Participant Guidelines
Our long-term mission is to help make our greater community even more bicycle friendly, for all the benefits that will bring. We’re working MPO*-wide, keeping in mind connections to the broader region. (*The Kalamazoo Area Transportation Study Metropolitan Planning Organization includes Kalamazoo and portions of Van Buren counties.)
Our focus is on bicycling — and our efforts will benefit pedestrians, joggers, persons with disabilities, plus many other non-motorized / active transportation users, so we keep these other potential users in mind.
All our participants have either contributed at least one idea for making our community even more bicycle friendly, participated in one of our meetings, and/or provided feedback to questions we have posed to the community.
Our participants: can sometimes see each other’s names and email addresses (when emails are sent to non-bcc lists); agree to share this and other information among each other for use related to our mission; may be permitted to use committee email lists to communicate within our group; and, agree not to abuse these privileges. Participants can decide to be removed from our email distribution lists.
Our volunteer participants do not pay dues; we consist entirely of volunteers working together in a collegial spirit.
In general, our participants are delegates drawn from important stakeholders in the community. From time to time we reach out to and accept additional stakeholders and delegates as we see the need and better understand how they would contribute to our mission.
At this point there are no standing public meetings. Most of our work is conducted by email, over the phone or via online meetings, using whatever method is the most time-effective. This approach is based on the need to save each other’s time since many of our volunteers are busy with other commitments. Face to face meetings are not discouraged; our volunteers have the discretion to meet face to face when they feel that is the best approach.
The ideas we come up with as a group are expected to be shared openly and made use of as our delegates see best in their own organizations (as long as it does not detract from our broader mission). A creative idea that helps to make our community more bicycle-friendly can and should be put to work in your own setting. Many of our participants do so, thus helping their own organization and the broader community at the same time.
Calls for volunteers to work on specific aspects of our goals are communicated from time to time. It is up to each participant to decide what they commit to. Volunteers are only expected to carry commitments in a professional manner; after a task is complete, that expectation is completed.
These guidelines may change over time to help us better fulfill our mission.
Version current as of May 21, 2021; if used in printed form it is not certain that it is the current version.