Out Our Front Door Newsletter - January

Green leaves on trees at a bike camping site. That is in our future. Photo from our Family Overnight called Bike Camping in the City on our one night at Emily Oaks Nature Center

Welcome

Greetings y’all, 

Hope you are living well and finding ways to see the beauty in what at times has felt like an oppressively chilly January. At OOFD, the cold months are a nice time to relax and dig into some bigger projects that we have in mind for the coming season. And goodness have we been doing that! So many good things in the works. 

Read on to learn a bit about some creative things we have coming in the 2025 ride season as well as some upcoming winter and spring events including the St. Paddy’s Day Parade March and Overnight, The Hootenanny, and much more. Oh yeah, and all of our 2025 Family Overnights are up and open for registration! Plus some high level gratitude.

Last year's Family Overnight en route to Camp Shabonna

Family Rides Are Live!

We know many of y’all have been asking about and waiting for this. And that moment has come! Family Overnights are up and open for registration. Last year was far and away the most successful for this program with 4 of our 5 overnights selling out with large waitlists. We also successfully incorporated kids with disabilities and their families on each of our family rides, sometimes as many as 3 families with a disability on an overnight. And we plan to keep that momentum going. We’ve even added a 6th overnight up to Camp Dan Beard up in Northbrook. 

Details and registration here.

We also will be piloting a Junior Guide Program where some of the young people that have been riding with the Family Program for a while will be part of our guide crew, helping usher everyone along on the adventure and supporting with camp duties. 

And for those teens that maybe find the Family Overnights too easy, we will be opening up a couple of Adult Overnights to teen riders and their parents. More details to come on this front soon.

Upcoming Events

February and March are usually a good time for us to table at different events around Chicagoland and get folks hyped for the coming season. Be sure to stop by and say hey. We also have some Monthly Hangs, WTWTG rides, and eventually the Month of March Trainings for our volunteers - more details to come on that front in the next newsletter.
 
 Group Riding Safety Training 
One of OOFD's guides, Dave G, is an experienced bike safety and group ride instructor. He has offered to lead a training this year for OOFD Participants and Wider Community. We want to first gauge interest and format from y’all that read our newsletter. Please fill out this one question survey by February 14. And then we’ll follow up with more details. 

 Where the Wild Things Grow Ride
February 16th or March 2nd
Working out the details to get our annual winter buckthorn cutting and burning in at LaBagh Woods rescheduled as the original January date was canceled due to some frigid temps. Stay tuned to our Eventbrite and social media for details once its finalized. 

 Monthly Hang at Monochrome Brewery in Pilsen
Tuesday, February 4th from 730-10pm
Come out to Pilsen and one of the newer Chicago breweries, Monochrome (in the old LoRez space), and hang with your OOFD pals. BYOF. Swing by to meet new cool bike adventure folks or see your OOFD pals or both. New folks very much welcome. More deets here. And check out the whole Monthly Hang Line-up for 2025 here. From South Chicago to Edgewater. McKinley Park to Irving Park. 

 Tabling at the Winter Bike Swap in St. Charles, IL
Sunday, February 9
We’ve been out to this big ol’ bike swap for the last few years, and its always a good time, checking out all the bikes, parts, and bike people. Details for the event here and if you come out, stop and say hi. 

 OOFD Book Club
Date TBD - Sometime in February 
This time around, we’re reading Urban Forest by Jill Jonnes. It is “a natural history of trees and people in the American cityscape.” Get reading/listening, and keep an eye out for details on our social media for the discussion date/location. 

 “Elevated Tabling” at Patagonia Mag Mile 
Saturday, February 22 from 1-3pm
Our good good friends at Patagonia Mag Mile have invited us to do some “elevated tabling" which might include complimentary coffee, a trail mix bar, Patagonia Provisions samplings, etc

 Frankfort Public Library's Earth Awareness Fair
Sunday, March 9 from 2-4pm
This fair brings together organizations and individuals to showcase and encourage Earth stewardship and community, as well as, to learn about life on our planet and how ecosystems function & thrive. OOFD will be tabling there along with an astonishing number of other awesome orgs. More deets here.

 Shamrock Cycle - Parade March, Party, and Bike Campout
Sunday, March 16 - Monday, March 17
Back by popular demand, we will be marching down Western Ave in the Southside Irish Parade, followed by a backyard party with beverages/food in Mt. Greenwood, and then the heartiest of the bunch will ride the remaining 12 miles out to Camp Sullivan for the first OOFD bike camping trip of the year! Spots to march and go to the after party are free. Check out more details and register here.
​
 The Hootenanny Vol. 5 at Midwest Coast Brewery
Thursday, April 17 (NEW DATE!)
We originally told you to save the date of April 10th. But due to some scheduling conflicts, we moved it back a week. NOT ON APRIL 10TH. Save this date. A party. Not. To. Be. Missed.

Volunteer Gratitude - Breanna Bertacchi

Ok. This feels kinda crazy. But I’ve been going through the list of who we have shouted out in our newsletters and had to recheck the list 3 times to make sure I wasn’t mistaken. Then I reflected and thought, “Maybe we haven’t shouted this person out because how in the world are we supposed to capture all that they bring to OOFD in a paragraph or two? Simply not possible." But worth the effort so here it goes.

Breanna Bertacchi. The primest example of the OOFD spirit and our WAVE values (Welcome, Adventure, Volunteer, Educate). I haven’t met many people with their level of inclusiveness and Welcoming attitude. They are an Adventurer through and through since helping lead big adventures even back in college. I don’t think I know someone that gives more of themselves through Volunteering than Bre, whether it is with neighborhood activism or with their local community garden or being a main leader of OOFD as our Adult Program Director for the last 5+ years and the President of our Board of Directors for 2.5 years. And they are all about Education, whether it is taking an intensive course to become a Master Naturalist last year or helping educate OOFD volunteers on our processes or even spieling epicly about some mushrooms they somehow found hiding on the forest floor. Breanna is as genuine as they come. 

When I asked Breanna if they would be interested in taking on the Adult Program Director role, it was somewhat on a whim because I was at the edge of my capacity. They were fairly new to the org, and they said they would be down to give it a go. Since then, our systems for the program have improved exponentially giving us the ability to grow the number of adults we get out bike camping by around four times as many as when they came on (roughly from 100 in a season to move 400 in a season). And as the Board President, they have remained steadfast in their commitment to each board member as an individual and as a unit, challenging each of us to find how we best can contribute to OOFD and then holding us accountable to that. They have built out the processes and structure of the board exponentially as well making us a more unified, aligned, and organized team. Plus, they continue to encourage folks in the org to find leadership roles in an effort to keep OOFD sustainable. 

Ok. Those are just a few of the major things Bre has done as a part, as a pillar of the OOFD community. If you have ridden with or interacted with Bre, you likely could write your own 3-4 paragraph overview of how excellent a human they are. And I encourage you to share those thoughts with them next time you see them. Because they have been and continue to be a huge part of why OOFD is the amazing org that it is. 

In their own words, "Originally from California, but raised in the cornfields of Ohio, Breanna now resides on the South Side of Chicago. When they’re not bike-camping, they’re managing clinical trials, volunteering with their neighborhood Chicago Parks & environmental groups, reading or (most likely) swimming. They’ve ventured all over the US for backpacking trips, rock climbing, kayaking and recently rediscovered fossil hunting. If there's an awesome bug or plant on your ride, Breanna will probably be the one googling it with you to find out what it is. Currently they’re focusing on incorporating greener living into their life, including hen-keeping, beekeeping, foraging and seed saving. Ask about their two pet bunnies!"

Keeping those wheels rollin' and OOFD repping goin' all winter long

January Recap

We had our first Monthly Hang of the year and had about 25 folks out on a very chilly evening to Map Room in Bucktown. Lots of new faces or some we just hadn’t seen is a while. Always so great to see some OOFD pals after the holidays. Unfortunately the Where the Wild Things Grow ride to LaBagh Woods was rescheduled due to cold, but we will be rescheduling that soon. And the leaders of OOFD have been hard at work doing that oh so important off-season work to make the coming ride season the best yet!

A Sun Harvest crew rolling out of IL Beach State Park

Other Awesome Events Coming Up

26th Annual Bike Winter Art Show
Opening is Saturday Feb 15, 7pm-10pm and the closing is Friday Feb 28, 7pm-10pm. At Agitator Gallery in Logan Square.
The February Critical Mass usually ends at the closing. They are accepting art of any media for the show. Anything that is bike related. Submission form here. Deadline: 6pm / Sunday Feb 9, 2025

Wild Things Conference
Saturday, March 1 in Rosemont
If you like nature, this is truly not an event to miss. Happens every two years. So inspiring to be a part of of hundreds of nature loving folks and experts gathered for a day of teaching, learning, and community. From their website: "The Wild Things conference is a celebration of nature, wildlife, ecosystem restoration, birding, botanizing, networking, and discovery – from the lowly mushroom to the high-flying falcon. The conservation community comes together to learn from each other and the best experts, and enjoys a day jam-packed with handpicked panels that run the spectrum in causes, complexity, and creativity." 

Cook County Forest Preserves CLIC Training (Camping Leadership Immersion Course) 
March 22-23 and May 3-4 at Camp Sullivan
These trainings are overnight camping events that run from Saturday afternoon to Sunday morning at Camp Sullivan in Oak Forest. Camping gear and food provided. They are great events with lots of good tips on how to best engage people that are new to camping, especially young people.
These trainings are extra awesome because once you complete it, you then have access to the Camping Gear Library at Camp Sullivan. For more information about CLIC, please email [email protected] 

 Illinois Bike and Walk Summit
May 7-8 in Springfield, IL
This is the state’s most important conference related to biking and walking. Professionals, advocates, and individuals from communities of all sizes are invited to attend the conference to learn, collaborate, and identify creative solutions related to biking and walking in their community.  The theme this year isis Creating Connected, Livable, Thriving Communities. OOFD likely will be sending some folks down, maybe even presenting. . . ?

Playing like some kids in Matthiessen State Park on the Waterways to the West Ride's off day

Well that was fun. Writing a Volunteer Highlight on Breanna alone was a blast. Then sharing the news that the Family Rides are live. Plus all these awesome tabling and other org events that are coming up. 

Not sure if you have gotten the new Robin Wall Kimmerer book yet, The Serviceberry. If you haven’t, what are you waiting for?! I have been reading it so so slow because I don’t want it to end. It is so astonishingly simple and beautiful. I can pretty much close my eyes and open to any page and type something here to end the newsletter and its gonna blow your mind. Here’s one. 

"If our first response to the receipt of gifts is gratitude, then our second is reciprocity: to give a gift in return. . . Gratitude and reciprocity are the currency of a gift economy, and they have the remarkable property of multiplying with every exchange, their energy concentrating as they pass from hand to hand, a truly renewable resource.” 

Plenty more Serviceberry quotes to come for sure. Happy February to y’all, and hope to see you out there pedalin' soon. 

 Glenn and the whole OOFD crew