All, pretty relaxed week here. The construction on Pennsylvania is in full swing and will probably adversely affect how many visitors we get but we’ll see. If the main door is completely or even mostly inaccessibly, a lot more people will be using the back garage door that we open for air flow. In that case, I’ll reorganize the shop to accommodate for that. All told, we’ll probably miss some visitor sign-ins because of it. But I’ll play it by ear and see how people navigate i t.  

On Monday morning last week I had three folks come in who are going on a mission trip with their church to Malawi, Africa and hoping to teach some bike skills over there. I showed them some basic repairs and gave them some old parts/tools that they could use and advised against buying expensive and specific tools. Their trip is annual so they’ll check back next year.

I’ve got another interview for a student worker today.

On Friday alone we got like 5 bikes donated. Nice old 3 speeds (like we need more). This morning I arrived to find 3 Walmarters donated in front of the garage. I’ll pull and scrap a few more to even it out.

The numbers:
Sales: $1,173.25
Memberships: 5 for $150
Bikes (refurbished): 4 for $695
Bikes (B-a-B): 1 for $57
Tire/tubes: 10 for $87

Sincerely,

Jake Benjamin
Campus Bike Center Manager

All, pretty much same old, same old over here this past week. Sold some bikes, people are coming in with a little more frequency. Donations are still coming in faster than I can strip them, as almost all of them are not worth fixing. Volunteers fell off a little for last week, only had a few come by. The Bike Project and I had a meeting to discuss nuts and bolts of operations here. We tentatively scheduled meetings for every two weeks.

This week I hope to schedule another training with another new staffer if his schedule allows. I’ll also keep culling bikes and building up new ones, per usual. The student staff have requested a template/checklist for bike builds that is a little more in depth than the current tag system checklist and separate from our Shop Build/B-a-B Safety Check form to help them learn the ropes better. I’ll work on a little mock-up for that this week as well.  

The numbers:
Visitors: 84
Sales: $1,306.00
Memberships: 6 for $180
Bikes (refurb): 6 for $1,000
B-a-B: 1 for $25
Tire/tube: 13 for $69

Thanks!

• Jake Benjamin
  Campus Bike Center Manager

All, last week was hot but we survived. A few storms broke up the extreme heat, thankfully. Other than that, it was business as usual. All-stands-full for a few days last week. We had a nice line on Friday but the crazy storm also penned everyone inside the shop while they waited it out. I’ve hired two more student workers and working on a third. I’ll train them this week. We’ve had a lot of volunteers in lately, and one especially eager volunteer wants to come almost every day all summer. Yikes.

Thanks again to Todd for picking up the scrap pile over the weekend. I’m trying to stay ahead of the donations, as far as how many bikes we’ve got in here. As we sell more, that will help, but we’ve still got more bikes than is probably necessary or safe.

This week I’ll be focusing on setting up some volunteer tasks as we have had multiple volunteers per day in over the last week or so, burning through some of my go-to tasks. I’ll work on minute organization tasks and maybe overhauling hubs/wheels. As mentioned I’ll be training new staff this week as well.

The numbers:

Visitors: 93
Sales:  $849

Memberships: 11 for $330
Bikes (refurb): 1 for $135

Tires/tubes: 18 for $124

• Jake Benjamin
  Campus Bike Center Manager

Solar Urbana-Champaign bulk solar purchase program returns and expands in 2018
 
The successful Solar Urbana-Champaign group purchasing program is available again in 2018. Since 2016, the program led to the installation of over 1 megawatt of solar on 138 properties across Champaign County. The program educated hundreds of individuals about solar and helped people save on solar through volume purchasing.
 
In 2018 the program expands eligibility to Piatt County residents as well. And, thanks to new state legislation, even more people can get access to solar. To increase awareness across Champaign and Piatt Counties, Midwest Renewable Energy Association partnered with Champaign-based Prairie Rivers Network, which champions clean, healthy rivers and lakes and safe drinking water to benefit the people and wildlife of Illinois.
 
“The electricity that has been produced by the 1,050 kW of solar the program contracted in 2016 and 2017 offset around 1.5 million lbs of CO2 being released into atmosphere in those systems’ first years,” said Scott Tess, Environmental Sustainability Manager at the City of Urbana. “That amount of solar energy will also save almost 20 million gallons of water from use in thermoelectric power plants that run on coal or natural gas.” The program is administered by the MREA at no cost to the cities or the counties. MREA has successfully implemented similar programs in other jurisdictions in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Bloomington-Normal, and elsewhere. 
 
Solar Power Hours are free and open to the public. For the month of June, the following Solar Power Hours will be held:

• June 3 at 5:30 p.m. at Riggs Beer Company, 1901 S. High Cross Road, Urbana
• June 7 at 6 p.m. at the First Presbyterian Church, 214 South Charter St., Monticello
• June 12 at 6:30 p.m, Lions Club, 117 South Macon St., Bement
• June 20 at 6:30 p.m., Monarch Brewery, 212 South Independence St., Monticello
• June 27 at 6:30 p.m., Common Ground Food Co-op, 300 South Broadway, Suite 166, Urbana
• June 28 at 12 p.m. at UI Facilities and Services, 1501 South Oak St., Champaign

Additional Solar Power Hours are posted on the website.