What follows are the meeting notes from the special meeting called to discuss larger issues with running Bike Farm.

Attendence:

• Adam
• Amanda
• Momoko
• Simon
• Thimble
• Lindsey
• Shannon
• Ralph

we reread the agenda items:
·  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.

we decided to start bottom up

Programs:
The discussion gravitated towards what sort of resources new projects and programs would use, and there was general agreement that it would be mostly time and volunteer hours. Because the shop is often not in use (weekday mornings, weekend evenings) we decided there was no reason that it shouldn’t be unavailable for programs. In terms of volunteers, we generally agreed that if someone is interested enough to bring an idea up as a proposal then they will likely be willing to take on responsibility for it. The only material resource concern was over used parts; that discussion was taken on after this topic because of it’s related nature. In all, we decided that issues of new programming should be evaluated on a case by case basis, so that we can assess our available resources before committing to any new programming.

Momoko’s Bullet-points:

• do we have the time
• the shop is closed a lot.  we don’t use it all the time?  we could use it more
• case by case basis, if it becomes too much then we can talk about it
• used parts are the only resource used
• if we don’t have resources for the program then we will veto the proposal for a new program
• goes into the idea of used parts, and how we use them

Used Parts: this is the major topic
we reviewed our mission statement before having this discussion.

This was a pretty in-depth discussion with a lot of different issues to address. We identified the issue as being a shortage of quality parts, rather than a misallocation of parts to project bikes or build bikes. We generally agreed that building up complete bikes did fall under the umbrella of our mission statement, and that it was a valuable service to the community and in furthering our mission.

In order to minimize the “tying-up” of parts in incomplete project bikes, it was proposed that we prioritize completing bikes which are nearly finished over other projects, in order to make the frame/parts usable and out the door. We clarified that not every bike in the shop is a project bike, and bikes which aren’t claimed as a volunteer’s project or a build bikes project are available to have parts cannibalized from them if necessary to complete another bike. Each bike also has a small budget for parts that aren’t available in the shop ($20)

In order to track a project’s completion we decided to translate the Intake Form information onto a spreadsheet which will be posted on the shop wall. This will have check-boxes, similar to the intake form (from the Mechanics Bible) for component check-off. We also took this opportunity to use the spreadsheet as a form of shop inventory, and decided to include basic bike info like frame size, type (road, mt, hybrid, etc), etc. and thimble numbered all of the frame hooks in the shop so we know what hook things will be hanging on.

Finally, we agreed that having volunteers strip down bikes that aren’t being actively built up would be a good way to bolster our parts inventory (or maybe just make it more “liquid”) as well as an excellent way for folks to learn how components attach to a bike without doing something potentially dangerous or (less likely) damaging.

Momoko’s Bullet-points:

• the problem is not that we are building bikes vs saving parts for customers,
• the problem is that we don’t have many resources/parts
• we are making a priority of bikes which are nearly complete

Inventory list? wooooowoo spread sheet: list of the project bikes and their status. created by amanda
lindsey likes check boxes because every one has sucky handwriting
brand name, frame size, type, number,

thimble asks. should build bikes get priority over project bikes?
if there’s a part needed for a build bikes,
if something is unclaimed, then feel free to take a part from it
honor the 1 month rule, that if you are working on a bike and you don’t do anything on it for a month,
then it can be cannibalized.

we need to get the bikes out of the shop,
striping bikes is not a bad thing to do, it’s a good way to learn and it’s also going to help with space
let’s put notes on the bikes to have them striped down.

proposal?
prioritize completion of bikes?
cannibalizing bikes is ok if it’s not someone’s project bike, or if the project is over a month old.
please date your messages on the sheets.

thimble proposes to put numbers on the hooks. which correspond to the hooks.  Thimble is to do.
everyone likes it.

Core Mechanics:
Momoko’s Bullet-points (pretty accurate narrative actually)

• who are they?
• there is no real definition besides you are a capable mechanic that is in the shop one shift a week.
• There should be a sheet of required skills for core mechanics.
• there used to be the idea of having a test, but maybe we can just trust people.
• but people who don’t know what they are doing, are often the type of people who think they know everything.
• why do we need to have core mechanics?
• it’s a safety issue, and a lot of things need to be checked off by core mechanics
• you need to be able to check off that you can do it and that you’ve also attended a skill share regarding
• who are the core:  jeremy, dylan, star michael, tobin, paul, adam

proposal: this is how you become a core mechanic.
existing core mechanics are grandfathered in.
there is a list of skills with three boxes, one says “i can do this”
the other says “i have gone to a skill share teaching this”
the third says “a core mechanic has signed off that i can do this”

skill share on thursday nights. Pass! (Simon will organize and develop basic curriculum)
but wait wait, what do we actually need to have a skill share?
parts on bikes? simon and adam will figure it out.

open to the public? (there’s a lot of discussion here)
Public attendance would potentially bring in too many people. The purpose of the proposed skill shares is to get people up to core-mechanic status.
Classes can be open if the mechanic wants to take responsibility for the shop, and
If you want to open it up to the public, it has to be proposed at a meeting before having an open class.
compromised on publicizing that volunteers can attend skill shares as a perk.

Wholesale Privileges:
came up because the bees asked to use the privilege to go on tour.
adam thinks we need to be careful about giving this privilege out.
he felt more comfortable with the idea that bike farm was sponsoring these people.
like the skill share, there needs to be a proposal posed to the group.

whole sale privilege is meant for personal use. not for resale.
there is a limit of $500 per year for qualifying volunteers.
if someone wants to go over the limit, then it has to be proposed to the group.
jeremy and adam will handle people’s limits as the buyers of the shop.
approved!

socioeconomic status:
we shouldn’t base it on the way people look,
but it’s ok to help people who let you know they have less means, or charge more to people who you know are picking over our parts.
regarding programming: it seems we want to help people with less means.
lindsey wants a no one refused for lack of funds policy. currently it’s unofficial, but someday it could become official.
there is the official, no one refused stand time for lack of funds policy: volunteer for one hour and get the rest of the day stand time for free.
lindsey wants to put women and trans night up on indie media,
to do this, she needs to say “no one refused for lack of funds” (we agreed this was fine)
new parts need to be paid for. ALWAYS!
agreed!

next weeks agenda?
how can we get more good quality parts?
board member issues?

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