Me: this is how bikes get repaired and recycled in this one small town.
- The junkyard guy leaves nice ones out by his gate for a day or two before dismantling them for scrap.
- there are several people in the town who know they can come past regularly and take anything by the gate
- there's a guy who takes any bikes he thinks we can salvage, they are almost always kids' bikes, there are just more of those
- a rotating group of friends and people who want to learn about bikes work on them
- when they're finished we distribute them by word of mouth: is there anyone around 6-8yo who wants a purple bike?
- the bikes seem to come with lifetime servicing. No one mentions this until the bike needs servicing, then they just say 'we better get onto servicing your bike, hey?' and it happens
- you can do a trade-in/upgrade. Kids swap their bikes for bigger bikes, people service the little bike and give it to another kid
-there is no name, no official location, no contact details for this, it's an ephemeral property that emerges from the community every day that the community has capacity to do it. It is fascinating and I am glad to have witnessed it.

Sustainability tutor: so first off this could never happen without NGO administration, start there

I see the very valid argument that without administion and formal structure, continuity remains only when as the community has capacity to do it.

My argument is that's how things work anyway. You can have all the committee structure in the world, but the actual work is an emergent property of the community's capacity. If you burn out your people, you lose your collective service either way.

Edit: if anyone screenshots this one toot out of context and makes it about dismantling government, I will punch you right in the bicycle horn. This whole thread is specifically about small community groups.

There's a less valid argument here that this will all fall apart when people lose interest/capacity and therefore is it not sustainable.

On the first point, good. People should stop doing voluntary stuff they no longer have the resources or motivation to do, boundaries, rest and self care are good actually.

Secondly: the idea that since it could spontaneously stop any time, and probably will, that is inherently by definition unsustainable.

On the same token one might argue singing a song in a group is an unsustainable thing to do. Because you cannot sing the same song together forever without stopping.

You must rest when you're tired, then perhaps sing a different song, maybe with different people. This doesn't make singing songs an unsustainable practice. Most people in sustainability would agree singing songs in groups has a lot of offer sustainability from many angles.