notes from our meeting on monday june 13

[Kathleen Banville]

Hi everyone, hope this finds you well.

on Monday we had nine people come out to our meeting: Hyedie, Candace, Jess, Moira, Kathleen (me), Kathy, Kat, Kristina and Shannon.

1. we did a short go-around of introductions and peoples' involvement in Wenches and other cycling projects in the city.

2. Poster. Moira, Lulu and Jane are supposed to make a poster. Lynna (of our April Wenches session) has also volunteered to help with layout. Moira will contact her. We want to have the poster done by mid-july so we can have them up all over town by the end of july.

- volunteers will sign up to distribute the posters to certain locations, we need to brainstorm a list

- make sure to address being trans-inclusive on the poster by using a phrase such as "Wenches with Wrenches is a trans-inclusive space"

3. Mission. so far our mission is "Women teaching and learning bike mechanic skills". We like that it's short and sweet, but also want to include the following ideas

- bike maintenance more than bike mechanics

- self sufficiency 

- that we are run by volunteers but always have a "technical lead" at every session to bottom line safety checks

- safety

- empowerment

- bike mechanics is a male dominated field, there is sexism

- "trans inclusive" (Kathleen will add that to the tumblr blurb)

4. Treasurer report! (Shannon)

- we made $280 at april session, donated $100 to CBN so we have $180

- what should we do with the money? make tshirts? buy tools? have a party/dinner?

5. summer plans

- partner with canbike to run a downtown womens only workshop? should we subsidize it? do we know any can bike certified women (Kathleen will ask Sherri)

- Bike Sauce has agreed to host us for a 4-week session. we want to do it on wednesday evening in September, 630-830. Jane will coordinate this.

- Brickworks Bike Works: we can host a longer 2-in-1 session there. Friday or saturday 2pm-530 pm in August (5th and 19th if a friday). First one will be intro & flat fix, second one brakes & gears. we need to promote to that neighbourhood so we need the poster first. Shannon will coordinate this. we should have toronto bike maps on hand for planning routes to get home for participants.

- Bike Pirates: they have offered us sunday evenings. maybe do an october session here? xuan-yan is our contact there.

- Wenches graduates, how do we integrate them with the community, refresh them on skills in spring? we could "bridge the gap" between learning and knowing by having a spring refresher for previous participants. perhaps join up with a local group that needs volunteers (such as bicycle commons, pirates, girl guides, schools) and have graduates and volunteers there to do some hands on practice. this would be a great way to fulfill our goal of increasing the profile of women participating in bike mechanics. 

6. outreach

- serious outreach needed to recruit committed technical leads. we should go into bike shops and look for female mechanics and ask them to come out. Candace suggests Leah who works at Bikes on Wheels, Kathleen recommends Lisa at bike pirates (she could be the tech lead for our sessions there).

7. 2012 plans

- have end of session group rides. we could have a group ride to celebrate the end of each session, planned according to the availability of participants. its a good social time for everyone including volunteers.

- october session could have an extra component on how to winterize your bike (we need to write a lesson plan for that one. all our lesson plans and handouts need an update. Kathy will scan our existing handouts, we need to make them more in line with the content of our lessons)

- Charlie's Freewheels could be a potential host for 2012.

- We will try to recruit female bike mechanics as volunteers by end of june this year.

- posters up by end of july

- lesson plans and handouts updated ASAP

so that's all i have! please put in your two cents and any corrections!

i look forward to working with all of you!

kathleen

Keep it Real

[Shannon .]

Looks great Kathleen!

Thanks for putting this together.

Shannon

[Shannon .]

One small correction - I forgot at the meeting that we had an additional $14 in the binder so I have $194 rather than $180.

[Hyedie Hashimoto]

This is amazing Kathleen!!

Thanks so much for doing this!

---
Hyedie Hashimoto

hye...@happyd-designs.com
416.550.7450
www.happyd-designs.com

[Kathy Kurtz]

Thanks for the minutes Kathleen!
I meant to ask everyone (as I'm rather unfamiliar with Google Groups) if there's a good way to post documents?
The only way I can figure out is to upload in a message/thread - does anyone know another way?

Thanks,
Kathy

[Shannon .]

Hi all,

I spoke with Shad at Bike Works about the August sessions.  He's still game, but we would need to change the timing.  They run a youth program on Fridays until 4pm and have DIY hours until 4 on Saturday so it would need to be after that.  Are people still interested?  I can't make Saturdays at all and Fridays I coldn't get there before 5:30.

Let me know your thoughts. 

Happy summer!!

Shannon

On Thu, Jun 16, 2011 at 10:38 AM, Kathleen Banville <kathlee...@gmail.com> wrote: