ELLIOT'S NAKED BICYCLE SERVICE & PIANO BAR 2017! -- Fundraiser for Elliot's Bicycle Service

[Elliot]

Announcing!....

Elliot’s Naked Bicycle Service & Piano Bar Fundraiser, featuring Loaner Bicycles and cheap schwag as Perks!

Like last year, when we repaired 629 bicycles, we need donations to make the camp’s ends meet. And like last year, we are offering the use of a bicycle for the duration of the Event as our top Perk. (A Perk is a token of appreciation for a donation.)

Even better, we now have TWO flavors of Top Tier Perks – Classic, and Super DeLuxe!




Classic Perk Bikes are the ones you know and love. All are in good mechanical condition. Many have a tall handlebar and a cushy saddle. Some have gears, and some do not. There is a variety of sizes.
We award these to show our appreciation for donations of $195 and up.

First come first served -- that is, donate now and select your bike on Playa. Alas, we are unable to reserve specific Classics.

That's what these are for:





DeLuxe Perk Bikes have a rear luggage rack, and a folding steel wire basket on the side of that rack. And lights. All have the tall handlebar, and a small bag or basket on that handlebar. All have the cushiest saddles. And that little pad on the kickstand, which helps keep the bike upright when parked in Dust.

We ask your height, and your preference for gears or no gears. And then we put your name on just the right bike for you.
We award these to show our appreciation for donations of $250 and up.
There are only 20 of these, and only a few left.


Of course, all donations, of any size, are very-very welcome. $20.-? That will buy a pair of pedals and an inner tube! That could be THREE bikes back in action!

All Donors receive schwag such as camp buttons and decals and whatnot.


(Sample from last year.)

It is all explained on the FUNDRAISING page of our website:

http://www.elliotsbikes.org/fundraising.html

There is even a convenient PayPal button there.

That is all.

Except... for a few niceties from our Camp Counsel:
We are a placed theme camp. Our official camp name is Elliot's Bicycle Service. We are a G-Rated family-friendly camp where nudity is normal. We strive to comply with and promote the Burning Man ethos, the Ten Principles; and the ePlaya Terms Of Service, including the requirement for this post's subject line to include the camp name and the word fundraiser.
Also….
Last year, we discussed our fundraising with the Winnemucca office of the Bureau of Land Management – our “landlords” in the Black Rock Desert. They contacted us, and asked whether we conduct commercial business at, or related to, the Event.
We do not.
Their concern was that the wording on our website was less than precise on this point. After small adjustments to the language, we were cleared to proceed.
This year’s fundraising also follows the guidance we received from the BLM. And we are grateful to the BLM for their friendly and enthusiastic assistance!

[ActaBoy17+]

Hi Elliot:
I am a first time Burner and have been trying to negotiate a plan to get my own bike to BM Radical Ritual, (which is obviously very complicated) but saw your service as a possible alternative, and am inclined to do it.

Do you still have bikes available at either of the two levels? ($195 & $250)

Ready to submit payment via PayPal to secure a bike if they are still available.

Thanks a lot!

Actorgye17

[Elliot]

Hello, Actaboy -- and any and all other interested parties.
This is a quick TEMPORARY reply -- a stop-gap answer.

Absolutely no offense intended, Actaboy, but you just violated about fourty-eleven rules of this game. Not your fault at all, since no-one has taught you those rules. But the BLM (and Trilo) trained me in this, and I will get back to it in an hour or so.

Edit to add: Your post is actually a very good thing. It gives me the opportunity to explain things better, since I clearly did a poor job of it originally. Please stand by.

[Elliot]

Hello again.
Sorry for the delay -- I had another “fire to put out” first.

Now…. I wish to welcome you to the phenomenon that is Burning Man, and to ePlaya!

For a first time Burner, there is a “metric brick ton” to learn. And you will learn it, little by little, year after year. It is a fun process, so don’t feel put off, even if it seems a tad overwhelming right now.

After reading the Survival Guide a few times – and understanding it – and the rest of the first-timer information….
You may wish to look closer at the Burning Man principle of Decommodification.

(If the following can be helpful to others, feel free to copy and distribute.)

You mentioned our “service”. Our camp’s service is to repair your bicycle.

You bring it to our camp between Noon and 6, and we repair it, free of charge. That includes any new parts it may require. We also hand you a cold beverage, and we even have a number of peripheral services such massage and a piano.

Oh… and if you can perform the repair yourself, we have a D-I-Y shop with tools and parts for that very purpose.
Then there is battery charging for power-wheelchairs and other small electric assist vehicles.
And more.

All at no charge whatsoever, which is the only way anything is done in Black Rock City.

All these new bicycle parts, beverages, our tools, shade structures, transportation of everything including at least one piano, and so on and so forth… cost far more than we can pay out of our own incomes.

So we solicit DONATIONS of money.

A donation is a gift.
Something of value is voluntarily given, with no expectation of receiving anything of value in return. Generally, donations are given for the purpose of supporting a good cause – to help make possible something the donor believes ought to exist or happen.

Worth keeping in mind... is that when you donate to Elliot's Bicycle Service, you effectively donate that money to a number of unspecified Burners -- Burners whose bicycles malfunction during the Event, and who come to us for repair.

Our camp serves as a conduit for directing your contribution to the various Burners who suddenly need their bike repaired on Playa.

It is on this basis, and this basis only, that our camp accepts money from non-camp-members.

This concept, and the word “payment”, are mutually exclusive -- they cannot exist together.
That’s where my alarm went off.

Now, about “perks”.

Throughout the ages, donors have received thank-you letters, have seen their name attached to buildings, and so on. They have received things of no monetary value, but instead things and tokens of sentimental value.

These days, we call such tokens of appreciation “perks”. Come to think of it, the term “token of appreciation” is often used to define “perk”.

A quick look at the currently popular online crowdfunding services such as Kickstarter and Indigogo will show you examples of how perks are typically arranged.
Small donations are rewarded with minor perks, and larger donations are rewarded with correspondingly more substantial perks.

Our camp originally used Indigogo. Of course, these online outfits charge a commission.
Then we realized... that word-of-mouth serves equally well (in our case) to recruit donors, so now we accept donation directly. ("Word-of-mouth" includes our website, and our Fundraising thread on ePlaya.)

We still offer perks, in a manner similar to what we used on Indigogo.

A donation of $10.- is rewarded with a trinket that can be mailed as a letter.

And at the high end of the “perk scale”, we offer the loan of a bicycle for the duration of the Event. No monetary value. Just a courtesy, a favor, a convenience.

No “payment”, ever.

From time to time, someone asks about “renting” a bike. We do no such thing.

If we were – hypothetically – to rent out anything in connection with Burning Man, we would need a license/contract with Burning Man as an outside vendor, and no doubt other licenses and contracts. We would pay fees and taxes to BM, BLM, IRS, and who-knows-what-other entities. Not our turf at all.

This is what the fine print (literally!) is about in my original post. I now realize the matter deserves up-front attention. Thank you, Actaboy, for alerting me to this!

In closing….
Please use Private Message to discuss donations with me.
Posting on this thread is appropriate for questions of general interest to prospective donors.

And a great roaring THANK YOU! to all who contribute to making Elliot’s Naked Bicycle Service & Piano Bar happen again!

[Elliot]

.
UPDATE;

The DeLuxe Loaner Bicycles have all been awarded to generous Donors!

Thankfully, we are still able to offer the Classic Top Tier Perk Loaner Bikes in appreciation of donations at the $195-and-up level. And the Classics are of course in tip top mechanical condition.

Thank you!
.

[Elliot]

Weekly update.

Until I say different... we still offer Classic Top Tier Perk Loaner Bicycles as our best perk, awarded to donors of $195 and up!

Please help spread the word, ePlaya friends. Donations are slow this year -- I don't know if it's the political weirdness or what. We still need to bring our services to the Playa, and the balance sheet looks rather lop-sided right now.

Any amount will help!
What perks do we offer? New stickers! Now listen up: I'm posting a picture of last year's sticker. And we have more of those. But we also have this year's sticker with the Radical Ritual theme. Those are still embargoed -- top secret! I will post picture as soon as I have permission from the artist.

I can't seem to put a PayPal button on here, but there are a couple of them on our website -- link in my signature below.

Thank you!

[Elliot]

Update:
Our fundraising is running far behind this year. We are struggling to put the camp together this year. So please help us spread the word. We have plenty of decals and buttons as Perks for any and all donations, and plenty of Loaner Bikes as our Top Tier Perk at the $195-and-up level.

And... I am open to a new concept in Donation Perks: "Create Your Own Perk". Within reason yes, but I will listen to any suggestion.
I'm thinking of body paint... you paint me and show me around for a couple hours, or I paint you. Or the "Human Library" idea -- you borrow me to fix bikes in your camp or whatever else I can do, as your personal servant for a couple hours.
I'm also thinking... BIIIIIIG donation, here, yes.

[Sham]

For all those first-timers and the not-first-timers, I can attest that Elloit has one of the best, resourceful camps on the playa. If you're coming a long distance and need a bike (and you WILL need a bike), Elliot can accommodate you. If you have a bike in need of repair, Elliot's Naked Bicycle Service and Piano Bar will bail your ass out. He will offer up cold drinks for you too.

If you can help support this camp, it will pay you back in spades.

"At Elliot's Naked Bicycle Service, the bikes are not naked, the people are"

[Elliot]

Weekly update:

Darn that Trump-character, or whatever it is... but donations are realllllly down this year, and we are in trouble.

So let's try this: The donation threshold for scoring a Top Tier Perk Loaner Bicycle is now back down to $150, same as last year.
And when couples and groups make multiple donations at the same time, each $125 increment will score one Top Tier Perk Loaner Bike.

Please help spread the word!

[cranberries]

Donated . I know every bit helps. I'll stop by for a drink and meet you in person! Thanks for everything you do

[Elliot]

Thanks! Yes, every dollar helps!

(By the way, I will now be out of town and offline until Monday afternoon. So if I fail to respond to communication, I'm not ignoring you -- I'm only offline to recharge my batteries before the big stuff begins.)

[Elliot]

Weekly update:

A veritable flurry of donations has arrived in the last week! THANK YOU!

I need to take an exact tally, but this would be a good time to.... Well, we may run out of the Top Tier Perk Bikes after all.

Regardless, we are now DEFINITELY doing Burning Man without serious financial restraint.

[Elliot]

Aaaaannnnd... WE ARE DONE! WE ARE OUT OF OUR MOST POPULAR PERK -- THE LOANER BICYCLES!

Donations are certainly still needed. We invested a ton of $$$ in a new bus, more shade, larger generator, and whatnot. Lots of whatnot.

But we are out of the woods. The camp will be a smash hit as always.

Next year... we project our costs to be much lower.

So.... Here is an idea: How about if... donations made this year could be applied to Loaner Perk Bikes for next year? And how about if the threshold to score such Top Tier Perk Loaner Bikes for 2018 were currently -- note; CURRENTLY -- only $100?

YES, WE CAN DO THAT!

More later. Much later. We have a camp to build now.

[Skuzzy61]

PM me an address to send the check to, Elliot.

[Jovankat]

Weekly update:

A veritable flurry of donations has arrived in the last week! THANK YOU!

I need to take an exact tally, but this would be a good time to.... Well, we may run out of the Top Tier Perk Bikes after all.

Regardless, we are now DEFINITELY doing Burning Man without serious financial restraint.

Oh good! I've told a few people over on Reddit about this thread in the last couple of weeks, I hope it helped! Either way I'm glad you met your goal! <3

[Elliot]

Thanks, Teegan!