Mechanics Minutes Mar 2009

Bike Kitchen Mechanics Meeting 3-29-09, minutes taken by Jordan

Agenda

1. Confirm open shifts
2. Classes
3. New Space Discussion
4. New Operations Coordinator Discussion
5. Volunteer Coordinator Discussion
6. Search for IT coordinator Discussion
7. Donor Recognition
8. Spanish Hours
9. Green Business Proposal
10. Youth Program

Meeting Census

• Lauren—Thursday's, greeting
• Johnny—No shift yet
• Crystal—No shift yet
• Toby—No shift yet
• Jordan—Tuesday
• Kelly—Saturday (Opening)
• Evan--Wednesday Shift
• Mark—Wants to commit, not sure when yet
• Abdul Latif—Maybe get involved
• Neal—Shows up all the time
• Jesse Lawyer—no regular shift; Summer shift
• Illana—no regular Shift; summer shift
• Jeffrey—Wednesday
• Justin—Tuesday, floating thursday and saturday
• Katie—Wednesday
• Jesse—Wednesday
• Cole—Everyday Saturday or Sunday
• Jeremiah—Thursdays
• Travis—Tuesdays and Thursdays
• Tim—Web Person
• Charles—tuesdays mechanic
• Brian-Thursday

New Space Discussion

1. Brian: Works great
2. Jeff: Manage donation a little better. Too much clutter
3. Illana: Observe more—need more input. Let it be organic and DIY. Stop Donations temporarily. Finish Handlebar rack, work night soon.
4. Neal: increased size of space and people, more than at least three mechanics on shift.
   1. Illana : Jr. Mechanic program—shadowing form to beef up staff.
5. Justin: Build More Space for bike storage.
   1. Offer free stuff once a month to cycle out old stuff.
6. Jesse: Jump on Projects
   1. Handlebar rack—Kelly
   2. Work Night—end of April
7. Kelly: +1 on free stuff; plans on getting stuff out.

Operations Coordinator Intro

1. Illana: Key master, metal recycling, order supplies.
2. Jordan: Oversees tool orders, forms, signs, procedures,
3. Both update shop manual, JR. Mechnanic program, shadowing, evaluations
4. Brian: List of shop supplies and tools
   1. Jordan is working on currently
5. Neal: List covered by Steven? Short list?
   1. Create formal, easy process for.
   2. Coordinate with Steven
6. Neal: Doesn't like agreement form
7. Jeff: Likes agreement form.
8. Jesse: Cart before the horse: not a refined training program yet. The real work
   1. Mechanics can't use shop for personal financial gain
   2. Don't talk about this form tonight.
   3. Apprentice, not jr. mechanic form
9. Kelly: Freaky Awesome stuff for being a mechanic
   1. Formalized a little: something awesome for mechanics, incentives, recognized
10. Travis: Feedback—people login once a day, then email next day asking about shift experience. Travis will take on.
11. Neal: Seconds jesse's cart before the horse.
12. Lauren: Vote on next meeting, the agreement
13. Can we do apprenticeship program, and finalize mechanics skills need,Lauren: Over time—email laterVolunteer coordinator introLauren: Pumped on new jobJesse: Josh said he would help train u

IT Coordinator Search

1. Illana: We need a commitment, don't have one! Really important!
   1. Maintains freehub, website, wiki (sad state)
2. Jesse: Descriptions for positions exist, not set in stone, they do exist.
3. Illana: Transparency info isn't on wiki, or viewable. Needs to happen soon
4. Brian: Wants to keep it updated; participation is needed to keep it running
5. Tim: Wants to consider nomination after talking to Rigel
6. Kelly: Maybe two months from now.
7. Lauren: Put a call out to list.

Donor Recognition Plaque Proposal

1. Crystal: Couldn't print it;
   1. wants to have a list of donors, names in order of how much was donated (no numbers)
   2. Larger donors, bigger fonts, smaller donors, smaller fonts
   3. $20 is cost of plaque
   4. within the month it comes out
2. Illana: Cool way to denote donations—grades of metal for frams
3. Crystal: Metal grading is part of it
4. Jesse: When we solicited donations, those categories should exist
   1. How big, and where put?
   2. Do you have names and amounts properly?
5. Crystal: Cat hooked me up with names; final plaque same size as one in case, mount somewhere obvious

Spanish hours proposal

1. Katie: Reads proposal
2. Illana: Do you staff regular shift in addition? Who else is on that?
   1. Cole: Can't do both shifts
   2. Jesse Not lawyer: Also interested in Sunday
3. Illana: How long do we pilot it?
   1. Katie: When is a good time to start it?
4. Brian: Staffing means that its more open hours. No risk to project. Give em keys.
   1. Don't advertise on trial. Just do it.
5. Jordan: Make it more bilingual all the time. Have sunday be focused, but in general spanish should be a language we can speak.
6. Jesse: Expanding sunday hours, and Youth program, we need to keep it tidy, spic and span and clean!
7. Kelly: convo should continue whether we need to have underserved communities served no one day or generally always have access. Also
   1. Is spanish speaking a requirement for Sunday Spanish hours?
8. Cole: Integrates into BK; everyone can learn. If you don't speak spanish but wanna come in, do it!!!
9. Katie: Ditto; I'm not fluent, but know enough to work it.
10. Mark: Bike Coalition is required to do bike outreach to latino communities, lets coordinate.
11. Illana: Only difference is that its spanish oriented. Rates stay the same?
12. Jesse: Is it only open to spanish speaking patrons?
    1. Cole: No
13. Lauren: Call for sunday vols
    1. Lauren: Greets on sundays
14. Brian: Spanish language open hours should be promoted, other randoms will come in who don't speak spanish, so other mechanics are useful
    1. Brian: BK free if has to be, so no problem
15. Crystal: If we advertise on other than just spanish speaking, spotlight gets gaffed. Just advertise spanish hours.
16. Jesse: Ya'll don't have a lot of experience at shop, so we wanna make sure ya'll are prepped.
17. Jeremiah: Like WTF night. People will come by no matter what
18. Kelly: If sunday is gonna be crazy, lets just pick a night to make it Spanish focused where hella spanish people show up.
19. Illana: We need a staff mechanic There.
20. Mark: Name tags should say spanish speaker if they speak spanish
21. Cole and Katie wrap up: Open to everyone, beyond Cole and Katie, should grow; main point is to help Spanish speakers; thanks for the trust.
22. Lauren: We need a dedicated opener and closer; Neal says he will open and close on sunday for the first month;
23. Jeremiah: put on list;
24. Brian: Put to vote:
25. Illana: Concerned about after 1^st^ month, we need solid experienced mechanic
26. Jesse: Open only to spanish speakers
27. Johnny: Have it as an event to start off
28. Lauren: All in favor of a spanish shift:
    1. The measure passes

Youth Program Proposal

1. Justin: We wanna have youth program at BK; so two pilot programs to promote that.
   1. First program is 7 tepees. We do 2 days a week with them: Thursday, their youth Jordan and Justin, and Their staff do a bike building class from 3:15-5:45. Friday: Riding club. Those bikes stored at their center.
2. Jordan: Second program is riding club at Boys and Girls club on Bryant.
   1. Logistics: 7 tepees and BG club covers liability
3. Neal: Are they too young?
   1. Justin: no
4. Illana: High school kids take stock from us.
   1. Riding club bikes come to us.
   2. Youth want small mountain bikes and BMX bikes, which our clientelle don't want.
5. Justin
   1. New stuff paid for by 7 Tepees
6. Brian: Make sure youth are taken care of on thursday before shift.
7. Tim: Bikes Not Bombs in Boston has been doing this for a while. Help you out!
8. Jesse: Could we end it earlier at 5:30, so that it can be in shape by 6 to open up.
   1. Justin: Yes
9. Mark: 1 have you spoken with YMCA and presidio; school district?; SFPD has to donate youth bikes to community, we could use it.
10. Justin: used to work for Y; BG isn't school district; hook us up.Illana: Stipend for ya'll? Wants that stipend to go to BK, wants it to have BK name on it.
11. Justin: Youth program deserves payment because its different than a normal shift.
    1. Should be run as a program of the BK, initially with other programs as collaborators.
    2. Memorandum of understanding: They pay instructors, BK has name on it.
12. Kelly: don't have problem with stipend; BK isn't taken advantage of here.
    1. Kids stuff should be visible in BK. Physically, a representation in here of work we're doing with kids.
13. Neal: By laws say we can't profit here:
14. Brian: Stipend is important; this is a normal way for BK to be used. This is good
15. Jesse: Payment is not in by laws. Intent behind financial gain regards flipping bikes on craigslist. This is kosher under our mission. Stipend is cool.
16. Johnny: You are experienced with kids. My experience with kids is massive losses.
    1. Justin: We talked about it in written proposal. Youth have to demonstrate that space is same as when they started.
17. Jeremiah: We've talked forever about payment and BK employees. I don't think it can't happen, just hasn't, youth programmers could get paid in the future.
18. Lauren: Ya'll want a vote tonight? Can we vote now?
19. Illana: Liability as Indie Contractors: What are shop ruls of other kids in shop who aren't covered?
    1. Guest instructors cool, otherwise people fill out paperwork.
20. Illana: So you can't wrench on your own stuff here?
    1. Yes: We are gonna bump up expectation in shop during those hours. We don't want youth to smoke and swear here, we don't want to do that here.
    2. Also we used to pay instructors. And grantwriters.
    3. We are also gonna write earn-a-bike curriculum that will help organize youth here generally; their volunteering here for a bike will help shop.
    4. Vote:
       1. It passes!

Bike Racks at Businesses proposal

1. Illana: Bike Coalition gets calls from private businesses to install racks. Bike coalition will get us resources, we install it for people, charge a percentage for labor and we make cash!
   1. Helps biking in SF; gives us $$$
2. Mark: original program from atlanta. They advertise at BK. They approach businesses actively to do it. Money for shop.
   1. SFBC: Has no one to refer them to.
   2. BK can fill niche and make cash.
3. Brian: Doesn't think its part of the BK Mission. BK wouldn't add much, and whoever does it should get all the cash. We can't even get a receiving address for our place.
4. Justin: Schools also don't qualify. People should get paid for that.
5. Illana: Shocked and awed that we don't wanna do that. It serves bike related stuff, makes us money.
6. Crystal: No one at Bike Coalition does this.
7. Kelly: Whose to say that people who are associated with BK can do it?
8. Lauren: Put it on email.

Justin Surprise

1. Justin: In spirit of building community with BK. Once a month bike ride. He does first couple months.