Loomio
Fri 11 Oct 2013 4:51PM

Non-profit Status for Bike!Bike! ???

MS Momoko Saunders Public Seen by 26

For 10 years, BB has been an entity without formal structure or organization. In many ways, this is part of what makes BB amazing.

At the same time, BB is changing; the bike movement gains momentum; and the members and needs of community bike projects grow and shift.

Over the past couple of years, members of the Bike!Bike! community have begun discussing the pros and cons of creating a non-profit entity to better support the mission and logistical feasibility of Bike!Bike! This discussion developed through open conversation during Bike!Bike! itself, and has continued remotely through the Bike!Bike! Working Group, an informal network of individuals committed to continuing this discussion between conferences.

The goal of this work is not to graft a structure of authority onto the collective phenomenon of Bike!Bike!; rather, we want to work cooperatively toward developing a simple legal framework and shared toolkit that will make Bike!Bike! easier to attend, host, and replicate. Folks interested in contributing to this work are always encouraged to participate.

MS

Momoko Saunders Fri 18 Oct 2013 3:58PM

just to let people know, there has to be a "closing date" of this discussion, but i've just put in a random date, it has no meaning, any one can change it,

DO

David Oliver Fri 18 Oct 2013 4:30PM

To me, the Bike Collective Network seems like a dead/near dead website whereas Bike!Bike! is a tangible growing thing. I'm just curious what would be the advantage of using the Bike Collectives Network as the name of the non-profit vs. Bike!Bike!

MS

Momoko Saunders Mon 21 Oct 2013 10:11PM

@davidoliver I think we need to work on making the bike collective network alive with activity again. Although this is another project, and may complicate what we are currently trying to do... to decide on a mission statement for bikebike!

MS

Momoko Saunders Mon 28 Oct 2013 7:37PM

Maintaining and protecting tools such as the bikecollectives.org wiki are a solid reason to have an entity for bikebike. An entity enables bikebike to exist and not be tied to an individual person.

G

Godwin Wed 6 Nov 2013 6:38PM

Do we need to define what a 'community bike project' is?

AC

Ashanti C Thu 7 Nov 2013 2:33AM

I'm not liking the options for voting. I'll suggest a radicaly different mission statement after looking at some well known annual events.
"B!B! is the place where community bike projects go to grow in knowledge and resources. B!B! is devoted to developing a space where community bike projects can share people and ideas to make each project sustainable so that the entire network of community bike projects becomes stronger."
Feel free to pick it apart, add to it, add bits of it to the other, etc.

DK

Darren Knox Tue 12 Nov 2013 9:49PM

I think we need to define "community bike project" in a separate statement. I feel the definition should be pretty broad and maybe include different perspectives from different kinds of shops. I think showing this diversity should make it a bit clearer what community shops do and give outsiders something to connect with. I think we should be as inclusive as possible but also reflect that most community bike shops are working with low-income/marginalized populations and that the conference is biased in this direction.

DK

Darren Knox Sun 1 Dec 2013 5:31PM

Ricky - I think its important that we don't think of this as any sort of "official vote" but a working process. Making sure that the folks who are interested can participate in the discussion is really important but, at the same time, a 100+ person collective process would be very unwieldy.

Decision making is ultimately something this group doesn't have the power to do. I personally think that B!B! should figure out a way to make decisions so we can do the work to make the conference stronger but we need consent from the larger group to do that.