Bike Bike San Marcos - and train mumblings

Right, i’m on the train for 60 hours, this is supposed to be where i can at least write.  It’s been two weeks since i was supposed to, supposed to write about the meeting with the bike collective in Adelaide  (AU).  This was my first adventure into meeting a collective which is trying to start out.  I’m not sure what my barrier is at this moment, to writing about all that i have learned.  Ok, let's just break it down, 

• you can’t instruct someone on how to build a bike collective, it has to be the baby of the volunteers for them to be invested.  
• As long as you have volunteers and as long as you have donated bikes, everything else seems to work out.  It may be chaotic, but the doors stay open as long as there are volunteers.
• so what the bicycle collective needs is not necessarily a document library, but instructions on how to get more volunteers and more donations.
• and they need help with advertising, and informing people about the collective.

the wiki works.  I used it on this train ride.  i met a guy from UC Riverside, he lived for years in the Bay and when I said that the bike collective in Portland (bike farm) was just like the bike kitchen (in Sf) he knew just what i was talking about.  I checked on the wiki to see if there was a collective in Riverside and there was!  And so i showed him, and i emailed the Riverside collective and told them, “Do more outreach!  Cause there are people in Riverside who love bikes but they don’t know about you!”

The guy who runs (or answers the email) befriended me on facebook, he was excited that i was outreaching for his collective.  He told me that they have had a hard time keeping it open do to lack of volunteers.

i remember one of the workshops that was most interesting but not on the schedule for bike bike! was “how to avoid burn out”.  Surely the veterans of the bike collectives should have some advice, this might be a good topic to discuss.

There are emails to send, yes, i believe this is why it’s hard to write, because already in this short post i’ve thought of three emails i need to write, one so important that i stopped mid sentence to write it.  and i guess that is a lot of it, but again, this is why i’m on a train for 60 hours.  to get this stuff done.

but the writing, the touchy feely thoughts about how to start a movement, how to save the world, the question i often wonder, if we were to help out collectives with tools and money, would it really be so good  for them, or would they just not be as invested in their collective.

so it’s almost as if bike bike has a responsibility to get the word out about bike collectives.

A resource, business cards.  all collectives should have business cards, 

all collectives should be on google maps and the first hit on google searches 

key words, collective, community, free (if they are) and it would be great if every bike collective had a free open shop day.


I probably shouldn't use should... heh, 
anyhow, rambles...