First things first, this is primarily a blog post about beekeeping, but it is also about how Peg City Car Co-op is expanding our services to meet the needs of our members…through Day Rates!
…Back to the bees. In addition to being the vice-president of the Peg City board (and my full time job), I have decided to fulfill a long time desire to keep honeybees. For a number of years I have found them both lovely and fascinating. After taking a hobby beekeeping course in 2009, I unfortunately found myself unable to keep any bees. I am carless by choice and there is a city by-law prohibiting the keeping of bees in the city. I was forced to wait before starting my exciting new project.
Honeybees don’t require a lot of maintenance, but they do require weekly visits to monitor their progress and troubleshoot any problems that may arise.
Since Peg City Car Co-op launched a year ago, I now have the ability to continue not owning a car, while getting to visit my bees. Literally the best of both worlds, and I am proud to say I am the keeper of a beehive located in St. Norbert.
While St. Norbert isn’t too far away, I have found myself driving a lot more due to my new hobby. For example, I had to drive all the way out past Dugald to pick up the nuc (small colony of bees) from another beekeeper, before bringing them to their new home. That trip racked up almost 100kms of driving!
This past Saturday, I had booked the car for the morning expecting to visit the bees, but I never made it past the farmers’ market when the sky opened up and it started to rain. I decided to return to the city, but in typical fashion for this unpredictable spring, by the afternoon the sky had cleared up.
Thinking I could still make the trip, I called up Aaron (Peg City’s Customer Service Coordinator) and asked him to check if there were any further bookings that day. He said it was available, and he reminded me that I could now book it for the whole day if interested. I was! That way, for $60.00 (with 100kms included), I could take my time, not worry about hours booked or kilometers traveled and head back out of the city. Perfect!
I paid a visit to my little bee friends, and was able to get a bunch of other errands done, all for a reasonable price. It really made making a last minute decision to change my plans that much easier.
It looks like the convenience of day pricing is catching on:
Next week, a team of five Green Action Centre employees (including member and Board Secretary Shoni Litinsky),will be going to a meeting in Steinbach. After looking at the numbers from their last vehicle rental trip out there, they wanted to see if the new Peg City rate pilot would allow their small non-profit any savings by booking the carshare car instead.
