On Thursday, August 30, 2007 over 20 people got together at the Bike Oven to help decide the fate of this bicycle repair collective. If you’d like to peer inside their discussion, simply follow the link below.

Bike Oven Meeting
August 30, 2007
3706 N. Figueroa St.
Los Angeles, CA 90065

Meeting began at approx. 7 p.m.

In Attendace (after Hugo and company arrived, records were not kept of those in attendance):
Steve I.
Gary E.
Eddie A.
Josef B.
Harv W.
Janina d.
Stephen C.
Nelson O.
Rafael N.
Czara d.
Gene (made the logo for the web-site)
Sean “Skittles”
Linda W.
Hugo and crew (three guys from local print shop)

Topics Discussed

Our Mission
Steve I. brought up this topic at the beginning of the meeting. He started by saying, “We need to figure out who we are and what we are. Not declaration of independance … but a mission statement.” He then asked the room for suggestions about our mission at the Bike Oven, and transcribed what was yelled out onto an art board he brought. No consensus was reached on this issue, but it is my opinion that we all generally agreed that the Bike Oven is not just a bicycle repair shop, but a space for many other things.

Suggested mission statements written by Steve I. on an art board and those I could catch shouted from the crowd: “Make rent”; “Work on bikes for free”; “Nonprofit group – we’re here to make money to make rent. Any “profit” should go to tools, supplies, and next month’s rent”; “Bike advocates”; “Advocacy and technical support for cyclists”; “Volunteer run – there is no El Jefe”; “Teaching facility”; “Building bike culture and a social network”.

Here is some of the poorly transcribed discussion I tried to capture in my notes (this reflects my biased perception of the conversation – it focuses too much on those among us who don’t mind speaking aloud in front of everyone and it does not accurately capture the flow of conversation. I am including this only to help all of us get a glimpse of what was being said at the meeting):

Steve I.: Are we running a bike shop?
All Present: No
Steve I.: [Crosses "Make rent" out on the board]
Josef B.: I like advocacy and social and technical support for cyclists.
Gary E.: Do we make political campaigns?
Harv W.: Yes.
Josef B.: I don’t like being limited by nonprofit status.
Steve I.: We are volunteer run – there is¬† no “El Jefe”.
Harv W.: We are an extension of the operation in the garage. The only difference is that we have expenses to meet. We’re almost 2 years in now.
Steve I.: I like how the Kitchen is a teaching facility.
Harv W.: Empowerment.
Josef B.: I am interested in building bike culture and a social network.
Steve I.: Who is the community? Is there anyone we want to exclude?
Josef B.: No commercial, black market, people?
Steve I.: So, our mission statement?
Eddie A.: Bicycle advocates!
Josef B.: We hold events, provide technical support, have a community support and social space,  and we engage in bike advocacy.
Steve I.: How do we decide shit?

Organizational Structure/Titles for Volunteers
The conversation about this topic picked up right after Steve I.¬† asked, “How do we decide shit?” No decision or consensus was reached on this matter. You can understand how hard it is to decide how to decide things when, as a group, you haven’t decided how to decide things!

In either case, here is all that I was able to capture of this conversation:

Harv W.: We need a board of directors.
Steve I.: The core volunteers elect the board of directors …
Harv W.: We can consider everyone here tonight as a “core volunteer”, and vote.
Steve I.: A majority vote leads the way.
Harv W.: It doesn’t have to be fair, it doesn’t have to be democratic, it doesn’t have to follow Robert’s Rules of Order.
Josef B.: We ned to establish some system of counting up of volunteer hours to determine who can be a core volunteer.
Gary E.: We need training for people working on bicycles – to make sure that we are all on the same page.
Josef B.: What sort of cool nicknames should we use to describe our volunteers?
Janina d.: Stud Muffins or Cupcakes?
Steve I.: We should give ourselves one month to come up with a scheme for organizing volunteers.
Josef B.: There are some roles to play in a place like this that other collectives use, as an example:
Directors (manage the finances and logistics of the shop, help with conflicts);
“Wrenches” (teach bike repair or repair bikes);
Support Roles (accounting help, shop cleanup, inventory, opening and closing the shop, working the register, day-to-day non-mechanical help);
Promoter/Organizer (plan and host events and rides, arrange dates on calendar, post on the internet).

That small snippet is all I was able to type of that conversation. My opinion: Obviously, we need to simply agree to select a few people (subject to some sort of removal process if they suck at what they are doing) to be decision makers and facilitators of some sort. We need to find a way to assign some sort of inner core of volunteers (who are committed to long term involvement in the Oven), and other more casual or short term volunteers – and to dole out responsibility and power accordingly.

Regular Meetings/Next Meeting
The next meeting was hastily decided to be on Monday, September 10, 2007 at the Bike Oven. Several in attendance suggested meeting twice monthly to take care of management at big decisions to be made in the coming days.

From this point on, the discussion dealt with actually getting things done and creating things to make the Bike Oven feel more real (design work, repair of equipment, etc.).

Public Relations

Logo creation
We had several logos submitted to us by several different people. A post on our site shows the different examples. Czara d. and G. submitted a logo that by received a great deal of positive head nodding to use it.

Sign for the storefront
Design – Matt F. has volunteered a design; Czara d. has volunteered to do some design work on the sign; no decision was reached about this matter. Czara d.’s logo can be printed in a poster size, and hung on our red sandwich board outside.

Lighted Sign
Eddie A. has volunteered to come to the Oven on Saturday, September 1, 2007 to repair the lighted sign on the front of the building. A tall ladder has been temporarily acquired for this purpose.

Flyers
Printing – Hugo (and his two coworkers) work at a print shop, and can make flyers for us at cost. He need things in a .pdf format.
Design – Czara and her coworker are willing to design flyers for us
Types of Flyers We Need:
-2.125″x11″ strips (one 8.5×11 sheet gives 4 of these) – to be stapled around bikes
-quarter sheets
-spoke cards
We also need:
-Membership Card
-A Translator! We need to make our flyers and designs in  bi- or multi-lingual versions

T-Shirts
Josef B. is to contact American Apparel and American Standard t-shirt companies, to find out their wholesale prices for t-shirts. Czara (and others) have the ability to design and silk screen t-shirts.

Web-Site
A WordPress blog site has been created for the Bike Oven. Czara d. and G. have designed a sharp looking site. That sharp design needs to be turned into a template for WordPress, and used as the Bike Oven’s web-site.

Computer for the Shop and Management
Steve I. has volunteered to be the go-between with us and the Bike Kitchen to hook up their old Mac with their custom Quickbooks code.

Membership System
Josef B. brought up the need to set up a membership system. Membership would cost “x” amount of dollars and the member would get: a card entitling the member to get free stand time for the duration of the membership; the right to store one project bike (to have it’s tag updated weekly by the member); a discount (from the retail price of parts)¬† when ordering new parts through the shop; a t-shirt; and other benefits to be decided later.

Further input into this matter is required – a system of tracking members is sorely needed.

Volunteer Coordinating
Arthur S. is our designated volunteer coordinator. He needs to develop some sort of mechanism to coordinate who is in the shop (for sure) on the dates and times we are going to be open.

Steve I. suggested the creation of a phone tree – for core volunteers to contact each other when they are unable to make it to the shop, or want to come in, etc.

Shop Etiquette/Basic Rules
Josef B. raised this issue to try and get some understanding of what sorts of basic shop rules we might want to have in place to protect our tools, our members, and patrons.

For example: the bench vise is only to be used with approved shop supervision; if a tool is broken, it is to be reported to the shop manager (in order to schedule an acquisition of a new tool). The example Josef B. mentioned had to do with interrupting a fellow volunteer who is helping a patron/member fix their bike – it was a poor example, and was not received well by those in attendance.

A work order form was drafted by Harv W. and is to be used whenever someone begins work on their bike at the Bike Oven. This form allows those tracking the finances of the Oven, and running the shop, to see that we are able to collect any donations we think we are due for any services we or parts we might have rendered. People can leave without paying anything, but we need to pay our rent – having a piece of paper to document the “price” of parts and stand time will help us meet our rent and expenses.

Instructions for Opening, Running, and Closing the Shop
There is a small list of tasks which need to be taken care of by someone in charge of the shop for an evening. These tasks include:
open doors
bike rack out
raise blinds
lights on
problems: call Josef or Hector Hector Gallegos
set up stands
new sign in sheets
run the shop – track repairs, paperworks, donations
sweep up shop
bathroom gets cleaned
tools put back in place (or close to it)
bring rack in
count money – total it
pick up trash
turn lights off and lock up

A short list of people willing and able to do these non-mechanical tasks:
Josef B.
Gary E.
Steve I.
Stephen C.
Janina d.
Czara d.
Linda W.
Eddie A.

Some supplies we need to take care of this stuff: clipboards, pads of paper, pens.

Opening Party
This is being planned by Gary E.; it will take place in the church parking lot around the corner on either September 15th, 22nd, or 29th. Food and water will be sold through the church.