Bike!Bike! 2010

Bike!Bike! 2010 was hosted in Toronto, Ontario by Bike Pirates in the summer of 2010.

Workshops

In the overview, please make mention of the facilitators, format of the workshop, and whatever other information you might think helpful. The overview should contain a description of the topic but no record of what happened in the workshop. Feedback is meant to be a constructive aid for those who ran the workshop; keep in mind many of the facilitators had no prior experience with this type of workshop before this conference.

Volunteer Retention and Burnout

Overview

A discussion of common problems and possible solutions for lack of volunteer retention and volunteer burnout. This workshop was facilitated by Zoe of the Brick City Bike Collective and Godwin of The Bike Root. It was divided in half by both topics and on each half, a go around was done to identify the most common problems then a brainstorming session was done to see if possible solutions could be found to many of the problems. Approximately 40 people turned out.

Notes

Retention

Why do we lose volunteers?

• Sometimes the work they do starts to feel meaningless
• Volunteers may not get the help needed and may get frustrated
• Organizing meetings can be very long
• Don't feel qualified
• Don't feel empowered or welcome to start organizing
• May leave once the weather turns foul

Solutions:

• Volunteer nights
  • approximately 3 hours long
  • one every week or two weeks
• Talk to volunteers, see what they want to do
  • Have one-on-one meetings to ensure that volunteers are interested in what they are doing
  • Keep occasional volunteers interested and you'll get more long-term volunteers and mechanics
• Develop a volunteer structure
  • Create a tiered setup with specific volunteer levels and rewards
  • Have dedicated roles with written job descriptions
• Identify what the boring tasks are
• Make a task list or binder
• Make it Social

Burnout

Causes:

• Not resolving problems
• Feeling like no one else will do it
• Loss of interest

Solutions:

• Behind the scenes work
  • Burnout notice
  • Talk with the volunteers
  • Offer a sabbatical
  • Plan a group retreat to talk about issues
• Have more honesty in meetings
  • Have meetings to only discuss and vent volunteer issues
• Don't plan long-term putting out fires
• Rotate tasks
  • Write out tasks in a book
• Make a policy that when only one volunteer shows up, close the shop and walk away