Space in the shop

[Admin]

Posting the historical thread from google groups:

Mike Kaulbars  8/25/13

Seems to me we need to prioritize the bikes that require the least work to be ready to sell so we can get them out of the shop and create  desperately needed room.

I have some yellow flagging tape that would at least allow for a highly visible tag to identify bikes that are a priority to work on, but beyond that we need to know:

Who is qualified to do this? Who will do it?  When?

Peter Brebner 8/26/13

Like my previous post about who was in charge of membership:  No one is qualified.  I think that either one of us can look over the bikes and see what has potential for fast turn around.  I expect that we will miss some big problems on a few bikes but just getting even a few easy to pass inspection bikes will move things along and get some bikes up for sale before the cycling season ends for 89 percent of the cycling community.  I suggest that we work as a tag team right now and then find the qualified people as we start getting volunteers coming back.  Easiest and most qualified persons would be Bob Carroll who runs a mobile bike repair and volunteers sometimes and Mike Watson who is probably willing to return as long as he does not have to run a shift.

Mike Kaulbars  8/26/13

OK, I will bring in some flagging tape to mark the priority bikes. I am also going to outreach to volunteers to get some bodies in as soon as you have had a chance to fill in your Sept/Oct hours.

Are you OK to contact Bob C & Mike and get them to schedule at least some time to vet and price the bikes that are ready to move? That would be a big help for sure.

Mike Kaulbars  9/14/13

Space issue has become hyper-urgent as donations continue to come in and we are unable to process the bikes fast enough given the limited number of people.

I know Recyclore looked for storage space last year, but all of the talk I heard was about urban warehouse type space, was there any thought to rural barn space?

The excess need not be kept warm, lit, and locked up (which is expensive and pretty much impossible to find for free), Dry is more than sufficient to our needs and a bit of space in an old barn (with tarps if necessary) would serve well enough in the interim. Has that been looked into?

[Admin]

Further to this discussion, IF we can find some off site storage, then I am proposing a shop layout more or less as in this Diagram (you can comment right in the sheet)

[Admin]

Peter added this comment to the Shop Log for Mar 1st

Richard has space for about another two dozen bikes.  I will pick up another load of bikes this week and see about getting the cap off my truck next weekend and clear out the space along west wall just north of the shelving.  When we sell  some bikes in the spring and have some room I want the priority to be getting those bikes first before we work on bikes in the U Haul! (Peter)

Understood that we do not want to abuse Richard by overstaying our welcome, but it is going to be a bit tricky, so I believe we have to think this through carefully.

Another 2 dozen should clear out that area on the W wall, but not the shelving. That will mean at least one more work station which would be awesome. It won't allow for creating any spare space beyond that, so we will have to juggle; ie we don't want to be in a position where the first couple of new donations go in the new work area because there is nowhere else.

Of course having some space to swing a cat means that we can pull some of the bikes on the shelves and adjust them for more compact stacking, which will give us a bit more space as well.

With Spring coming we can expect to sell pretty much everything we have ready, but we seem to have slowed down a bit in the speed with which we are processing bikes. For one reason or another we have been doing more overhauls than tune ups for the last few weeks, and that really cuts down the # we can get ready for sale.

Spring also means donations are going to start coming in again as well. From mid May to at least mid-July we should have no trouble selling more than comes in as donations, but then it will start to turn around again. At that point we could be back to square one if we're not careful.

Of course we prefer not to reject donations since i) they bikes may wind up in the landfill, ii) we'd prefer to high grade ie at least sort through them and keep the better ones, and iii) once word goes around that we no longer take donations it can take a very long time to kill the rumour.

Equally we do not want to just keep accepting bikes if we are not catching up with the back log, and wind up as an organization that is just filling the barns and garages of Eastern Ont with old bikes and never getting around to them.

Jim mentioned that Recycles has run out of "as is" and have effectively shut down for the time being. I could contact Mark and see if they would like some low end bikes to work up, which could create some more space for us.

Suggest that:

• We get back to prioritizing the Tune Ups rather than Overhauls;
  
• Keep looking for off site storage that would be less of an imposition (ie getting the bikes out does not have to be a high priority);
  
• Contact Mark to see if Recycles needs some low end bikes;
  
• Once we have a bit of space compact (ie reverse pedals & handebars) on the remaining bikes and get them stored more efficiently;
  
• As soon as possible restart the Sunday shift so we get more use of the work stations that we do have
  

Thoughts anyone?

[Admin]

UPDATE: I spoke with Mark at Recycles and the rumour only tells half the story. Apparently they are short on bikes, BUT this has proved convenient in that they want to close Sundays for Mar regardless, so they do NOT want any more bikes at this time.

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