TIMELINE

Some processes can't be rushed

Staying calm and having a great planning season

Timeline Resources

1. Early plans at Miro (2022) (note: we didn’t use the workshop schedule planning idea on the far right)
2. Emails from previous years can give a sense of what needs to be on the timeline (note: we didn’t send enough general announcements to the ThinkTank in 2022, we were too busy planning.  We probably should have sent them monthly instead of in clumps?)
3. Last-minute plans at crunch time to-do list from 2022

General Timeline Overview

This is a general timeline based on the 2021 and 2022 organizing experience.  It assumes that enough resources are now in place to ensure a smooth, timely planning experience.

Still missing from this timeline

• Lots of things that we forgot
• Add some more translation/interpretation stuff that needs to be on here with Nat
• Review and confirm reasonableness of schedule with Nat
• Add some more tech stuff (April)

Bike!Bike! in-person

2020

B!B!CDMX didn't happen because there was a pandemic, but no announcement about it was made.

2021

B!B!E! organizers repeatedly tried to contact people in CDMX, but never heard back. CDMX organizers showed up unexpectedly at B!B!E!21 and said that when they heard about B!B!E! they figured they would wait and see how it went instead of doing an in-person event (they didn't communicate with B!B!E! organizers about this before the event)

After the first B!B!E!, there was one online meeting (we forgot to bring an interpreter so everyone just did their best) and then no further communications. B!B!E!'s community continued trying to reach out, set up a conference page on bikebike.org, and didn't hear from CDMX organizers.

2022

We successfully invited someone from CDMX to B!B!E! 2022 and here is the conversation from that. Highlights:

• Tijuana gave the BikeBike funds to CDMX, it's not clear if current CDMX organizers still have access to those funds [may be due to a combination of inflation, pandemic, and some fracturing of the local community bike orgs],
• CDMX was planning to make it work in 2023,
• bikebike.org resources are available
• CDMX planned to be in touch with B!B!E!.
• B!B!E! planners said "We are excited to help and to assist in any way we can but we're mostly going to be waiting to hear from you."

Again, we set up a conference page on bikebike.org and tried to reach them by email and other methods, but didn't hear back.

2023

We haven't heard from CDMX as of the writing of this timeline (mid 2023). So that's 4 years in a row with no in-person Bike!Bike! (1-2 of which probably can be attributed to the ongoing pandemic) with low verbal communications and a lot of outreach on the part of the B!B!E! planners. I think this might be a communication style thing and it is probably safe to say CDMX will not be hosting B!B!E! in the 5th year either.

I recommend (and there are probably other ways to do this)

1. doing a brief diplomatic write-up and any communications necessary to have no hurt feelings,
2. sending out an announcement before B!B!E! requesting community bike shops/orgs/groups to pre-confer with their local community to see if they are available to host in 2024,
   • requesting that they submit a brief statement that people can read before the event.
     • Maybe the statement is free form or maybe it includes
       • will there be a virtual component, can people attend all in-person sessions from the internet?
       • masking; % indoor vs. % outdoor; ventilation of indoor spaces
       • whatever other questions typically come up at the end-of-event decision-making party
       • etc.
   • That way we don't end up with a situation where a community commits to hosting Bike!Bike! and their community is unavailable.
3. Then there can be the traditional vote workshop.

Always missing from this timeline

• Replying to emails & social media - people will contact you with questions; make sure someone is available to respond in a timely manner and keep the inbox tidy
• Solving unexpected problems - something will go wrong. In fact, multiple things will go wrong and you will need spare time to fix them. Make sure you have some spare time.

Prior Event

• Announce that you need volunteers for the next event
• Announce language exchange
  • to keep potential new volunteers involved and engaged

9-11 months before the event

• Host language exchange weekly
  • Establishes varying degrees of en/es & es/en among potential organizers
  • Keeping people involved between events
  • The next time there is a language exchange it would be cool to work on a mini low-consequence project together
    • Example: creating bilingual bike vocab resources

9 months before the event

• Schedule initial planning meetings
  • Update and share resources slideshow
• Recruit more new volunteers
  • Some degree of bilingual en/es strongly encouraged
  • You don't have to know how to do everything, here are some example traits will take you far (this is a wiki, grow the list and add your own!)
    • commitment
    • enthusiasm
    • willingness to learn
• welcome new volunteers
  • getting to know the core team for the year
  • what are their skills, interests, and availability
• review language justice resources

8 months before the event

Decide

• Make important decisions
  • Decide language justice or other DEI goals for the year
  • Identify event "theme" (if any?)
  • Select event date
  • Start considering which specific people/groups you want to invite to host workshops (if any)

Write & Translate

• Create preliminary event description (due in 1 month, including translation)
  • write description (who/what/when/where/why/how) - check past events and email templates for inspiration
  • translate

Delegate

• Get someone to design a flier (due in 1 month)
• Ask the tech team for access to bikebike.org

7 months before the event

Outreach

• Post the flier and preliminary event description to
  • bikebike.org
  • instagram
  • facebook
  • any other social media this year's team is interested in
  • buttondown
  • ThinkTank
  • A wiki page for the event & link to the page from MediaWiki:Sitenotice (previous years' pages here)
• Contact any specific people or groups you want to invite to host workshops (there may be a relevant draft in email templates)

Write & Translate

• Prepare announcement of event launch / open registration (due in 1 month, including translation)
  • Draft the announcement (who/what/when/where/why) - check email templates for inspiration
  • Include requests for volunteers & interpreters, either in this announcement or as separate announcements to be sent around the same time
    • Tech volunteers to help run Zoom sessions
    • Facilitators for recurring workshops like FTWNB, BIPOC, and possibly a Disabilities group
    • Talk about in-person Bike!Bike!
    • Any other volunteers you think might be useful
    • Translators and interpreters - we have some we've worked with in the past, but there's some turnover and it's nice to have people in the bike collective community so they are more familiar with the language
  • Translate it

6 months before the event

Launch the event!

Tech

• Open registration & workshop proposals on bikebike.org

Outreach

• Post the announcement that registration is open
  • bikebike.org
  • instagram
  • facebook
  • any other social media this year's team is interested in
  • buttondown
  • ThinkTank
  • A wiki page for the event
  • Contact organizers of the World Bike Forum and other groups that might be interested
• Post/send the request for volunteers & interpreters, if that is a separate announcement

Recurring

• Continue sending/posting reminders that registration is open every ?? weeks until the event
• Continue requesting volunteers & interpreters until you're confident that all roles are filled and you have some backup people in case anyone has to cancel.

5 months before the event

Tech

• Train a new tech coordinator on tech setup & what the zoom tech volunteers need to know (this document is a good starting point: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1duc62wfe5aJyKYZzijp4UKkOe16ERkINZSTWZyAWiQE/edit?usp=sharing)

Recurring

Continue work on all recurring tasks, enjoy the company of your fellow volunteers

4 months before the event

Recurring

all previous recurring tasks that haven't ended, and...

• Start reminding workshop hosts that you need information for them (continue until you have all the info or until the deadline in 2 months)
  • Any workshop materials (handouts, slideshows, videos, pre-recorded audio). Anything that needs translation absolutely must be submitted 2 months before the event. That also allows us to post them to archive.org before the event.
  • Schedule availability - we need to know when they're available by 2 months before the event so we can plan the workshop schedule.

It really may take 2 months and repeated reminders to get this info from some people.

Translate

• Start translating workshop materials as they are submitted

3 months before the event

This is where timing starts to get critical: If you don't get one task done on time, there's no room to catch up before you have to do something else that depends on it. 

Write and Translate

• The announcement that the workshop schedule is posted

Schedule

1. Ask people for availability for training meetings & dress rehearsal
   • workshop hosts
   • zoom techs
   • interpreters
2. Schedule training meetings
   • workshop hosts
   • zoom techs
   • interpreters (bike anatomy)

Recurring

Continue work on all recurring tasks, enjoy the company of your fellow volunteers

2 months before the event

This is where timing is critical: If you don't get one task done on time, there's no room to catch up before you have to do something else that depends on it. 

Deadlines for workshop hosts

• submitting presentation/workshop materials
• telling organizers their time zone and availability for hosting their presentation/workshop

Scheduling

1. Create schedule for Workshops - Due immediately. Take a week at most to get this done. Two brains are better than one. You must create the workshop schedule before interpreters can coordinate among themselves to figure out the interpretation schedule.
2. Create schedule for interpreters

Outreach

• Once you know how many hours of workshop time are scheduled (and dress rehearsal time and training meeting time) you can set a fundraising goal and mention it in announcements

Training meetings

Get them all in the room at the same time because training them one at a time takes up a LOT of time

• Have a meeting with workshop hosts before the Dress rehearsal to go over...
  • How interpretation works
  • Anything they need to know about tech stuff
  • Any other questions they may have
  • Agenda from last year: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1MkKQobbphMNlGS7nsij3_4m06rySQaS7P1BRoTHLdC8/edit?usp=sharing
• Train Zoom techs - the 2022 zoom tech documentation is here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1duc62wfe5aJyKYZzijp4UKkOe16ERkINZSTWZyAWiQE/edit?usp=sharing

1.5 months before

Tech

• Set up the Zoom rooms and Discord channels (or whatever other tech platforms you're using) for the event

Outreach

1. Post the workshop schedule.
2. Announce workshop schedule (link to wiki page for the workshop schedule) to all channels
   • bikebike.org
   • instagram
   • facebook
   • any other social media this year's team is interested in
   • buttondown
   • ThinkTank
   • A wiki page for the event (& link to the page from MediaWiki:Sitenotice)
   • Contact any specific people or groups you want to invite

Recurring

• Post on social media about individual workshops (a few each week), starting when the workshop schedule is decided and continuing until shortly before the event. Also remind people the event is coming, Language Exchange will start afterward, donations are appreciated and encouraged, etc.

Dress Rehearsal

• Zoom techs should practice:
  • Starting the meeting
  • Admitting presenters, interpreters, and other techs to the meeting
  • Assigning roles
  • Admitting everyone else
  • Playing the pre-workshop interpretation instructions
  • Recording the workshop

• Presenters should practice:
  • Signing on to Zoom & Discord
  • Showing/sharing any presentation materials
  • Going through a little of their presentation with interpretation, so they have a sense of how fast they can talk

• Interpreters are usually better-prepared than anyone else, but may want to practice:
  • Joining the meeting
  • Being added to and removed from the interpreter role
  • Interpreting in Zoom & checking their audio (this may require someone else to switch language channels a few times to test everything)

1 month before the event

Timing has been critical for a couple months now: Fortunately, you've been scrupulously following this timeline and getting things done on schedule, so you're not going to be scrambling desperately to catch up. 

Scheduling

• Create a schedule to make sure there are 1-2 organizers available at all times during the actual event. For volunteers who have questions, for putting out fires, etc.
• Schedule make-up sessions for people who couldn't attend the dress rehearsal
• Schedule "further training" sessions for people who had technical difficulties during the dress rehearsal
• Confirm availability
  • volunteers
  • presenters
  • interpreters

Secondary dress rehearsal (make-up & further training)

Do it again (possibly multiple times) for anyone who couldn't make it to the main dress rehearsal and anyone who needs to work out tech issues.

2 weeks before the event

• Interpretation schedule due 1-2 weeks before the event
• Schedule the first language exchange sessions OR prepare a signup form and scheduling poll (and share those with some announcements?) so language exchange can start right after the event
• Do a practice run the weekend before with just 1-2 tech workshops?
• Final reminder (with a change to confirm availability)
  • volunteers
  • presenters
  • interpreters

Outreach

Remind everyone that the event is coming up soon!

• 1 week before
• 1 day before

The event you've been planning for!

Announce language exchange sessions

🎉 🚲 🚲 💻 🎉

After the event

• Make sure all recordings and presentation materials are uploaded to archive.org
• Review current admins of OCF
  • Remove any admins who haven't been active for a couple years
  • Add any admins who have organized for at least one season
  • Review to make sure at least one admin is from the US (easiest way to meet one of OCF's criteria)
• Pay the interpreters
• Update documentation on how to plan and run the event (this timeline, the resources presentation, the email templates, etc.)