The Biketivist Forum Series kicks-off with a great start!
Picture: Brainstorming on 2021 Goals: City of San Mateo Local team
The first meeting of our Biketivist Forum was a huge success with over 80 participants! Thank you to all our amazing members and supporters for making time in busy mid-week schedules for coming together to advocate for better bike infrastructure and policies.
The idea behind this new model of combined local team meetings was to bring all our local team members on the same platform, encourage interaction and cross-learning between the members, promote and build new leaders, and make teams more independent.
The forum was split into two segments. The first half was about the updated local team model and the updated team resources on our ‘Better Biking’ page to support teams. The webpage includes:
Policy Agenda
Many resources
We quickly covered various reports, resources, and FAQs that we have been creating and updating on our website to support our local teams. For the second hour, participants split into breakout rooms based on local teams where the team members brainstormed on goals for the upcoming year. This Forum was also the launch for two new local teams - the City of San Mateo team and the South San José teams. It was a great beginning to support grassroots bicycling advocacy in these areas.
The nine teams came up with several ideas on what they want to advocate for in the year 2021. These ideas included protected bike lanes on El Camino, reducing speeds around schools, getting more bike racks at local businesses, building relationships with council, allocation of x% of money for bike/ped infrastructure and several more! The above image is a glimpse of one brainstorming session outcomes. The follow-up meetings will include devising S.M.A.R.T. (specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, timebound) goals with strategies and tactics to achieve the team goals. A big SHOUT-OUT to all the wonderful leaders, without whom this wouldn't be possible!
Missed the Forum? Don't worry - it’s not too late! You can join your local team and the team leader/greeter will bring you up to speed on what they are working on.
North SMC - Katie DeLeuw
City of San Mateo - Bryanne Myers
SVBC-Peninsula - John Langbein
Palo Alto - Frank Viggiano
Mountain View - April Webster
Sunnyvale - Ari Feinsmith
Santa Clara - Gabby Landaveri
San José - Scott Mace
South San José - Laura Monczynski
We’re excited for the upcoming year already, to see the teams advocating for the goals you’ve set for yourselves and your plans coming to fruition! The next Forum will tentatively be held on Wednesday, January 20 - 5pm to 7pm. Stay tuned!
For any questions, feel free to contact:
SCC: John@bikesiliconvalley.org | SMC: Sandhya@bikesiliconvalley.org
