Hello everyone, I wanted to write a short little article to inform you about another opportunity to get involved here at The HUB of Detroit!

As you know we have volunteer nights every Wednesday and Thursday from 6pm-8pm. At these volunteer nights we strip bikes for parts, sort said parts, build bikes up for the shop, use old parts to build new usable things and generally clean up around the place. These volunteer nights help us function better as an organization when we don’t have to stumble over piles of wrecked bikes and we can make the place presentable and safe for all of our class participants!

As I have been helping run volunteer nights I’ve spoken with many of you that have asked a lot of questions both about how to use different tools and work on certain bikes. While we’ve worked together to learn I’ve also gotten many other questions about our organization and suggestions on things we can do better.

I decided that we had a critical mass of volunteers that really wanted more to their volunteer experience so on October 7^th and 8^th we had our first ever volunteer meetings here at the HUB. This is a space to bring up ideas for short or long term projects to work on, raise questions about the organization, give us feedback on how we are doing, and generally have more of a voice!

At these first meetings we discussed a lot of things but a few main ideas came up. One was finding an organized way to use our old warn parts to make new things. This month we have built two new containers to hold used tubes using old bike parts and wood. In the future making fenders out of old tires is a project we would like to get going during volunteer night.

Another idea that was brought up was making a publication for the HUB to get the news out on the street about what we are doing. This website can only do so much and getting some press into people’s hands was brought up as a good way to reach more people.

Our next volunteer meetings will be November 4^th and 5^th from 5pm-6pm before volunteer night. At the meetings we will be sitting down together and discussing these ideas further. No one will be working during this time, it is strictly a meeting time. At 6pm our regular volunteer time will begin.

If you have anything you would like to discuss at these meetings, feel free to email me at jason@thehubofdetroit.org or just show up! Even if you haven’t been involved in our organization for very long feel free to come and listen. All are welcome!