This week, the Bike Auckland crew says a sad farewell to the fabulous Angie Lin, our Volunteer and Events Manager. Angie has been with us for two and a half years, and in that time she has lent her inimitable skills to countless Bike Valets and Bike Auckland events. But more than her skills, we’ll miss her wonderful company and the joy she brings to everything she does.
Phoebe Balle takes the reins from Angie and we’re excited to welcome her to the crew. Look out for an introduction to Phoebe soon.
Below are some of Angie’s favourite memories from her time at Bike Auckland. But first, I loved this comment from our Chief Biking Officer Fiáin about how they’ll remember Angie.
“If we had a meeting somewhere together we would often ‘bike train’ there together. I’d swing by her house on the way (we live near each other) and, if all went according to plan, she’d be outside on her bike waiting for me. I’d ding my bell and she’d zoom out alongside me, and then we’d chat as we cycled to where-ever we were going. It felt like being kids again, cycling somewhere with friends. Of course, Angie is a super fast rider so we’d be speeding along, and even with my E-bike I’d be only just keeping up haha! I am grateful to have had such fun times riding together, sharing laughter, and feeling alive.”
In Angie’s words
It’s hard to choose my favourite memories, but one that stands out is at the beginning of my time at Bike Auckland. I was just pumped to work at an organisation with climate purpose, but also nervous in wanting to do my best.
The mayoral candidate discussion
The suggested theme for the first Bike Champions Forum I organised was a mayoral candidate discussion on transport. I was so nervous! And I had never worked with the team (the crew and Board) before.
You never know how many people show up for events, so I was really nervous at the beginning. But we managed to fill the Ellen Melville Centre with 150 people. Gabriel, who was on the Board at the time, got Viv Beck and Efeso Collins to come speak. Gabriel was downright amazing and getting things done and getting people to show up. I remember standing at the back of the venue listening, meeting many new and familiar people. I was so relieved and happy.
We also had Sahil from UoA’s Students of Architecture and Planning do a quick fire round of questions to the candidates. It was crowd sourced questions from instagram, and also ones that we collaborated on together. It was such a refreshing and invigorating way of engaging with the candidates. The audience loved it and were laughing and hooraying.
Turning into a listening advocate
My other standout memory is connected to growing out of being an angry advocate, and growing into a listening one. I always thought I was a good listener of other’s emotions, but when I stepped into advocacy I realised I was so angry and frustrated!
Funnily, it was another Bike Champion’s Forum, this time in Ōtāhuhu. I didn’t know how many people were going to show up as it was a stormy night. We wanted to branch out of the central Auckland area with these events, but I didn’t know what the cycling landscape would be like there.
We had a series of tables with prompts, and each of the crew facilitated discussions at the table. On my table were two people. One of the questions prompted was “how are you using bikes in your everyday life”. She said “I’m not really…” Instead of the conversation ending there, I asked “do you have bikes in your garage?” “oh yeah! I do!”. It prompted conversations more about their memories of riding around when they were younger, when they lived in Korea. It gave such a positive image of the association of biking.
That conversation also sparked a deep conversation with Louise Tu’u. Louise later told me that bringing the Bike Champions Forum to Ōtāhuhu, and her seeing more (culturally) diverse people in Bike Auckland has given her the oomph to come back to Bike Auckland and get involved again.
