Planning for Panniers

After being presented with the opportunity to work with BICAS for the semester in order to help them grow in new and unique ways, I quickly began working with a group of my classmates to devise a plan. It was not long before we really assessed our focused goals to be concerning the publicity/awareness of BICAS to more people in Tucson (focusing primarily on our own community-the University of Arizona) as well as to help by facilitating a workshop using recycled materials. The part of this planning stage that I really enjoy is the conversation that arises in this space. We were able to spend a good deal of time asking each other questions and brainstorming ideas together. ie. Who are the people that we want to reach? What demographic is BICAS already reaching well and what can we do expand their community base? What are effective ways of reaching different groups? How can we use the goals of BICAS to offer an activity that is innovative and appealing? How do we grab the interest of a broader demographic? Is it better to be specific in our pursuit of a set demographic or more generic in hopes of reaching more people in a less focused manner? etc. I find it to be invaluable to hear others responses and questions. This certainly benefited us greatly as we were able to flesh out some solid ideas that we were all excited about. Our ideas entailed a) hosting a workshop in order to make bags for bikes and b) taking a guerrilla advertising approach to spreading the word about BICAS on the University campus by sending around spoke cards(someone was channeling some nostalgia!). In these two goals we were able to target a large, yet specific and isolated demographic-the students on the UA campus. Additionally, we worked to create goals that would work hand in hand with each other so as to give our group more focus as well as make our overall project more successful. Through both parts of our plan, we will be spreading information and getting people interested in what is going on at this local organization.
Having a solid plan from the get-go allowed us to work out the finer details and allowed us to prepare a good amount of materials so as to make the participant work very straight-forward. I'm eager to see how our planning impacts the work of BICAS. We're hoping many more people in this area will become familiar with the awesome work that BICAS does and be comfortable to use them as they are an incredible resource for our city!

Glue sticks, scissors, tape, assorted papers, oil cloth, patterns, card-stock...we've got all kinds of materials spread out for our use in these planning and preparation stages! Excited to see the spoke cards turn up around campus as well as the bags that our participants create with these fun-patterned cloth patterns!