Get involved with Thinkwalks

Overview

Thinkwalks needs publicity assistance beginning in September. Would you like to help?

Your projects will be mostly related to the calendar of tours and the outreach process for getting peopel to know more about Thinkwalks tours. If you’re reliable and interested in Thinkwalks, available for the long term (a year or more would be great!) then please read through this, and let anyone who comes to mind know about it.

Some of the items on the below list, such as distributing flyers, are being done now by various volunteers. (Yay!) They will keep doing their part, and new volunteers are always welcome for any part of this effort. For someone who is just right for a more central role, four to twenty hours a week, there is money available for pay.

Project Description

Thinkwalks is an education project about the way the city grew into the existing natural environment, and about the history of local public art, activism, transportation, water features and culture.

Thinkwalks has received public recognition for bringing important things to SF (various awards–see website). This work is about playful fun and ambitious accomplishment, with emphasis on helping the world be a better place.

Job Description

Your area will be outreach and publicity mostly for natural history events. You’ll manage workflow for yourself, working mostly with me (Joel Pomerantz, project founder) and with a few volunteers. You must be good at follow-through, and be conscientious.

Please apply only if your experience somehow fits the flavor of this list:
⇒ educational, archival, museum, lectures, trainings, linguistics, mediation, exploration, policy, user interface design

To Apply

1. Read this description through, twice.
2. Review the Thinkwalks website
3. Reply only if you (and your best friend) are certain you are a good fit.
4. Include questions you have.
5. Please tell why you seek this part-time work, since really great people who aren’t clear on that point tend to leave for a full-time job elsewhere.

Skills

✔ You’re curious for the sake of knowledge–and making cool things happen
✔ You’re excited by local geography, natural history, etc.
✔ You have successful experience promoting something you care about
✔ You’re good at suggesting improvements
✔ You’re practical and reliable
✔ You like collaborative, creative problem-solving

Pay, etc.

$16 per hour after six months: $10 the first month, with automatic increases to $11 the second month, $12 the third and so on until reaching $16/hour. The pay for this position starts low but goes up fast. There are many non-monetary rewards. The project is a nonprofit but not a 501(c)3 nonprofit, and so we don’t have the usual board politics, etc. Work hours will be negotiated in the range of 4 to 20 paid hours per week plus fun: attending brainy events.

You’ll be exposed to amazing information, organizations, people and opportunities to explore. You’ll get free admission to our events for yourself and for some friends. You’ll get free training in various research skills, software use and networking skills and you’ll learn a lot about San Francisco.

Duties

1. Flyers (Volunteers usually choose a few places near where you live and keep a stock of our beautiful educational flyers there.)
⇒ use your bicycle to get flyers out
⇒ insure distribution of flyers to volunteers and to some priority locations
⇒ test new priority locations using system provided

2. Event organizing
⇒ help prepare for monthly Secret Creek Exploration hikes
⇒ send event announcements to organizations where there may be interest
⇒ organize group flyering events where flyers will be handed out directly to people
⇒ develop a meetup.com group leader or co-leader relationship (Tours through meet-up are a new project for Thinkwalks.)
⇒ use meetup.com to gather people for some tours, approx. monthly

3. Plans, priorities, lists
⇒ use facebook.com for outreach as requested
⇒ discuss and determine current priorities
⇒ assign each event the proper timing and type of outreach
⇒ discuss and critique web site use and design
⇒ regularly renew craigslist.org postings seeking volunteers
⇒ maintain and grow a list of priority locations to distribute flyers
⇒ maintain a list of volunteer flyering locations and events
⇒ maintain and grow a list of web calendars for posting drop-in tours

4. Web outreach
⇒ post upcoming events on web calendars
⇒ write short educational comments on blogs where related topics are discussed

Read this page again and let me know what you’re excited about! If you have questions, use the form below to send them to me. (They won’t be visible to the public.)
— Joel