Acknowledgments, Volunteer Opportunities, Wish List
Acknowledgments
This is a bicycling friendly county, and the signs are everywhere!
Help spread the word by sharing posters, widgets, and other Bicycling Monterey project resources.
Sharing news of Bicycling Monterey:
Monterey County’s Bicycle Shops, Services, Clubs and Resources work hard to make Monterey County an awesome place to bike! Expanding on their ongoing work, the individuals and organizations listed below are helping by spreading the good news.
Bicycling Monterey “Street Team”
This is a grassroots effort, and those who share the news with business associates, family, friends, guests, neighbors, and others are making a vital contribution.
Posters and fliers: Thank you to all who display Tips for Bicycling Monterey County and/or HER Helmet Thursdays posters or pass out mini-fliers.
Word-of-mouth: Gratitude also goes to the bicycling advocates who step up (or pedal up) and share the news word-of-mouth, or via mini-fliers. Team up with them by keeping some minis in your pocket or pack!
Online, on-air, in print, and other support
The list below includes those who post links on their websites, publish articles in newsletters, provide radio air time, share news via OSN sites, and more. This list is in approximate chronological order. Please let me know of others, so I may add their names.
- Megan Tolbert, Monterey Green Action
- Tony Price for the Seaside-Sand City Chamber of Commerce on KNRY
- MoCo’s Bike Shops
- Jim Ryan, Monterey Off-Road Cycling Association (MORCA)
- Jan Valencia, Answer Man, Velo Club Monterey
- Steve E. Anderson, Velo Club Monterey – AKA Knights of the Central Coast
- Julie Caris, Monterey Plaza Hotel & Spa – Cafe la Strada, Duck Club, Schooners, Vista Blue
- Denice Amerison, North Monterey County Chamber of Commerce
- Denise Wyer, Chef’s Pride/Fishwife and Turtle Bay; and the Pacific Grove Chamber of Commerce
- Joyce Day Meuse on KNRY
- Erik’s DeliCafe
- Kaki Chen, Transportation Agency of Monterey County
- MAJ Chris Bachl, Naval Postgraduate School Foundation
- California State University-Monterey Bay (CSUMB)
- Guy Lasnier, KUSP Central Coast Public Radio
- Sea Otter Classic (Web site and Facebook)
- Kate and Ali Daniels, Women’s International Perspective news site (thewip.net) – WIP Talk/Sundays at Five radio show
- Dorothy Becker, First Presbyterian Church Women, Monterey
- Natasha Merkle, Naval Postgraduate School Earth Day Celebration
- Trish Sullivan, Destination Salinas – National Train Day
- Nicole Gustas, Monterey County Convention & Visitors Bureau, SeeMonterey blog
- City of Monterey Solid Waste and Recycling Division – website Transportation page, and Facebook
- Association of Monterey Bay Area Governments (AMBAG) – website Commute Alternatives page
- Asana Cycles
- National Steinbeck Center
- BLUE Ocean Film Festival: A Global Film Festival and Conservation Summit
Individual Volunteers:
I am grateful to the following community leaders for donating their personal time and expertise in support of HER Helmet Thursdays and bicycling in Monterey County!
Creating the HER Helmet Thursdays logo
Steve E. Anderson of Velo Club Monterey
On hearing that HER Helmet Thursdays needed a logo, Steve immediately volunteered to provide one. He delivered it promptly and in good cheer, showing once again that our local racers often quietly serve as Knights of the Central Coast!
Help with bike-there tips
Jeff Richman
Chuck Martin
Additional bike consulting
Sean Rigmaiden
Jan Valencia
Shooting photos
Tech assistance
Danielle Shillcock
Help with participants’ listings
Margaret Wolf
At 16, MoCo native Aaron Magenheim had been supporting bicycling in Monterey County for 10 years,
since he and his dad had helped prepare the Laguna Seca course for the first bike races. Ten years later, he’s still volunteering to help others bike in Monterey County, by contributing bike-there tips and new ideas for HER Helmet Thursdays.
* * * * *
Volunteer opportunities
HER Helmet Thursdays™ was created and launched in Monterey County as a private initiative by Mari Lynch, with funding provided by Fine Wordworking as a community service. Mari and Fine Wordworking have been in MoCo since 1981, and whether you are a native, a long-timer, a new resident, or a visitor, you are encouraged to likewise support this grassroots effort.
HER Helmet Thursdays is a long-term ecology-economy sustainability project with no scheduled end-date. All H-E-R businesses and organizations throughout the county are welcome to participate.
As a community partnership, volunteers can help expand the project in ways such as those listed below. Volunteering even a little time or other resources will be appreciated. Please contact me with questions, ideas.
Examples of volunteer tasks/a wish list for helping hands:
- Contribute graphic design talents. (Example: Bicycling Monterey site banner is hard to read when used as a website widget.)
- WordPress whiz? Help troubleshoot details such as featured photos sometimes not lining up in the desired manner.
- Schedule a presentation about HER Helmet Thursdays for your business association, civic or faith-based group, or other gathering.
- Invite your favorite businesses and organizations to participate. Please refer first to “How to participate.”
- Distribute announcement posters or fliers regarding HER Helmet Thursdays and Tips for Bicycling Monterey County to community centers, civic clubs, travel agents, cycling groups, and others.
- Help prepare the new project signs for all participants’ locations.
- Handle mailing new project signs to 135+ participants.
- Prepare the individual certificates provided to all new participants.
- Contact webmasters for all participants to provide the new HER Helmet Thursdays widget for their websites.
- Contact travel agents to let them know about the project, sharing posters, widgets, and other resources.
- Contribute IT expertise. (Example: Page load speed varies and may be related to sizes of photos in posts.)
- Perform basic WordPress tasks. (If you are not yet familiar with the software, it may be possible to provide training.) Do blog clean-up, such as tweaking photos and headers, repairing broken links, etc.
- Keep in touch with HER Helmet Thursdays participants’ news and share that via Twitter.
- Provide help with a wide range of clerical and other nuts-and-bolts tasks.
General:
- Are you active on Twitter? Sometimes I am too. (Other times? I’d rather be biking!) You may want to follow Twitter.com/HERHelmetThurs. Post your own unique Tweets about the project, or retweet those of @HERHelmetThurs. Other Bicycling Monterey and general biking news? Follow Twitter.com/BikeMonterey – @BikeMonterey.
- Publish announcements in newsletters and on Web sites, Facebook pages, and other OSN sites. Please contact me with questions, including regarding copyright and trademark restrictions. Permission to excerpt material for limited use will usually be granted promptly and free of charge. Please do not hesitate to inquire. Where appropriate, suggested text can be provided, to your word count specifications.
- Note: HER Helmet Thursdays is trademarked. Any use of the name for promotional purposes must be in keeping with the spirit and integrity of the project. If you have questions or are aware of any use to the contrary, kindly contact me.
Making a financial donation
a 6/28/10 postscript
This month follows the one-year anniversary of Tips for Tourists Bicycling Monterey.© And today marks the start of something brand new: a “Donate” button on this site, administered through the secure PayPal service.
This was suggested by someone who had just read the camping post and said, “You really put a lot of time and energy into this. Put up a donate button so that others can help keep it going!”
Donations of any amount will be welcomed with gratitude. Even the smallest donation can help maintain and expand these resources, helping to make Monterey County a more bike-friendly place.
Of course, if you have a preference about how you would like your donation used, do feel free to contact me.
The privacy of everyone who makes a donation will be honored and, for those who allow public acknowledgment, I ask to be contacted directly to let me know. I will be happy to to list them on this site as donors.
If you have questions about making a donation, please contact me (831/375-6278).
* * * * *
Here’s an example of how a donation would help: permanent project signs to display in all participating locations.
- These signs could be two-sided, with “Tips for Bicycling Monterey County/HER Helmet Thursdays” on one side and “HER Helmet Thursdays Participant” on the other.
- Participants could flip them over to the “HER Helmet Thursdays Participant” side every Thursday–similar to putting out their “open” sign each day, except this sign is like putting out the red carpet for cyclists on Thursdays.
- As these signs sprout up in more and more neighborhoods throughout Monterey County (starting with the first 100 charter participants’ spots), visitors and others would start to recognize them as another sign that Monterey County is an increasingly bicycling friendly place!
* * * * *
Professional Support for Bicycling in MoCo
Media professionals with an ear to the ground:
HER Helmet Thursdays was given an early boost by the following, via print, television, and the Web. I especially appreciate these highly alert media professionals who picked right up on this story:
Mark C. Anderson, Monterey County Weekly
Lane Wallace and Orville Myers, Monterey County Herald
Ravi Kapur, KSBW
Daniel Strain and Scott MacDonald, Salinas Californian
Above-and-beyond Web site services:
I am a Lead Pencil Girl Gone Techno. Because of the generosity of Vid Raatior of Atawe Design, this site’s design is far more user-friendly than my personal tech skills would have made possible. Moreover, Vid was an absolute joy to work with from start to finish!
The Project’s Early Leaders
The foundation of the HER Helmet Thursdays project is the group of charter participants, and each one is deeply appreciated. Click on the listings logo above to see who these people are, the early leaders whose “Yes!” has made HER Helmet Thursdays possible.
# # # # #
