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Newsletter - March 2007
Dear friends of Yellow Bike,
Here is the news for March. We have a new shop open and a Grand Opening Event planned. We have also been thinking a lot about Bike Month, May, and our upcoming 10th birthday.
Thanks to everyone who has come to the shop recently to volunteer and help out. Your time and effort mean a lot to us. On average, around 40 volunteers have been contributing 120 hours a week to the project. This level of community involvement is amazing and makes possible the quality and effectiveness of the work we do.
Thanks once again for the support,
-The Yellow Bike Project
Treasure City Shop Grand Opening - Our new Treasure City Satellite Shop is finally open! We are open 3 days a week, on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday all this month. Our shop has 3 works stands and, as always, wonderful volunteers to h elp you with bike maintenance and repair.
We will have a Grand Opening at the shop on Saturday the 24th between Noon and 4pm. For the first two hours of the
event we will be matching around 35 neighborhood youths with bikes donated and overhauled as part of our ACA and REI supported Bikes to Schools Program. Each bike will come with safety gear, a helmet and a light set. The bikes will be adjusted to fit the kids who receive them.
For neighborhood kids who bring their own bikes to the shop , we will be giving away any extra helmets and lights on a first-come first-serve basis. We will also perform a safety check on their bicycles and make any adjustments necessary. Volunteers will be on hand to teach basic bike safety tips to the kids.
For the remainder of event, from 2pm - 4pm, the shop will be open for people to work on their bikes and tour the new shop. The shop is equipped for minor repairs like replacing brake cables, fixing flats and greasing bearings. Complete overhauls and multi-day projects are more easily accommodated at our Main Shop on 51st Street.
We would again like to thank everyone who helped out with the bike powered move (watch video ) and the setup of the new shop. We couldn't have done it without you. Please come to the Grand Opening or stop by during open hours and see the new shop!
The Bikes Across Borders Community Bike Shop - Bikes Across Borders has maintained a long running community bike shop much like the ones we run. Their large shop is an excellent and established resource for bike repair and we're looking forward to working more closely with them in hopes of increasing the usage and impact of their shop.
Last month a volunteer from Yellow Bike assisted at their weekly work shop and came back with suggestions on future collaborations. We're planning a work party to help organize their shop and plan a tool order. Anyone who is interested in helping out can contact us at austinyellowbike@gmail.com.
We are posting the open hours of their shop on our website schedule to increase the visibility and usage of their shop. We love to see community bike resources and are happy to provide any assistance to make them successful.
Schedule - This month we have t wo shops
running with full schedules and another community bike shop at Bikes Across Borders that we recom mend you check out
* Red Hours indicate Volunteer Only Shop: Learn to fix bikes while giving back to YBP, earn a bike of your very own, or just help out. Personal projects during Open Shops shown in black on the schedule.
** Collective Meetings: Shop "closed" for collective meeting at our Main Shop (51st Street) on the 1st Tuesday of the month. Meeting begins at 7:30 pm. Open to the public. If you would like to contribute ideas to the collective, make requests, learn more about the project and its internal workings, or just get more involved this is the forum for you.
*** Volunteers Needed: We need volunteers so that we can expand and maintain hours of our shops. We want to be open more often. Come to the main 51st street shop to learn how you can help.
YBP's 10th Birthday - Call for Artists for Bike Art Show - As the weather for being outside on a bike continues to improve, the month of May and Bike Month are quickly approaching. Keeping with our tradition of celebrating YBP's birthday during Bike Month, this year we will be enjoying our 10th.
Like last year we will be hosting a Bike Art Show of bike themed works (photography, sculpture, drawing, crafts, etc.). We are currently accepting submissions for all bike themed art to be displayed at the Dandelion cafe for the month of May. If you are interested email us at austinyellowbike@gmail.com
As for the rest of the celebration of Bike Month and our 10th Birthday, we are still finalizing the details and will announce them as soon as possible. More soon!
SXSW Yellow Bike Release - On Thursday, March 15, during the SXSW festival, we released 13 Yellow Bikes Downtown at 6th and Congress. At 10pm that night the bikes dispersed bearing riders to and from shows, movies, home and who knows where else. Special thanks to Pete Wall for his dedication in making Yellow Bike releases happen and to everyone else who helped prepare for the release.
While releasing Yellow Bikes is our organization's namesake and a project that we feel strongly about, it is only a small part of the work that we do. We release Yellow Bikes to divert
unused bikes from the landfill and to teach volunteers about bike repair in the process. In the end we all get more bikes, less waste and more community involvement, while volunteers get a free bike repair education . Still confused about why we bother releasing Yellow Bikes year after year? Read more about Yellow Bikes on our Website .
Sri Atmananda School Bike Repair Class - We have just started hosting a weekly repair workshop at our 51st street location for a group of 7th and 8th graders from the Sri Atmananda School. The workshop fulfills Science and Sustainability requirements in their curriculum. The kids have picked out bikes to overhaul and seem eager to learn more about their inner workings, which will compliment the physics lessons they receive in the classroom. They are also looking forward to an upcoming field trip by bike which will serve as an exercise in sustainable transportation.
Art Outside - This year's annual
Art Outside,"a temporary art show in the woods," will be taking place on the weekends (Fri, Sat and Sun Nights) of the 31st of March and the 7th or April. The event showcases environmentally conscious art and this year several volunteers from Yellow Bike will be projecting slides and video on a screen decorated with bike parts. The slide and video content will focus on the work of the Yellow Bike Project. |
