Mechanics Minutes Dec 2009

Bike Kitchen Staff Meeting Minutes, December 13, 2009, minutes taken by Tim

Introductions and Scheduling

• Lauren Allen: VCC, no shift commitment
• Jordan: OCC, board, youth program, float on Thu
• Geoffrey: Wednesdays (vouched for others on Wed)
• Brian: Sunday Staff Dev Hours, would like someone else to take over for Sundays starting Jan
• Marc: Thursdays
• Evan: help teach classes, would like to get back on Wednesdays
• Iga: started 2 months ago, covers Saturdays
• Angel: accountant, board
• Caroline: not part of BK, on national tour visiting collectives, going to write an article on
• Tim: IT coordinator, occasional Saturdays
• Rezz: recently started volunteering on Thu, maybe coordinate intake of donations
• Justin: youth program (Thu 3-6pm), has been staffing Thu nights also, wants to switch to Tue, also wants to help with donation intake
• Daniel: Tuesdays and Saturdays
• Ben: been around two months
• Ron: been around three months, a mechanic in training, in Wednesdays and Saturdays
• John-Paul: Tue nights with Esther, occasional Saturdays
• Geoff: Tuesdays and occasional Saturdays

We agreed the BK should be closed around the holidays on Dec 24, 26, 31, and Jan 2.

Handbook Revisions for Approval

1. Membership is free for youth age 18 and under. Approved.
2. $5 patron charge for use of a cutting tool (eg. BB tap, facing tool, fork thread cutter). Brian noted that we can use mechanic's discretion as always. Approved.
3. Modify Staff Benefits: delete free class perk, add mention of Staff Development Hours. Brian noted that you can still talk to a class teacher and ask to hang out during class. Taking this perk out of the Handbook doesn't stop people from being able to do it, it just removes it as a formal perk. John-Paul noted that it's staff mechanics' normal responsibility during a shift to give tips to new mechanics. Approved.

Comment Box

Jordan: I think it would be helpful to have a formal place to leave feedback if you didn't feel comfortable doing it in person. Would double as a place for patrons to leave feedback. Proposal: we have a comment box, it's one person's job to distribute comments to appropriate people, and keep track (documented somewhere) of problems for individuals or systems. Comment box idea stems from problems with Neal -- having documentation would have helped. Jordan agreed to be responsible for the box.

• Brian: great idea, but don't set any policies about what to do with the comments -- they will evolve over time. The box should be durable and well-marked.
• Marc: the box should say that you can also email info [at] bikekitchen [dot] org. The comment cards should be designed to include date, optional name and contact info. Although the comment box is a good idea, we should explicitly encourage staff to talk directly to staff as much as possible.
• John-Paul: anonymous comments can be hard to follow-up on. It's hard not to put the burden of guilt on the subject of the comment card. You only get very good or very bad feelings. Lots of issues around anonymous comments boxes.
• Evan: should we set a time-limit for this trial?
• Jordan: maybe also we should have a survey
• Justin: maybe not give the comment cards to the subject of the card, could cause problems?
• Brian: everything should be logged, good and bad
• Marc: once a month forward to the list, anonymized?
• Daniel: what about when there are problems with the person who mans the box? Maybe people won't want their comments forwarded to the listserv?
• Lauren: let's start with the simplest system possible
• Brian: public vs private is important. We should say on the box one way or the other
• Ron: don't make it confrontational
• Restatement of proposal by Jordan: there will be a comments box, it will be stated on the box that the comments will be anonymized and shared with the collective, a comment card with date (required) and name / contact (optional) will be made, Jordan will monitor the box, log the comments, and send monthly log to listserv.

Vote on Jordan's proposal: Approved

Getting Donations

Rezz volunteered to work with Jeremiah and Justin to improve our system for getting donated parts.

Clarifying Youth Volunteer Hours Tracking System

• Brian clarified the issue -- are there rules about youth in shop related to the youth program?
• Marc: Thursdays post-youth has been crazy. If Justin stops staffing Thursdays 6-9pm, how should the youth be dealt with if they come on Thursdays?
• Justin: we should formalize what has been informal: add formal tracking mechanism for youth, $5 of parts credit per hour volunteered
• Jordan: yes, we are going to clarify the policy to both staff and youth
• Geoff: maybe finish the youth program before the next shift starts to draw a line between the two?
• Justin: that's why he wants to change his shift to Tuesdays (youth program is Thursdays 3-6pm). Maybe end youth hours at 5:45pm.
• Ben: in Cincinnatti, there were clear youth hours and adult hours, and they couldn't cross the boundary
• Ron: a group of kids regularly come in on wednesday nights, about 8:15-8:30, and that I had observed them going into WWW and picking up a bunch of parts. I also overheard them talking about how they were for an off-site bike
• Geoffrey: thought it was against BK policy to trade volunteer hours for parts -- wants it made explicit. Can youth become staff? There is one youth who claims to be staff, but isn't.

Bike Donations for Sale "As Is"

Justin's proposal: similar to bike church in santa cruz: when a nearly-complete bike comes in, instead of stripping it, we sell it "as is" as a project bike. Would reduce wasted effort stripping and reassembling, and would help the patron who feels excluded from the Bike Kitchen b/c they are intimidated by building a bike from scratch, but would be comfortable starting with a mostly-built bike. Justin gives demo with a good-looking rock hopper -- $100, buy the parts you need to finish it, refurb it. We already have a policy posted for this (see main sign in shop). Mechanics / Staff members can buy them for half the price.

• Tim: restates Ilana's email: since we teach people to fix their own bikes, she'd rather see the good parts from this bike stripped and used to build a few other bikes.
• Daniel: it's not worth taking the parts off b/c they probably won't get properly reused. We should establish some kind of policy to determine which bikes should be stripped.
• Jordan: the issue that we don't solicit enough donations. Having more donations would fill both needs of having better parts on hand and having near-complete bikes. Should make it required to buy membership and digging rights. Goes along with getting another space for storage.
• Justin: agrees our main problem is not having enough parts in the shop. Likes requiring membership, but not requiring to buy digging rights.
• John-Paul: yes membership, no digging rights (buying bike should include digging rights). This program is in line with our mission
• Geoff: We have to price it in a way that it doesn't devalue digging rights. How do they pay for parts after they buy the bikes? How we keep these bikes separate needs to be addressed.
• Ben: Opportunity to do a safety check of the bike with the patron, work with patron to evaluate a bike. You can still teach them about maintenance / upkeep
• Geoffrey: skeptical that this isn't becoming a retail space (out of line with our mission) and people won't take advantage of the system. Also, patrons need parts now, and we shouldn't hold these ones back.
• John-Paul: higher priority should be getting more parts.
• Jordan: the conversation is: what is the right way to deal with nice bikes like this?
• Marc: hesitant / skeptical of this idea. Staff have conflicting opinions about how to process a donation -- strip it down automatically or evaluate on a case-by-case basis. Complications will arise with patrons having to pay too much for additional parts.
• Justin: this idea will make the bike kitchen more accessible. We can all find problems with this system, but we should try it until the next meeting.
• Geoff: proposes not to strip bikes at all, and you get lucky if you get a good bike for digging rights. Be more strict about who can strip bikes. Put our foot down on people who put their name on three bikes.
• Lauren: can we come up with something to try for a pricing scheme?
• Ben: add 6 hours of volunteering to the price of the bike. You have to volunteer X hours.
• John-Paul: changes his mind. not stripping as many bikes is a good idea. Even staff mechanics can't assemble a set of brakes from the wild west.
• Jordan: doesn't like nice bikes like this hanging up b/c it causes problems -- patrons fighting over them
• Daniel: be mindful about becoming too retail
• Marc: more questioning of the proposed system, giving examples of when it will fail
• Justin: my proposal only includes bikes this nice -- REALLY close to riding away.
• Rezz: cap it by 3-5 slots on the wall to hang such bikes
• Justin: it's really inefficient of us to take apart and build up bikes many times. likes 3-bike limit on "as-is", but we should try it for two months
• Marc: need to iron out the details more
• Justin: likes adding one-month expiration

Justin revised proposal: only 90%-complete bikes, for sale as-is, price is negotiable by staff, three slots available for "for sale as is" bikes, if it's not sold within a month it gets thrown to the wolves, patron has to be a member or buy a membership, BK staff can buy for half price, we'll try it for two months and revisit at the next staff meeting.

Vote: mostly yea, one nay (Geoffrey: "I work at a bike shop, and this is what we do, we sell bikes. That's not what the BK does."). Approved for two-month pilot.