Hello everyone,
This is Jason, your favorite local bicycle shop/education/volunteer/community/culture center coordinator. I really appreciate everyone’s patience with me as I try to make the huge amount of things we do more organized and understandable. As a collectively run space that is put together through volunteer efforts (I proudly don’t get a pay check here), sometimes change takes time.
Anyway, with that disclaimer and thanks out of the way, I would like to present a change to our “volunteer meeting” schedule. Before, we were having volunteer meetings on the first Wednesday and Thursdays of the month at 5pm. These weren’t working for most volunteers and these weren’t working for us. Most of all, they weren’t working for new volunteers that often walked into them without any sort of context of what volunteer nights are all about.
To fix all of these problems we will now have separate volunteer meetings and new volunteer orientations. So the first Wednesday of the month we will not be having “regular” volunteer time. Instead:
– From 6pm-7pm we will be having a new volunteer orientation. This is an hour for people who haven’t volunteered with us before to see the shop, ask questions, sign up for the allyship program and to find out where they can best fit into our organization.
– From 7pm-8pm we will be having our volunteer meeting. At a later time we hope more people can show up. Also, at these meetings we will set priorities for the whole month that will help dictate what goes on during volunteer times.
I’m really hoping these changes will create an environment that gives volunteers more of a voice. This will make volunteer nights a place that works for volunteers by volunteers. Also, these will only be the first Wednesday of the month. The first Thursday of the month will be “normal” volunteer nights.
Our first attempt at this new format with be June 2nd. If you haven’t volunteered at the HUB before and are thinking about coming for the first time, we won’t stop you from showing up on a Wednesday or Thursday night, but it is highly recommended that you show up on the 2nd at 6pm if you can because this will give you a better foot in the door. Also, if you have volunteered with us before but you still have questions or think you could benefit from this orientation. Please come!
If you have any questions, let me know. (jason[at]thehubofdetroit[dot]org)
See you soon!
– Mx. Jason