We have 3 levels of volunteering at Recycle-a-Bike: Coordinators, Committed Volunteers, and General Volunteers. Whatever your interest and availability, there is a place for you! To keep it organized, we have 4 committees that oversee the various parts of RAB:
Committees
Programs: What we do and how we do it
Shop: What we have, what we need, and how we organize it
Communications: How we tell people about what we do, get people excited about bikes and get new people interested in RAB
FUNds: How we pay for what we do
General Volunteers are occasional or new and can be working towards becoming a committed volunteer. They’re time may be more sporadic, they might be working towards a specific trade-in, or working on a particular project that has time-limits. General Volunteers can trade-in work hours for parts, stand-time and trainings. Activities of general volunteers usually reflect a limited or new knowledge of RAB and might include: poster flyering, working at an event like bicycle valet, cleaning the shop, writing a grant, sorting tools or parts.
Committed Volunteers are people who volunteer regularly for a set number of hours (at least 6 hours per month). Committed Volunteers are also the members of committees and have voting rights within their committee and can use volunteer hours for trade of bike parts, stand time, and training clinics. Examples of Committed Volunteer activities include: skilled mechanics, mechanics-in-training, teaching assistants, Open Shop in-take coordinator, e-mail correspondence, working on funding options, facilitating events.
Coordinators are the inner circle of the collective, who are coordinators of the committees, and have voting rights on decisions. Each of these volunteers works approximately 12 hours per month, although this may vary (more or less) depending on time of year. Each Coordinator is responsible for being active on one committee, in addition to attending regular monthly meetings and engaging in decision-making by consensus. Coordinators are integral to RAB, and although the time commitment is high, there are also benefits to these positions that include stand time and used parts discounts, in addition to that warm-fuzzy feeling.