Additional rooftop solar was installed on the Business Instructional Facility (BIF) in summer 2019.  The construction drawings called for 19 solar PV panels rated 200-360W, with microinverters, with a fixed tilt for each panel ranging from 21 to 40 degrees off the roofing surface. 

The Energy iCAP Team met for the first time on Oct. 2nd to discuss new ideas for addressing building-level energy usage during the pandemic and brainstormed priorities for achieving iCAP 2020 goals. Attached are the meeting minutes.

The agenda is as follows: 

1. Introductions
2. Discuss Energy objectives
3. Start developing goals for the team this year

All,

Another week in the books! It’s definitely still an adjustment to be open only by-appointment. We’re still getting phone calls and emails about user error and whatnot when scheduling and we’re only seeing 4 or so people per day. But hey, it’s a pandemic. People are still going to the old shop—some internet search engines are not up-to-date but we do have signage over there. Ironies of all ironies since people couldn’t seem to find that tucked-away garage before and are now flocking to it, it seems.

Had a refurb-swap of a loose cranked bike. Thankfully the gentleman wasn’t injured in the failure. He took a different same-priced bike. He was very understanding and that was appreciated.

Still working on upping our staffing levels to a comfortable number.

We’ve only done a handful of bike registrations, which either speaks to the cost-as-deterrence or that people are picking them up elsewhere. Hopefully the latter!

Still optimizing the layout and functionality of our new space but everyone who’s visited that was familiar with the old space has been blown away by the across-the-board improvements. I discovered a closet here that I didn’t know existed which now is storing the Bikes at Work trailer and the smaller kid-sized one. Aquaham Lincoln will likely migrate over here this week.

The numbers:

Visitors: 21
Sales: $562.70
Memberships: 3 for $90
Bikes: 3 for $360
Tires/tubes: 1 for $1

Thanks!

Jacob Benjamin
Campus Bike Center Manager

The Zero Waste SWATeam met 10-02-2020 to discuss the iCAP 2020 objectives for Zero Waste, and one of the topics was regarding the new objective for implementing a Food Literacy Project in campus dining halls. Team members identified a few resources that could be helpful in implementing this project:

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/jiec.12923

https://dining.harvard.edu/food-literacy-project

"Modelling nutrient flows in a simplified local food-energy-water system": https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921344918300818

Attached are the meeting minutes for the Transportation SWATeam Meeting on 2 October 2019.

The items discussed were:

• Introductions
• Announcements
  • Sustainability Celebration Information
    • Student member involvement
  • SSC Working Group Meeting Invitation
• Team Member Updates
  • SSC Grant Application for Abandoned Bike Path Removal
  • Bike Census 2020 Volunteers
  • CTAC Membership
• iCAP 2020 Objectives Assessment
  • Team Members assigned objectives.
  • Deadline for member contributions is 10/9 at noon.

Attached are the meeting minutes and chat log for the Zero Waste SWATeam meeting on 2 October at 4PM.

Also attached are resources for the conversation surrounding vending machine alternatives. 

The agenda for this meeting is as follows:

• Introductions
• Announcements
  • Sustainability Celebration Information
    • Student member involvement
  • SSC Working Group Meeting Invitation
• iCAP 2020 Objectives Assessment
  • Team Members assigned objectives.
  • Deadline for member contributions is 10/9 at noon.
• Refresher

  • America To Go Sustainability criteria

    • SWATeam can provide help in determining appropriate sustainability criteria to include.
  • Vending Machine Single Use Plastics Alternatives Discussion
    • Working through various points of consideration.
    • Tabled discussion.

Please see attached.

This year, Light the Night event was hosted at three locations: Alma Mater Plaza, Hallene Gateway, and Campus Bike Center (new location). Overall, the volunteers installed bicycle lights to nearly 450 bikes at these locations.

Leftover lights:

Red lights: 806

White lights: 779

The remaining lights are stored in Room 143 at F&S. They will be distributed among the four funding agencies.

The Light the Night 2020 organizing team met on September 29th, 2020 to discuss the event and lessons learned. Gabe Lewis said that he was in contact with City of Urbana to publish a final report for LTN 2020 in their upcoming newsletter. Sarthak Prasad would do the final count after the meeting so that Gabe can send the report to City of Urbana.

The team noted that there were several students who needed repairs on their bicycles, so they were given the informtion about Campus Bike Center. Jeff Yockey was also doing minor repairs at the Hallene Gatway location. Next year, we could maybe advertize the event so that those needing minor bike repairs can go to the CBC location. Jake Benjamin said that we could have a repair station at the end of the volunteer line at the CBC location for anyone needing immediate repair. We all thought it was a great idea!

The team also noted that since the light installation took minimal time, the attendees were more interested in learning more about the bicycle information, Census, and Wellness this year. We should also have the Bike at Illinois merchandize and other handouts at the exit rather than at the entry point.

Finally, we all thought that the presence of UIPD was very encouraging, the officers helped out a lot with handing out information, and they were happy to help!

The event was considered a success, considering the pandemic and concerns of having a distribution event. All volunteers were very careful and abided by the Safety Plan in place and helped keep the line of attendees moving (attendees were in and out within 2 minutes).

Stacey DeLorenzo, Chantelle Hicks, Sinead Soltis, and Sarthak Prasad took several pictures for the event and posted them to social media.

All,

Last week was our first full week of being open since the pandemic-induced shutdown. We are by-appointment only and making do with that. Visits, sales, and the like are—compared to normal—way down for this time of year.

We also had Light The Night last week and hosted one of the sites here at the Bike Center. It wasn’t as great a turnout as hoped but it was a new location for LTN and it’s a pandemic. We weren’t able to do our normal word-of-mouth publicity during open hours to the degree we’re accustomed. Thankfully we got some signage up at the old garage alerting people to our new location.

This week we’ll work on optimizing the scheduling system, staff meetings, and safety checking a handful of bikes.

Visitors: 38
Sales: $951.50
Memberships: 1 for $30
Bikes (refurb): 5 for $790
Tires/tubes: 3 for $27

Thanks!

Jacob Benjamin
Campus Bike Center Manager