Nov/Dec 2007 Member Meeting Minutes

Nov/Dec 2007 Freeride Montpelier General Membership Meeting

Announcements:
-    The tallbike is missing, since the Halloween ride!
-    Blinky solstice ride is on the 21st
-    The steering team is looking for more members (see draft process below)

Other committees:
-    Community bike team: Nobody to join, will continue to work on it as steering team and try to recruit.
-    Weatherization task force: Nobody to join, ended up just making plans to make improvements ourselves during shifts.

Steering decisions:
-    Joining the steering team: Regular volunteers may join the steering committee by making a commitment and attending two steering committee meetings.

Member Meeting Minutes 8/30

Thanks to everyone who attended this meeting, it was great!

In this email:
- announcements
- updates from teams and projects
- feedback about steering decisions since last meeting
- winter brainstorm ideas

ANNOUNCEMENTS
- VTBikePed Coalition is having their first annual outing on the 15th.
Details here
- A group in Montpelier is commissioning artists to make sculptures from
bike parts to be displayed downtown. More info here (pdf)
- Freeride has an opportunity to use video and editing equipment from a
local organization to make short films. If you are interested, email Colin
- Barre donated a ton of bikes to us. Greg has written up a thankyou
letter, and posted it on our blog
- We need a nicer triangle sign for the rusty wheelie bike, if you are
interested in making this please reply!

UPDATES
- The grant team has put in one proposal (we’ll hear back on the 10th),
and looked into nonprofit status and fiscal sponsorship.
- We are close to having a wholesale account, which means lots of
replacement spokes/brake pads/grip tape/tubes and so on for sale at
reasonable prices to members. It also means tools at wholesale prices for
the shop; reply to this email or note in the shop notebook any tools you
have noticed that the shop needs.

FROM DISCUSSION ON STEERING DECISIONS
(the decisions were to make Wednesday’s shift explicitly for Women and
Trans people, and the begin a work trade system whereby a member could do
8 hours of volunteer work in the shop, then get access to our stock of
unused frames and parts, from which they could get help building a bike)
- Work trade could be promoted more (Future posters, pamphlets, and
informational signs in the shop will reflect this)
- Male bodied, masculine identifying people should know that they will
likely be turned away from Women and Trans night.
- The concern was raised again that with so few shifts, turning anyone
away during any shift is a shame.
- General first and secondhand support for Women and Trans night was
expressed.

FROM BRAINSTORM ON WINTER
- We could set a goal of a ‘grand reopening’ on a certain date.
- It could be a good time to focus on collaboration (or at least
copromotion) with other groups, like Onion River Sports and VTBikePed,
especially how we might fit into the Bike Swap.
- We could plan/start workshops with kids, like Community Connections has
done in the past, teaming up with Community Connections.
- While winter is a good time for us to plan for the spring, we can keep
up momentum with members by offering skill-based workshops (including
mechanics 101), winter biking workshops, spring tune-up workshops, etc.
- We could promote winter biking with posters, zines, and factsheets
- Winter bike rides
- Organize bike collection dates (with sculptcycle, perhaps)
- Rent space out to other groups who could use it (painting, welding,
woodwork, etc.)
- Have other events/presentations/workshops/movie showings dealing with
bike culture, freak bikes
- To cut costs, we can ultra-weatherize the space; be sure to share ideas
you have!
- Part of winter may be a visioning process, asking members if the bike
coops is doing what they want, what else it could do and what it could do
better, etc.

Please share any thoughts you have by email, shop notebook, suggestion
box, or in person to anyone on the steering committee.

Eat those veggies!

Member Meeting 8/30

Next Thursday, August 30
A meeting open to all Freeride Montpelier members (as well as interested nonmembers)
From 6pm to, at latest, 8pm (This is normally a shift time, but it seems to be the best we can do)

Agenda:
- greetings/announcements
- updates from teams/other projects people are working on for Freeride
- open discussion on steering decisions since the last meeting: the designation and intention of women and trans night, and the beginning of work trade
- brainstorm about what to do for the winter, as well as planning for next year, and into the future (THIS IS IMPORTANT: Freeride has the potential to be an organization that meets more needs in the community; we could get some really fun/educational/helpful things together. But we need an idea of where we want to go.)

Please weigh in on any of this at the meeting, or by email, in the anonymous suggestion box, or in the notebook in the shop.

See you next Thursday!

6.25 Meeting Minutes

With 6 in attendance, the meeting was relatively quick, but not at the expense of its thoughtful discourse. We stuck to the agenda, which was

• announcements
• updates from teams
• dialog on steering decisions
• discussion on ladies’ night
• planning

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

• Next Wednesday, July 4, there will be no shift. Not necessarily because we are patriots.
• We’re up to 49 members!
• Thanks to Matt and everyone else who helped and came for making the Bike Geek event hip to be square.
• July 11 is when the House is convening to decide whether they should override the governor’s veto of the recent energy bill. VPIRG has ideas of how to show your support for a secure energy future. You could, of course, also go to show your support for the Governor’s veto.
• One of our neighbors, Davi (Dabi? he stopped by for only a minute), has a reggae show on WGDR (91.1 fm) on Thursdays from 2-4. He said he would plug us, so if you needed another excuse to listen to reggae, there it is.
• Remember, Benefit Concert July 19th. I got a sneak preview of the poster and it is AMAZING.
• There will be a public pillow fight on the state house lawn on July 28 at 3pm. Bring a pillow!

UPDATES FROM WORKING TEAMS

• Web team: This awesome blog was set up. Myspace account soon.

DIALOG ABOUT STEERING DECISIONS

• It was noted that the alcohol/drug policy wording should specify illegal drugs. It will go back to the steering committee.

DISCUSSION ABOUT LADIES’ NIGHT

This discussion focused on the question of whether Ladies’ Night would better serve its purpose (of promoting shop and skill accessibility to genders otherwise less represented in mechanical fields) by allowing only people who identify as women or trans to use the shop during that shift. Below are many of the concerns that were brought up during the meeting, and before and after. No decision has been made on this, and Ladies’ Night remains open to all, at least for now.

• To limit the shift may help people get involved who may otherwise not, particularly survivors of abuse by men in positions of authority.
• If our goal is education and sensitivity, it may be good to keep the shift open, so more people can be in this setting where understanding gender dynamics is explicitly important.
• A limit may accomplish what it was adopted for, and potentially be removed at that point, if that better serves the shift’s purpose.
• An officially closed shift may conflict with Freeride’s stated mission of tolerance.
• Our other shifts may be effectively closed to people, unofficially, because of any number of things inherent to those shifts.
• There are not many shifts, so limiting one may sufficiently limit the accessibility of Freeride to the people barred from that shift.
• A good idea may be to get a general idea of whether this setup would meet the needs of many people in the community.
• However Ladies’ Night is set up, its purpose is part of the mission of Freeride, and all shifts, events, and workshops should be safe and aware spaces.

PLANNING

• We formed 2 teams: a workshop team and a public relations team. Join one by emailing the first person on the list.
  • Workshop team
    • Robin
    • Stan
    • Greg
  • PR team
    • Andrea
    • Morgan
    • Colin
    • Robin
• Stan will put together a basic list of what to check on a bike.
• Colin will start work on a poster that will help acclimate and orient people visiting the shop for the first time, especially about head mechanics.
• Andrea will look into how to get into the parade.
• Stan expressed an interest in going for rides. Other’s have, too. Maybe you should talk!

Meeting Agenda for Monday 6.25, 6-8pm

Next Monday, 6/25 from 6-8pm, a meeting open to the whole membership of Freeride Montpelier will be held at the shop. Here is an overview of the agenda:

- announcements
- updates from working teams
- open dialog on steering committee decisions (see below)
- discussion on ladies’ night, specifically whether it should be limited to women and trans people
- planning time for working teams, if needed

The steering team, which met yesterday, made the following decisions. Input, objections, questions, and concerns about these decisions are welcome by email at any time, but may be best served in dialog during Monday’s meeting:
- We will buy liability insurance from Poulos Insurance, Inc for $796 annually
- We will apply for a wholesale account with Quality Bicycle Products
- Our alcohol & drugs policy will read “Alcohol and drugs are not permitted in the space, and people using the space must not be noticeably intoxicated. This policy will be strictly enforced during shifts.”
- In order to become a head mechanic, one must already have been a mechanic on another shift, and the head mechanic for that shift will bring the request to the steering team, which will direct the process from there.
- Our policy policy will read “We intend to avoid superfluous policies.”
- Robin will be taking over as head mechanic on Wednesday nights from
6-8:30, Ladies’ Night

See you at the geek-out, or the meeting, or the shop, or the streets!