Brainstorm on why we loose volunteers? What are the problems?¶

• Don’t feel they are doing meaningful work
• Intense meetings
• Not part of the big picture
• Not feeling a part of the community
• Not ready for tasks and or not feeling ready
• Not supported in building skills
• Feel you are “done” and that it is OK to move on
  • “Nobody had my back and my turn is up”

Solutions to some of the listed problems¶

• Taskarade — Have specific projects during periodic work sessions
• Volunteers night could be made into a volunteer meeting 1 time a month
• Check-in with volunteers
  • How can support be given?
• Mechanical training to be given before open shop each weekend
• Write-out a job description for specific & special jobs
• Worker councils as a system (Not sure what this is, maybe committees) for getting detailed work done
• Send out fun and motivating content to email lists, like cool vidoes are stories maybe
• Want volunteers? Ask.
• “Bike feast & de-grease”
• Take sabatocal or time-off when people feel too stretched
• Forum to express when people are doing too much or just feel plain old bad
• Monthly go-arounds for the collective only
• Shop closses if only 1 person is there. Make that or something similar a concrete rule.
• Take 1-week off for everybody
• Annual retreat — all about staffing
  • Social settings and have fun to allow members to bond
• Mingle-brainstorm with paper on the wall & markes to write with so that quiet people can have a voice

Observations¶

• Ownership leads to empowerement
  • Break thinks down to smaler jobs that new people can tackle
  • Make it apparent how the little jobs contribute to the big picture
• Empowerement through events outside the shop
  • Give a chance to hang-out and have casual, informal interaction
  • Social/Community
• Tiered orientation jobs with sign-up or other documentation for long-term jobs
  • An example long-term could be checking the emails
• Stability and consistency helps people know what they are getting into

Burnout as a result of no structure¶

• Some people feel forced into taking on more and more without feeling any support
• Rotate “coordinator positions”
• Identify what tasks fall to the same people and make them rotation.
  • Set a maximum to prevent people getting stuck
• Positives of having stucture
  • Prevents hierarchy and power-struggle
  • Gives conflict-resolution

Big-impact Improvements¶

• Rotate tasks & be transparent
  • Potentially offer sabatical as mechanism to force rotation
• Build community
  • Debrief & Vent to be honest to build support
• As noted above, structure has benefits
  • Prevents power struggle
  • Gives conflict resolution
  • Provides a system of support