Each summer, the City of Portland closes off streets to motorized vehicles, and opens them to cyclists, walkers, runners, unicyclists, and any other human-powered transportation. This summer's events will be taking place once a month from May - September, with one event in each of the city's 5 quadrants*. The routes each include several city parks, which are hubs for community activities during the event. Each event often has over 20,000 participants. Overall, the 2011 Sunday Parkways had 107,300 participants across all days/locations.
Parkways requires a massive number of volunteers to be successful: each intersection needs a volunteer to make sure that unauthorized vehicles don't get onto the route, and to help neighbors who live on the route get into and out of their driveways.
This year, PBOT is doing something new: a group of people can volunteer to "adopt" an intersection on the route.
I want Bicycles Stack Exchange to adopt an intersection and
promote Stack Exchange at the May 12th Sunday Parkways event!
We invite you and your organization to “own” an intersection of a Portland Sunday Parkways event. You have the opportunity to bring your cause to life to over 20,000 event participants.
- You make the intersection as exciting and inviting as you want.
- You have a space for a canopy and a table. Do what you can to entice people to hear your message as they are enjoying the open Sunday Parkways streets.
- Bring along a team of volunteers, staff members, supporters and maybe a big mascot. Cheering people on the course is fun and gets their attention.
- People love freebies. Hand out healthy snacks. Let them make their own Sunday Parkways art. Take their photo. Create a reason for people to stop their bikes and engage with you.
May is National Bike to Work Month, and we're hoping to have an awesome site contest to celebrate and get more people interested in the site. Having a booth at the May Sunday Parkways event would be a great chance to promote the site. Here are some of the specifics:
When and where:
- Sunday, May 12th, 2013 in East Portland
(Details) (Map) - The event is from 11am-4pm. If enough people sign up, we can do shifts. I'll be there for the whole day!
Who:
- I will be in Portland, and can be our contact person/coordinator
- A few local site members have already expressed interest in helping out. I'm planning to recruit some more.
What to have at our booth:
I own a canopy and a portable table that we can probably use
If somebody has some sort of portable internet connection (phone/tablet with tethering, WiMax, whatever) then we can set up a laptop to show people the site. There won't be any power, but my laptop has about 8 hours of battery life, which should be plenty.
Stack Exchange swag! Including Bicycles.SE t-shirts, water bottles, pens, stickers, etc! These already exist, and SE's promotion team can get us set up.
Some new suggested swag items: Bicycles Stack Exchange blinky lights (something like this), reflective Stack Exchange stickers maybe?
Handouts about the site, including examples (with links!) of popular or exciting posts.
Some printed out larger posters with similar stuff (examples, screenshots of the site)
A banner with Bicycles' awesome site design elements plastered on it?
What I need from you:
- If you're interested in participating, please leave a comment below or ping me in chat
- If you have ideas for what to have at our booth for promoting the site, leave an answer with your ideas
- If you have suggestions for posts/questions to put on handouts or posters, put a list in an answer below
* Yes, there are 5 quadrants. Portland's weird, OK?
