Mechanics Minutes May 2009
BK Staff/ Mechanic Meeting 5/31/09
I. Greetings
Lauren -
Daniel - Tues. Shift, Sat. 11:30 to 2:30
Art - Floater
Jordan – Float once a week (prob. Sat.), and Youth, Sat. Morn. Float and 2:30 to 5:30
Charles – Tues. Shift
Travis – Tues. and Thurs.
Marcus – Sat. Floater
Sam – Floater
Justin – Tues. Shift, Mon. Youth Hours, Thurs. Youth Class, Float Thurs. and Sat.
Brian – Thurs. Shift
Tim – IT Coordinator, Tues. Shift (maybe Wed.)
Mark – Thur. Shift
Geoffrey – Wed. Shift
Johnny – Wed. Shift
Kelly – Sat. Shift 11:30 to 2:30
Neil – Sat. Shift (2:30 to 5:30)
Katie – Mon. WTF Shift, Sun. Shift, Sat. 2:30 to 5:30
II. Saturday Shift Popularity
Need Dedicated Greeter and Dedicated Sat. Mechanics
Min. 4 Mechanics, if not, reducing shift length
Brian -“Incentivize” Shift – buy mechanics lunch
Neil - Shift never ends on time
Kelly - Greeter needs to lay down rules, maybe not let people in if no room
Justin – incentivize good, less hours and limited space bad, need spanish speakers and youth mechanics
Brian – need seasoned greeter, show up early, short shift bad idea, point person for shift who tracks or recruits
Neil – Agree w/ Justin
Mark – Don't Shorten, Step up and commit, Everyone takes one Sat. at some point – Committed floater structure
Kelly – Get people to show up, decide procedures on Sat.
Katie – Extend Sat. shift an hour, break up into two shifts for mechanics
Jordan – Shifts 11:30 to 2:30 and 2:30 to 5:30 (half and hour before and after shifts)
Neil – Need Greeter
Lauren – Make these changes obvious on Listserve and bounce around incentives
III. Board Report
Brian – Need to establish transparency between board and collective. Board election coming up, let everyone know if you are interested. Nominations end by next meeting, election at next board meeting. Email Kirsten if you are interested. Rafi Resigned, Jesse replaced him. Working on closign books for buildout – came in under budget. Effort to figure out parking spot business. Float idea for using extra monies.
Neil – Who's on Board?
Board – Kirsten, Angel, Josh, Jesse, Kat (leaving), Brian (informally).
Tim – Bylaws on Wiki that specify board
Brian – Bylaws very vague, don't specify operational issues, board relationship, etc.
Neil – Need to define gray area between rules defined by bylaws, and actual way that stuff happens
Katie – Way to increase transparency – send out board minutes.
Brian – Meetings are open, people can show up, though they are ad hoc and not really scheduled.
Justin – Nominates Jordan to be on Board
Dinner -
IV. Volunteer Cluster Report
Sophie from Oberlin is in for a Surprise!
Greeter Training – Volunteer Cluster will have training for greeter so stuff works smoothly. Email list for input. Admin. Intern Task.
Sunday Streets Participation -
Brainstorm for intern. – flip book of half pages, volunteer for shift,
Greeter – People want to be mechanics, and get stuck as greeter,
Illana – People may want to be greeters only
Tim – Be aware and encouraging
Daniel – Give greeters volunteer tasks that give experience (stripping, sorting, etc.)
Katie – Sophie could do PR, community contact, etc.
Illana – Are we deciding on policy for having an official greeter?
Lauren – Board decided to have an official greeter per shift
Brian – Greeters and Mechanics are equally required. May not be
Kelly – Maybe mechanics should work as greeter as once in a while
Lauren – We need greeters. Important for functioning.
Charles – Has been volunteering as mechanic, but doesn't know how to be greeter.
Daniel – Hesitant to having mechanics be requited as greeters. More often need mechanics, than greeter.
Illana – Mandatory greeter shift unnesesary, Have 1/3 hour Free Hub training for mechanics so that people know how to use it. All mechanics are greeters, but are all greeters mechanics?
V. New Mechanics Apprentice
Illana – Formal proposal for intake of new mechanics: Fill out “applicaiton” - name, test of parts and tools, and required skills. Check off if they are proficient – accuracy depends on whether they are shift workers, apprentice program, or should just hang out to find out how shop works.
Apprentice program – need a few mentors to see someone from start to finish. Need 2 months min. to learn everything. Apprentice should seek out their own skills in own time by coming to advanced classes, working on their own projects, etc. Also have physical handbook in shop for them to read and sign some sort of form.
Justin – need language about how to teach other people. Just as important as knowing how to fix stuff is knowing how to show other people how to work on stuff.
Illana – This is implied in mentorship thingy.
Brian – This should be in mechanic application as well.
Brian – Commit to proposed rough exam – then have people take test for a month. Then adopt or vote at next meeting. Give time to revise, etc. before it gets shot down.
Lauren – Give a few questions about the handbook on test, so that mechanics have to read it.
Jordan – Back up Illana – good idea, need to put something in place that we can plug people into. This can evolve, work kinks out, but strongly support putting these things in place. Doesn't make club more exclusive, makes it more accessible.
Geoffrey: Not retroactive? Encourage all to to take test.
Vote: Mentorship passes!
Vote: Test passes!
IT cluster retort
tim: New Computers: found a place that distributes comps. We will get two desktops at some point—in a few weeks.
Handbook moving form word document to on the wiki in protected form with updates at staff meeting.
I made a whos who page
Neal: IN addition to whos who, lets have volunteer of the month and other fun stuff
brian: whos who is a good idea. Promote the stuff your do! Folklore of the bike kitchen
Illana: need a direct link on the website to who we are.
Brian: take personal information off front page.
Daniel: update whos who on their own?
Tim: yes. History is included in wiki so no problem. Instructions on the wiki on how to update it.
Voting on whether or not Tim is IT coordinator: Tim is IT coordinator
Tim: Vote on revision of handbook
lauren: printable version? Where is it?
Tim: on wiki only, no word document, printable version
Illana: Is there anything beyond existing policy that we need to vote about tonite? If not, voting is moot point, just put it in handbook.
Tim: Handbook sez mechanics must do following:
travis: I wanna eat on shit
geoff: behind the desk eating is good
justin: lets work through small things so that it works for everyone
brian: stack will do that
justin: food should not be a rule
daniel: just be mindful of it.
Tim: my idea was making it a professional thing and not being rude.
Brian: eating rule is solidly up in the air, other stuff settled. Can we eliminate rule on eating, and vote on the rest.
Lauren: vote on handbook revisions, take out food specific item and make it about professionalism.
Vote: revision passes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Illana: Green parts cleaner from cintas
Illana: Should we regularly purchase worx hand cleaner? Right now our bill is $72 per month, with worx hand cleaner is $40 per jug. We should vote on whether we are willing to spend double than we originally wanted.
Cintas cleaner is $5-6
Aprons are 12 cents a piece
Illana: item two, a “green” parts cleaner is $67.50 per month, maybe a little less, do we need this? I don't think so.
Brian: is cintas performing as we expect?
Illana: yes. Have been trying to oversell us but on the ball otherwise.
Brian: don't trust cintas, big fan of clean rags, ride out rags, not a fan of parts cleaner.
Neal: worx stuff is bigger, might last longer. We may get more out of it.
Lauren: can we check invoice to see how much cintas hand cleaner actually costs?
Lets get a better read on it.
Cintas stuff is $27 per month
neal: lets let it run out.
Daniel: parts cleaner not a great use, not accessible, distrust of cintas, lets measure the cintas versus worx, but data skewed by having both at same time.
Illana: worx stuff worx great, lets not get both and see how it goes, cause it puts us on $120 per month on cleaner. Lets cut down, if worx is better deal, cancel industrial stuff, re-evaluate.
We aren't doing poorly, but not bringing in more. Lets vote on one or other, not both.
Geoff: not both!!!!!!!!!
Lauren: Votes
Green parts cleaner: Vote No!
Cintas:
Green:
Both:
we keep green worx cleaner!!!!!!!
Youth Program update:
Justin: I sent out email about current state of youht prog so no one responded, does that mean your all cool? I wanna update how youth have access to shop:
Youth don't have money, doesn't make sense for them to pay. Youth don't have time for 12 hours. What we've done is you get free membership if your under 18, to get bike, 6 hours. That way not just throwing bikes away at kids. When very young kids, if we have very little bikes, show up, we should give em away, with very little interest.
People btween 10 and 18, those people can do volunteering for 6 hours, or pay 30 bucks, to earn a bike.
Youth in our class have completed 6 hours in class. Currently building bikes.
If youth wanna bring in their own bikes and fix them, complicated to talk about. Iinstead of just free, throwing parts away, make kids earn it: earn $5-$10 worth of parts per hour.
MYEEP: We had two in the past, kids get paid through the city at bike kitchen. Committed volunteers, like oberlin people but local, kids in shop brings in community, we need formal system for keeping track of them.
Justin: i'm comfy with honro system and sign in sheet for them, policing not an issue. I propose we have 1-2 kids here over summer. 1 is in class, azucena, she's hella good, she's applied, leave it open with one other person from class.
Illana: Everything you've said about youth is already BK policy. If its not we should vote on it next meeting.
MYEEP I fully support, we should do, program is meant to provide youth with training, we should take advantage by giving youth a working environment that is most resembling a working situation, so they get real world experience.
Neal: ditto what illana said.
Brian: we should vote on youth policy for handbook, but we may wanna elaborate on policy, more concise things: adult consent? Do we wanna involve parents? Gotta have parents involved.
Regarding policy of earning a bike, mechanics discretion should be used for earning parts.
MYEEP people present when volunteer?
Justin: no
Brian: 1st candidate sounds solid, we should make it obvious why that kid is here. One suggestion about that is to have candidates actively introduce themselves to other mechanics and explain their situation.
Lauren: how many hours per week does MYEEP need?
Justin: Allowed to work 20 to 25 in the summer. I will work with them to figure it out specifically. Its also possible for them to do multiple MYEEP jobs.
Re parental consent, is a tricky can of worms. I don't think thats something we should do.
Illana: I agree with what justin said about it, but I believe the reason why we have it is a safety waiver. Because we're responsible. Gotta stay safe.
As far as MYEEP: scheduled weekly shifts with youth. Should be consistent.
Last year with colin: grey area, parents given money, staff benefits shouldn't apply, but if they continue to volunteer keep em with staff priviliges.
Geoff: keeps em with sign off sheets.
We don't need to do 18. california vehicle code is 16 and up. Kids under 16 legally allowed to ride on sidewalk.
Brian: If we get youth who wanna membership can we ask them about parent signature?
Justin: I'm just speaking up about youth who can't make it. Lets table it to next meeting, where I will have brought researched proposal re: youth hours.
Lauren: No one signs anything for day use, so whats the big deal?
Illana: Since we're a non-profit, we should get hard info from board, what is liability, why do have signature, do we need signatures for liability. If not a liability, lets vote about signature?
Justin: for day use, people aren't building their own bike at the shop, and we're repairing kids bikes. We're talking about liability in shop, and liability post shop after youth builds bike. Two forms: one to work here, one to take bike home. If they have their own bike, not our issue.
Just wanted to bring these up, so we have common understanding.
L:auren: 10 after ten, thanks for good meeting!
