this and put it online!
missing stuff?:
bottom bracket remover.
ratching 4th hand
4/5/6 wrenches
women not in shop:
much discussion on how guys take over the shop and how women seem to not like to come…. tim made a point about how its hard to know in advance when pairing a volunteer w/ a mechanic whether the mechanic will treat the volunteer differently based on gender. Peter mentioned about the sailing center’s policy of hands off training (for the instructors) and how that seems to be a working model…
next meetings:
collective meeting: 4/5
one topic: membership: 3/15
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