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Newsletter - November 2007 Dear supporters of Yellow Bike, Here is the news for November. We are excited about the East Austin Studio Tour and our largest ever Yellow Bike release. We are hoping to have 100 bikes ready to provide additional bicycle transportation for the tour. Come visit us at Cafe Mundi this Saturday morning to grab a ride or just look for Yellow Bikes in the streets of East Austin this weekend. Read below for all of the details. -The Yellow Bike Project LARGEST YELLOW BIKE RELEASE EVER FOR E.A.S.T! - This Saturday 11/17 10am-2pm Cafe Mundi The East Austin Studio Tour is a weekend open house of over 100 artist studios (screen printing, sculpture, photography, book making, ceramics, painting, jewelry making, wood working, and much more) on the East Side of Austin. The event has been happening for six years and gaining popularity and artists ever since. This year the event organizers have picked bikes as a theme to emphasize their role in sustainable transportation. We are working to release 100 Yellow Bikes as part of an effort by the E.A.S.T. organizers to make this year's tour a bike rich event. E.A.S.T. is a perfect bike event since there are hundreds of destinations within a few miles of each other. If you need a ride during the event come pick one up! ( view map ) ADVOCACY STATEMENT - Recognizing that Yellow Bike's mission is greatly abetted by improved bicycling facilities and consistent support for cycling as transportation from local government, we have devised an Advocacy Statement of support for the continued development of bicycle facilities in Austin. This statement will serve two purposes: 1) to inform City Council, staff, and other interested parties of YBP's general positions on all issues that affect bicyclists, and 2) to guide YBP's position on all specific issues affecting bicyclists that arise within the City. Stay tuned for news on upcoming issues and ways you can help improve cycling in Austin! Thanks to Jen Duthie who serves as Transportation Chair on our Representative Council for making this happen. Read our Advocacy Statement online. TREASURE CITY SHOP UPDATE - In order to bring the Treasure City shop into the mainstream of Yellow Bike activity, we are making some small but significant changes we hope the community will appreciate. First of all, Nathan Wilkes donated some wood and his sweet skills in rebuilding the door security system. We now have a very secure deadbolt that should alleviate some of our past problems with burglary. This will allow us to leave our tools hanging on the walls instead of storing them in the Treasure City Thrift shop and re-hanging for each shop. Also, we are going to be getting a nice work light outside the shop which we will use to light up the door area. This should help with both security and working as the sun fades away. And finally, we are getting a laptop next week, which will stay at the TC Shop and will allow us to log volunteer hours, track our transactions and further validate our importance to the collective.
Sachi and I are going to keep the shop open on Monday and Friday from 3-6 as long as we can, but we really need others to step up and volunteer to get the shop open more. Having the shop open more consistently will raise it's value to the neighbors around us and establish it as an important arm of the Yellow Bike Project. -Update by Mateo
NOVEMBER SHOP SCHEDULE - This month we have a full schedule brought to you by amazing volunteers. We are running the 51st street shop 5 nights a week and teaching two registration only repair classes on Sunday. Get involved and you can help us open keep our shops more, especially the Treasure City shop. Ask a coordinator about our apprenticeship program or learn more on our website. We have two closures this month. One, this Saturday's shop will be closed because of our Yellow Bike release and participation in the East Austin Studio Tour. Two, we will be close on Thanksgiving night. A full month calendar can be viewed on our website.
* Red Hours indicate Volunteer Shops: These shops are reserved for volunteering. Volunteers are also welcome anytime our shops are open. Volunteer Shops are usually less busy and facilitate a better learning experience. Personal projects are not allowed during volunteer shops; they can only be worked on during Open Shops. While volunteering, you can learn to fix bikes while giving back to YBP or accrue volunteer hours counting towards a free bike of your very own.
TOOLZ FOR LIFE YOUTH BICYCLE PROGRAM UPDATE - This fall has brought new life to bicycles at Kealing Middle School and new knowledge to young minds. Members of the YBP supported Toolz for Life program have been wrenching, exploring and applying their new skills to bicycles through two different classes as part of the Citizen Schools after school program at Kealing. Tuesdays are repair days where students have been working to earn their bicycles by performing repairs ranging from fixing flats to overhauling bottom brackets. Thursdays add another element as students explore their neighborhood by bicycle, documenting their site visits with the goal of creating a unique bicycle map of their community based on their observations and recommendations for improving neighborhood cycling. Our final bike rodeo and presentation will be on Thursday, December 6 th from 4 to 6pm at Kealing and all are invited to join youth in cycling fun and celebration of their hard work. We are also working with the approximately 30 students at Brooke Elementary in our bicycle in our arts program. We have fixed 15 bicycles with two classes and now we are learning riding skills, practicing safety techniques and getting flags and decorations ready for our December bicycle parade!! Students will keep the bicycles, along with locks and helmets donated by the Austin Cycling Association, when the school year is over.-Update by Sachi
AUSTIN OUTHOUSE PROVIDES A DONATED PORT-A-POTTY - Our 51st Street shop has been without a restroom for almost two months while we tried to figure out what to do. Austin Outhouse came to our rescue and generously offered to donate a Port a Potty until we move out of the 51st street location in June of 2008. It is amazing to see what even an outhouse company can do with a community driven mission statement. Thanks Austin Outhouse! |
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