Dec 19 Update - Last Christmas bikes done

Good evening,
Tonite I went in to the shop to fix up the last 2 bikes of this Christmas season (a Barbie and a Spine Tingler). Thanks to everyone who has helped get the 60+ bikes fixed up for area charities. I made calls to everyplace I knew about and it sounds like all the bikes will find a good home locally. Any that don't will go to New Orleans next month.

Our next task will be organizing a bike day in January to hand out helmets and locks for the kids that got bikes for Christmas. The tentative date is Saturday Jan 14. We'll be looking for lots of volunteers for the day and for a few days before to get the shop cleaned up and looking nice, as this will be kind of a public open house. I'll be gone from Thursday Dec 22 until Jan 3, Will Ravenscroft will be handling things while I'm gone but I'll still answer emails and phone messages periodically.

Thanks!!

Good evening,
We've now finished our Christmas bike workshops and have about 30 bikes ready to go out to area agencies and individuals for last-minute presents. We've also received about 40 helmets in adult, youth and toddler sizes to distribute. If you know a person or agency that can use them please have them contact us. Thanks to John, Will, Joe and area residents who donated bikes today.

Over the next few weeks our efforts will focus on getting out Christmas Cards (volunteers have already received theirs by email), collecting and repairing 100 bikes to send to Biloxi, MS for hurricane relief, renovating the shop and establishing school bike club and Safe Routes to schools programs. We will be posting more workshop times after the first of the year, please volunteer generously.

Wishing you Peace and Goodwill throughout the year,
Nick Hein
Director, Positive Spin
Morgantown, WV

Dec 15 Update. An amazing week!

Good evening,
On Tuesday the Marines showed up to take all of the bikes we'd fixed up for Christian Help to the Armory for their Christmas Store. Reps from 2 other programs also showed up. This week we've donated about 30 bikes (so far) to local agencies that will be distributing them to needy families in the area. We expect to provide more this Saturday. We've also been collecting more bikes and we have a good start on the 100 we'd like to send to the Gulf Coast next month (50 so far) .

We got some great things given to us this week as well.
A cash donation of $230 from the North Morgantown Rotary Club to help our efforts.
Six brand new helmets from the Community Health program at Ruby Hospital
A contact at Ruby Hospital who can help us get more helmets.

We're planning on holding a big event in January (tentatively Sat 1/14) to fit the kids on their new Christmas bikes and helmets. We'll also be collecting and fixing more Katrina bikes and this may be kind of an open house for the general public.

Dec 12 update

Good evening,
Sorry for all the posts but there's a LOT happening and this is a good way for me to get it out, without having to repeat myself. (I just hope someone is reading it). Tonite I joined the Mon River Trails Conservancy (MRTC) for their Holiday Social at Voyager Airport Restaurant. It was primarily a social occaision, and as such we had a great time talking about bike rides and anything else that came up. However, we did get into some substantive discussions about transportation planning and advocacy. I met a member who is willing to hand-deliver a letter to Governor Manchin expressing our wishes to see a Safe Routes to Schools coordinator appointed, and a process established that allows us to get program funding for street/sidewalk/intersection improvements and Safe Routes educational programs.

If anyone is interested in helping me draft this letter please contact me by phone or email. If we get the state moving now we'll be ready to use it next school year. In the mean time we plan to work with local schools and youth groups to establish bike clubs as a means of building our credibility as the bike/ped authorities that can put that money to the best local use.

Before all that, however, we need cash donations. We now have a PayPal link on the website (Thanks Jonathan!). If we can raise $1250 by Christmas it will pay all our debts (for repair parts on bikes we've sent out), buy helmets and locks for donation bikes (both Christmas and Katrina), purchase tools to equip 2 shop benches and leave enough to start planning programs for next year. Help in any way you can and ask your friends to help support our mission too.

Tomorrow (Tuesday) We'll distribute the first of our local Christmas donation bikes to 3 organizations. Thanks to all of you who helped give the gift of fun and transportation to kids and adults - their Christmas will be brighter because of you. In the following days there will be more. If you have more bikes to donate we can still use them.

Thank you.

Dec 10,11 Update

Good evening,
I've just come back from the shop, having finished fixing and sorting bikes for donation this week. We have 17 bikes in childs' sizes (12", 16" and 20" wheels) that I consider nice enough to send to Christian Help and another 4 24" MTBs and 6 adult bikes. I stopped at Wamsleys to check in with them and they have about a dozen bikes that will also go. I hope this is enough for everyone who needs/wants a bike to get one.

Special thanks to this weekends' star volunteer, Joe Salmen, who drove up from Fairmont and spent the whole day Saturday getting bikes cleaned and adjusted. John Lozier came to help at the end of the day too. It's amazing how much a few people can get done. We got about a dozen bikes donated as a result of the newspaper article, most will be usable or strippable for parts. The thing that hasn't gone well is cash donations. Only one bike came with a donation. This leaves us in debt for parts we've already purchased, and with no money to buy shop tools, helmets or locks. If anyone can recommend a source for funding or donations please email me.

I'll be trying our past donors. It will take $1250 to pay for helmets, locks, tools and debts. If we raise more it will go to fixing the Gulf Coast bikes and setting up bike clubs and classes in the local schools (including fixing MTBs to donate to the clubs).

We will have another workshop next weekend and I'll try to get another announcement out for bike collection, but there are still plenty more bikes to work on - and they're the tougher ones.

Dec 9 Update

Yesterday morning, the first article was published in the Dominion Post. I talked to the reporter afterwards and she has promised me there will be more. I'm going to ask for an announcement in the Classifieds for Sunday's paper, since it gets wider distribution. I've already gotten about 10 bikes pledged from this. Donors haven't been stepping up with the $15 donation for helmet/lock sets (yet) so we may have to find some kind of fundraiser for that.

Tonite I was at the shop from 5-8 for the work party, but it was a rather lonely party. I had expected this since students (including my son) are busy preparing for finals and everyone else is getting ready for Christmas. No one has signed up for tomorrow's 10am class, unless I get some interest tonite it will be postponed (probably for next Sat). I got 6 bikes finished (some cleaning/lube may still be required but they are fully functional), bringing us up to about 35 bikes (6 adult, the rest kids). Tomorrow I've got one volunteer coming for certain and 2 more possible. I hope to get more, please volunteer if you can.

We have reps coming from Rock Forge and Salvation Army. The bikes for Christian Help will be picked up Tuesday by the Marines and taken to the Armory for distribution. Right now it looks like we've got about a dozen bikes for them. Wamsley's is working on some more - typically they like to have about 30 bikes for this event.

Last night I attended the Mon River Trails Conservancy meeting to announce our bike collection (some of them weren't aware we exist yet). It was a very helpful meeting as I got some information about the local funding and support sources. I also made contact with some shakers and movers in the cycling community. Afterwards we talked informally over dinner and drinks at Applebee's.

Dec 7 Update

Good evening,
Tonite I met with Evelyn Ryan, a reporter for the Dominion Post, so she could write a story broadcasting our need for Christmas and Katrina bikes. The story should run by this weekend so we should have some more bikes to work on, in addition to about 20 that we already have and another 20 that are coming from the Morgantown Police. Another DP reporter who writes a column on Thursdays will also be advertising our bike collection in tomorrow's paper. In addition, I'll be asking the DP to put an announcement in the classifieds for this weekend where it will get wider exposure.

We got our bank account finalized today, and should be able to start making deposits (withdrawals soon too). I'm in the process of writing down all of our transactions to date for our Treasurer. I would like to set up a way that donors could send money online, if anyone can help me find a way to do this please contact me at 599-1791.

Thanks.

Dec 6 Update

Good evening,
I thought I'd post some news of this week's events.

First the disappointing news. Our grant proposal to the WVU Corporate Citizenship class was not accepted. It was our intent to use this money to purchase tools and begin setting up classes and developing outreach programs for school and youth groups. However, we are pursuing other funding sources and we intend to keep to our goals of service and education.

Now some exciting news. When we did the first Hurricane Bike Collection we were acting on our own. Since that time, communities around the country have gotten together to coordinate collection and transportation to get bikes to those still struggling to get basic transportation in Gulf Coast regions devastated by the storm. And we MADE A DIFFERENCE! I was talking to a woman here in town who has relatives in New Orleans. She went down to visit after the storm (in October) and said that bikes were everywhere! That was the only way to get around dependably. However, hard-hit areas like Biloxi, MS where the storm made landfall still need bikes. The Texas Bike Coalition of Austin, TX is arranging transportation from any place that can fill a freight container (4-500 bikes) to the Gulf Coast. We have announced that we are collecting bikes again (along with the Christmas collection for local charities that has been on-going) and will put our contribution together with Bike Pittsburgh to fill a container, to be sent in January.

And finally we have been offered a deal from major bike suppliers that will allow us to supply helmets and locks for $15/set, so we can send bikes out with these items. We are requesting that this amount be donated with each collected bike, and additional financial donations as well to cover the cost of parts and supplies.

Times and details for this weekend's work sessions (and another intro class) have been posted on the website. Check it out. Please RSVP to me to let me know if/when/how long you'll be coming.

Thanks

Dec 4 updates

Good evening,
This weekend a lot was accomplished with only a few people. We've re-arranged bikes so that all of the finished bikes are in the kitchen where they can be picked up easily, now that they will be going out for delivery soon. After fixing up some bikes and finding a few that (magically) don't need any work we're up to about 35 bikes that are ready to go (or nearly so). The star volunteer for Saturday was Joe Salomon, a co-worker of mine from Fairmont. Joe came early and stayed late cleaning/fixing bikes, moving stuff around and providing good company. Mid-afternoon I went down to Wamsley Cycles for a few minor parts and brought back Chip for a tour of the shop. We also discussed logistics for delivery of bikes to Christian Help. He's got a few bikes he's fixing and I've encouraged him to use our space for storage as he needs it. That's the least we can do for all the encouragment and material support he's given us.

It looks like the date for pickup of the Christian Help bikes will be Dec. 12. We will take the best looking bikes to their event since all the other toys are new-in-box. We have plenty of other places to take the rest of the bikes - the ones that are functional but less cosmetic - as mentioned in the earlier message.

On Sunday I worked by myself and got a few more bikes to add to the pile. I separated out the easy-to-fix bikes from the ones that will be more difficult. There will definitely be some bikes out of the original 75 that won't be fixed up this Christmas. We'll be making a decision on what to do with them, possibly get together with another shop to make an overseas shipment. Also, I'm starting to save the better adult MTBs for donation to school bike clubs.

I'll be scheduling more Christmas donation workshops for next weekend, and the weekend after, see the website for times.

Check out this website - a recent attempt on the 24 hr human-powered distance record
http://www.adventuresofgreg.com/HPVlog/12-02-05.html

Dec 2 updates

Good evening,
I see it's been a few days since I've posted. Bet you'd like to hear what's going on. I've made contact with a few more charities, here's who wants bikes so far:
Christian Help, Rock Forge Neighborhood House, Scott's Run, Salvation Army, Boys/Girls Club. We've been steadily getting more bikes fixed up, currently we're concentrating mostly on kids' bikes (12, 16 and 20 in wheel size) I hope to get through the rest of those tomorrow. We've got a total of 21 bikes fixed up so far.

Check the web page for the schedule of workshop times this weekend. I'll be gone overnite Saturday for a company Christmas Party and I couldn't find a substitute shop manager so the times will be limited. Next weekend will be a busy one though. Please help if you can. I'll be planning another intro 1 hr bike class then too (probably Sat. AM). Email me if you're interested (nick.hein@verizon.net)

Tonite we had a Critical Mass ride around downtown then rode up University Ave. to the shop. Nine intrepid riders showed up for the ride, 5 of whom stayed to work on bikes. We moved a desk into the office area (donated by a Titan engineering company of Fairmont as they move to new offices and new furniture. They were kind enough to donate desks and chairs that they were leaving behind.) Thanks to John Lozier for getting a truck and volunteering to help get it here on the snowiest, coldest, iciest day of the year so far) We finished a couple more kids' bikes and cleared most of the bikes out of the kitchen so we can start staging finished bikes there for deliveries.

Thanks to all the volunteers who helped. We'll be mking some announcements in the next few days about a long-term direction that the board is working on. For now I'll say that we're anxious to set up a sustaining operation fixing donation and earn-a-bikes, while we begin to offer programs for the community (classes, outreach, school bike clubs).

Hope to see you at the shop this weekend.
Thanks again to all of you for making this Christmas special for so many people.
Nick
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Christmas donation bike workshops Sunday Nov 27

Today we had another small group, but they were enthusiastic and got a lot done. We had Tyler (my 10 yo neighbor), Tony (a New Orleans evacuee) and Dan and Beth (local car-free citizens and activists). Tyler helped me get more hookboards put up to hang extra wheels and we now have them all off the floors and hanging on walls (until we find more). Tony was fantastic at going through the kids bikes, changing the tires and giving them a general checkup. Tyler was also our chief pilot for test rides. Dan and Beth worked away at cleaning up the bikes as we got them done. Our "finished" pile is slowly getting bigger - we now have about 20 bikes done and 50 more to go.

Tonite in our church bulletin I read that Christian Help's program will be Dec 15th - only 2 weeks away(!). I'll have more workshops next weekend, but that will probably be our last chance to get bikes ready. Look for schedule times on the webpage and please help as much as you can.

At the end of the day we were able to hand out 2 (earned) bikes to area car-free residents who will be using them for transportation. Thanks to everyone who came out and all who are helping in other ways. Hope you had a blessed Thanksgiving. My thanks to you for making Positive Spin a reality.

Christmas donation bike workshops Saturday Nov 26

Today (Saturday Nov 26) we had a small but productive crowd show up. Thanks to Will for building the bike shelves in the storage rooms. We can now hold about 90 bikes between the 2 rooms. This is the same number as before, but now there's room to move around and storage for other things. Thanks to Joe Sallmen who drove up from Fairmont and worked on bikes all day. We got 8 more done, bringing our total to 12 out of the 75 bikes ready for repair. However, it would be great to get a bunch more done tomorrow. Please join us if you can for the 12-5pm work party. We'll be working mostly on kids' bikes, these are easy and if you're new to bike work give good initial experience before moving on to more complicated bikes (caliper brakes, shifters, chainrings, etc) Even if you don't want to work on bikes we'll have other jobs for you - also Christmas music and fresh fruit.

Hope to see you there.
Nick

Bike Maintenance/Tuneup class Friday (11/25) 4pm

Just a reminder that there will be a 1 hr bike tuneup/maint class Friday (11/25) at the shop. If you are planning to attend please let me know (Nick 599-1791) so I know how many chairs to put out.

Today I worked in the shop with a volunteer (a co-worker) and managed to clear enough space so we can build the bike shelves along the walls in the basement storeroom. I've listed the lumber we need on the wish list of this blog site. We also got the metal shelf fully assembled and in position. I started putting up some more of the hook boards and hope to finish tomorrow. We are doing some shelf construction in the storage rooms to make room for more bikes. Once we get the bike shelves built we'll have room for about 40 adult bikes and 40 kids' bikes in the storage rooms alone.

The bikes to be repaired are now all sitting out in the workshop/classroom area. There are currently about 74 bikes in the shop waiting for repair. I'd like to shoot for getting 50 of them out by Christmas.

Here's the full schedule for the rest of this weekend

Friday
1 pm - Board Meeting
4-5pm - Bike maint/tuneup class
5-8pm - Bike repair worktime

Saturday
10am-5pm - Bike repair worktime

Sunday 12-5pm
10am-5pm - Bike repair worktime

Thanks on Thanksgiving.

Happy Thanksgiving

Hope your holiday has been an enjoyable one. I want to tell all of the Positive Spin volunteers, friends and merchant supporters - THANKS for the many great things you've helped us do in the short time we've been working together.

Now we've got about 50 bikes sitting in the shop that we'd like to get fixed up for Christmas donation in the next 3 weeks. This is an invitation to any available volunteers, whether you've helped before or not, to come join us every weekend in December (Through the 20th) for bike repair parties. Times will be listed on the website at positivespin.org.

Tomorrow (Friday) I'll be presenting a 1-hr class on bike maintenance basics. You may find this helpful if you're new to bike repair. Everyone's welcome to come help, please RSVP to me at nick.hein@verizon.net so I know how many chairs to put out. Earlier in the day on Friday we'll be building storage fixtures for the bike rooms. Check out the wish list. If you can bring any lumber listed there, please do.

Saturday and Sunday we'll have work parties as follows:
Sat: 10am - 5pm
Sun: 12pm - 5pm

Positive Spin Work Parties This week

Good afternoon,
Starting this afternoon(Monday) a few of us will be at the shop to tidy up and get the shop setup to fix bikes for Christmas donation (until 7pm). If you can help out, show up. I intend to have other work parties for the rest of this week. These are the scheduled times:


Monday 5-6 pm
Tuesday 5-8 pm
Friday 8am to 5pm
Saturday 12pm to 5pm
Sunday 12pm to 5pm

Tonight's work will be moving/arranging furniture and vacuuming. After that we will be fixing up bikes with the goal of getting 10 for Christian help and 10 for Rock Forge Neighborhood house. As of today most of the bike repair is changing tires and cleaning. By the end of the week we'll be down to the bikes that need real work (replacing components, repacking bearings). Please volunteer whatever services you can as much as possible. In order for these bikes to be ready for Christmas I'd like to get them done by Dec. 1.

If you have any questions you can enter them as comments. I'll reply anytime I read the blog.