Bike Farm meets every second and fourth Tuesday of the month at 7pm at Bike Farm. All are welcome to attend.

What follows are the meeting notes for this past Tuesday.

Please note that there will be a SPECIAL EXTRA MEETING  this coming TUESDAY 7pm to further discuss BF direction and policies (see end of this post). Those of you who have expressed special interest in these issues are strongly encouraged to attend.

Attending

Momoko
Jeremy
Simon S
Tobin
Ralph
Shannon
Russ
Thimble
Lindsay
Eric
Stephen
Adam
JesseBruce

Build Bikes update.

Thimble and Stephen: Interviewing Bryce, she’ll be in the shop to start.

Back log of applicants should be contacted.

Simon has been telling some folks interested to buy a bike at the shop and build it up as it goes since they can raise $100 or so in the next few weeks. He hasn’t modified the price to keep things fairly even. Communication through shift summaries or otherwise encouraged.

Build bikes form in bag with project bike. We love the ziplock bags with the bikes!

Action: Simon S will contact and provide options.

Party Plans

Stephen – at cost keg from HUB, nu seasons $50 gift card. Next door art collective to host. They ask for some door donations $2 – 5 we’ll say it’s optional to BF and art collective.

Suggested donation? cup charge?

Proposal is $50 for a keg ($70), and try to recoup through donations/cup charge. PASSED.

Open party and invite your friends and make it a fun time!

SEPT. 10th is the date.

Pink Bike Program – Lindsay

What to do with project bikes example of bikes to donate.

English and bike mechanic’s skills, etc. at the day labor center.

Patrick McDade volunteers with day labor center and will promote the program. Who is he? Will be here TODAY 1pm to plan out class in Sept.

So there are options for excess of bikes to donate if not sell to look into further if needed.

Bamboo Trailers from bamboo trailers if you’re interested!
Lindsay has a bunch of bamboo trailers. Food not bombs have some wheels and such.

Let Lindsay know and you can helps and learn and build them yourself!

Simon S to contact Adam George get in contact to be the expert.

Bike swap meet?

Yard sale or swap-(chargeable)

flier college campuses…

Tentative late sept time frame. get in touch with Alex (received contact info from Simon, thanks!)

Parts buying (used)

should people buy parts and leave or..

Adam proposed: members can buy parts and take out of the shop all others have to install it in shop. JesseBruce noted he would veto this.

No vote was made, tabled for further discussion.

Discussion about Safety

We then decided to tackle at least one of the many topics that came up on the listserv regarding policies and BF direction (see below) so we had a short discussion on the safety of the bikes that we sell. Some hard examples were brought up where a bike had the completely incorrect and unsafe handlebars, so Tobin did not sell it. While this bike was checked by mechanics, this error was not noticed. So ideas about contacting the mechanics and informing them of something not safe and/or requireing actual test rides and/or further checkboxes on forms for bikes that are finished and ready for sale. Thimble has said he will make a safety check poster with the most common and most important safety considerations.

In the end we decided that there definitely needs to be more discussion on this topic and a subcommittee should be formed consisting of Tobin, Simon, Thimble, StarMichael and whoever else is greatly concerned about this issue.

And that’s it. As always please reply to this thread with any comments or clarifications and or anything I missed. And again there is a Special Meeting THIS TUESDAY to attempt to tackle these topics:

·  whole sale privilege: how do we use it and how does it affect the community
·  relationship with bike shops/ discretion on our google group discussion?
·  to build bikes, to have more parts for people, or maybe a combination of both
·  prioritizing helping people of lower socio economic status, should we?
·  safety of bikes built at bike farm/liability of bike farm if bike is later found to be unsafe.
·  skills of mechanics (safety implications)
·  who are core mechanics, what does this mean,
·  Project Bikes – do we sell them, give them to organizations like Food not bombs, etc.  Can we do both?  Should this be the focus?  etc.
·  What should the Build Bikes program look like?  One person at a time?  Open to anyone?
·  Programming beyond open shop hours and their implications on our resources and furthering our mission.

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