Volunteer news

[Ryan Sharpe]

Hello volunteers and future volunteers!  This e-mail's getting long enough, so I'll just go straight into the juicy bits:


New volunteer orientation schedule

For the last few months, we've been moving our volunteer orientation around a lot, holding it some weeks, skipping it on others.  To be honest, this ad hoc method hasn't really served our prospective volunteers or ourselves well.  Emjay and I are responsible for volunteer coordination, and even we've been confused as to whether there's an orientation planned for the night and if so, if anyone's going to show up.  No longer.

Starting Feb. 22, we're going to a set schedule, holding volunteer orientation on the second and fourth Mondays of every month, at 7:00 pm.  We're going to try to tailor the orientation on the second Monday towards future clerks and the fourth Monday orientation towards wannabe mechanics, but any prospective volunteer is welcome on either night to learn about the shop rules and procedures.  What's more, since we're holding these orientations during our normal volunteers-only night, you can get a head start on meeting some of the wonderful people who've taken the plunge and started wrenching and greeting for us!

Volunteer night reminder

As a reminder, we're open every Monday night from 6pm to 9pm for you, our volunteers, to hang out and work on your personal projects (or shop projects or no projects at all), as a way to say thank you for spending so much time helping others.  We provide some food, camaraderie, and fun, you just bring your awesome volunteering self on down.

Eventually, we want to start holding some mechanics classes during volunteer night as a way to bone up on how to use the weirder tools in our cabinets, too.  If the FFS-2 and the FFG-2 have you all confused, Monday nights will be a good time to ask!

Finally, we'd like to extend a special invitation to our clerk volunteers to come on the second Monday of the month and our mechanics on the fourth Monday, so you can get to know your counterparts from the other shifts and jockey for some of the fresh volunteer meat coming in for the orientation.

Waste manager position still open

We're still looking for someone to take care of the scrap pile that always seems to start getting out of control on us.  We have traditionally taken it to Sims metal recycling a few blocks away, but this requires a volunteer with a truck available during Sims' business hours, from 9 am to 4 pm.  If you take on this job, it's up to you on where this metal goes and what happens to it, but we would really, really like to see it disposed of in some environmentally-conscious manner.

Friday Kids' and Families' Night

Danny's SBKids! shift (Friday nights, from 6 to 8) is going gangbusters, but it's also our most poorly staffed night.  Danny can use some more hands, so if you want to volunteer as a clerk, mechanic, or general babysitter (for the kids, not Danny), e-mail volu...@sacbikekitchen.org or da...@sacbikekitchen.org.

There's also a pair of events coming up.  The details aren't finalized yet, but we're definitely going to need some help.

Bike swap

From what we've heard, there's going to be a bike swap down at Fremont Park in mid April.  Since we've been dragging our pedals on holding a bike swap ourselves, we're kind of honor bound to show up, help do some tune-ups, and maybe even hock a few of our own frames, so we'll need some help setting up and staffing whatever we end up doing.

Hunt the Grid II

For last year's May is Bike Month celebration, we hosted a scavenger hunt through midtown which was so popular and so much fun that a local jeweler stole the idea.  Well, as it happens, May 2010 is also Bike Month, so we're going to run another scavenger hunt -- a bigger hunt, better prizes, more participants!  So far, the only thing nailed down is the date (May 8), but we're going to need a lot of volunteers to help plan the event beforehand and set up and direct traffic on the day of the event.  I'll have another announcement on this very soon, so keep your eyes peeled.

That's all for now.  See you on Mondays!

--Ryan S.
volu...@sacbikekitchen.org

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Sacramento Bicycle Kitchen
http://sacbikekitchen.org/
1915 I Street, Midtown Sacramento
Open Tu 6-9p, We 6-9p, Th 6-9p, Fr 10a-2p (kids 6-8p), Sa 12-4p