Join us!
We are an all volunteer organization. Together, we can create a safer, stronger Pasadena.
Welcome to the Pasadena Complete Streets Coalition! We’re glad you’re interested in getting active in the organization. We hope this guide will answer at least some of your questions.
Get Connected
This website and our newsletter are the easiest ways to learn about the organization. We also post regularly on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Get connected, and we’ll send you news, action alerts, and events. There are lots of ways to help that are as simple as signing a petition or sending an email.
Volunteer
Pasadena Complete Streets Coalition (CSC) is member-driven. That means that if you see a need or something that you think ought to change in Pasadena regarding transportation, you can start a project to respond to it. You can jump into existing and ongoing projects at any time.
The easiest way to dip your toe in and learn more about the organization is to attend one of our regular monthly public meetings. You'll hear about current projects and campaigns there. We also try to keep an updated list of current projects on the website (but we’re not perfect). If you want to jump into a project, the best way to start is to reach out to the person identified in the project list, or whoever you saw giving the update at a monthly meeting. Or attend the next meeting for that project - find the date on our calendar. For details, you can always reach us using the contact page.
Active volunteers communicate via a Google Group. If you haven’t been part of one before, how it works is, if you’re in the group, you can send an email and it goes to everyone in the group. You can control how often you get emails (only via the Groups page, in your email inbox once a day, or in your email inbox as they’re sent out). If you’re starting to get involved and you’d like to be on the Google Group, please let us know.
How We Make Decisions, and Who Makes Them
Pasadena CSC is not a nonprofit organization, but we do have a governing document, which we call our Manual. What follows is a brief summary of the main points.
Most decisions for Pasadena CSC are made by the voting members. You become a voting member by spending a minimum of 20 hours volunteering for the organization (so it’s a good idea to keep track). Attending a meeting, going on a ride or a walk (including as a ride marshal or walk volunteer), writing something for our blog or about complete streets for a local publication, putting up posters about an event, those all count toward your 20 hours. Once you think you’ve hit 20 hours, let a member of the Steering Committee know (see below) and you will be vetted and considered.
When we need to make a significant decision, we can hold a vote in real time at a regular monthly meeting, or we vote using email on the Google group. Voting members have three days (72 hours) to vote once a vote is requested. A proposal passes if it gets 80% of the vote. (You can see the finer points about voting, like how many are necessary for a quorum, in the Manual.)
Some decisions are made by members of the five-person Steering Committee, who are elected each year in December. The Steering Committee selects a treasurer from among its members, proposes the organization’s annual budget, and approves official spokespeople for the organization. The Steering Committee also can make decisions about taking a position on an issue if it’s urgent and there isn’t enough time for the voting members to discuss. And as noted above, members of the Steering Committee sign off on volunteer hours for new voting members.
Getting Things Done: Meetings
The people working on a given project or campaign meet regularly apart from the general monthly meetings. The group leader creates an agenda for the meeting ahead of time and shares it with everyone who’s been involved. (It’s important to note that a group leader isn’t necessarily one person, or always the same person. Anyone who’s involved on a campaign can draft a meeting agenda or lead a meeting. Anyone can suggest edits to an agenda. We aspire to be a “leaderful” group. If you’d like to lead a meeting, just volunteer!) Pasadena CSC has a Google Drive with multiple folders where all our various documents are stored. If you jump into a project group, the group leader can give you access to the current agenda.
Every meeting has a volunteer meeting leader who leads by following the scheduled agenda, a note taker (who generally takes notes on the agenda document, which is a Google doc), and a facilitator, whose job is to keep track of time and make sure everyone has a chance to speak. Our meetings start with an icebreaker/introduction question, and then we go on to the business of the meeting. Our decisions are generally made by consensus. We do our best to start and end meetings on time.
Speaking for the Organization
Once you’ve become an active volunteer, tell your friends! But please don’t talk to the press or elected officials and say you’re speaking for the group unless a member of the Steering Committee has asked you to. It’s always fine to say you’re a volunteer, but please be clear that you’re expressing your personal opinion if you don’t know that your opinion is also an official position of the organization.
Contact us if you are interested in writing a blog post.
What can you do?
Whatever you’re good at! The problems we all face as a society can seem big and impossible. Getting involved in the Pasadena Complete Streets Coalition is a way to get together with other people who care, and to have an effect on how you and lots of other people live our lives here every day. Think about what you’re good at and what you love to do, and then please put those skills and talents to work creating a better city and a better world.
This Venn Diagram is adopted from scientist Dr. Ayanna Elizabeth Johnson. She has great advice about doing what you love in order to make a better world.