We need your help!

How you can help

Much of CAN’s work is done by volunteers, either nationally, or in local groups. We need your help to make things happen! These are some of the activities you can get involved with. See lower on this page for our “Situations Vacant”.

Building Relationships

CAN plays a key role in the cycling network in developing and maintaining relationships with other national-level organisations whose activities impact on our goals. These organisations include government agencies such as NZTA and the Police, political parties and MPs, and other cycling and road user groups, such as Living Streets Aotearoa and the AA, as well as recreational and sporting cycling groups.

Volunteer opportunities can include:

  • Being on our executive team at the "core" of CAN - making things happen!

  • Coordinating submissions on publicly consulted strategies, programmes, or legislation

  • Meeting with elected representatives and other groups

  • Running campaigns that raise public awareness and encourage councils and government to support cycling.

Volunteer & group development

If you have an organising and networking genius, help us develop and support CAN's volunteer networks & local groups, such as:

  • Taking up a role on our executive team

  • Identifying and encouraging members with various talents useful to CAN

  • Supporting and training members who are keen to help

  • Providing support and advice to local CAN groups

  • Encouraging interaction and sharing of ideas/resources between local groups.

IT Support

We always love IT support! Get in touch if you can help with:

  • Website design, upgrades and ongoing maintenance

  • Any skills in our website's Drupal CMS would be highly valued!

  • Web wordsmithing

  • Email management

  • IT training and user support.

Campaigning and Communications

We aim to run several campaigns, or phases of campaigns, each year. We'd love you to be involved!

  • Social media - X/Tweets, Instagram, Mastodon, Bluesky, Blogging, website updates, member shout-outs

  • Local direct actions on the streets

  • Developing CAN's campaigning strategy and coming up with creative ideas

  • Designing and developing resources and materials for CAN campaigns and promotions

  • Talking to people, getting media attention, getting CAN's view out there

CAN's media relations are mostly handled by the CAN spokesperson but we can share this around for campaigns.

Technical & Policy

Many times we can achieve our goals by offering technical advice or contributing to policy debates. If you have specialist skills we are keen to give you a role!

  • Policy 

  • Cycleway planning 

  • Legal

  • Urban design.

Activities & Events

If coordinating CAN activities and events rings your bell, you are most welcome to step forward, such as for CAN's work in:

  • Annual "CAN Do" advocates workshop (CAN DO 2024 - help with organisation/presentations)

  • Annual Cycle-Friendly Awards

  • Biennial 2Walk&Cycle Conference

  • Other CAN/local workshops

  • Various CAN promotions.

What’s in it for me?

Volunteering is a great and powerful thing. Not only does it get you off the couch in order to do something positive with your time for getting more people on bikes more often, but it can also have a pretty huge impact on your career and job search.

  • It looks good on your CV

  • Volunteering helps grow your confidence

  • Gives you opportunities to develop and refine new skills in a supportive environment

  • Provides many opportunities to meet people.

Situations vacant

  • Chainlinks Editor

    CAN's newsletter to our members and friends is called Chainlink. It's a valuable connection point between our campaigns, celebrations and inspiring stories, and our supporters. We are seeking a writer/editor who can elicit stories including from throughout our network, edit, and publish in an attractive electronic format. With creativity and some marketing nous you can take this to new levels. Chainlinks is typically published 4 times a year and typically takes 2 to 3 weeks to pull together (part-time). You can do this from anywhere. (published November 2023)

  • Campaigner/Campaign support

    CAN is seeking a campaigner to lead a campaign, and/or people to be part of a campaign team to help CAN run our campaigns. Our campaigns focus on building a safe road culture for bicycles, building public support, getting more kids on bikes, and more. CAN is running a series of successive campaigns. Often the campaign is quite specific with a short-term goal. For example in February and March 2018 our Safer Streets for Cycling campaign aimed to highlight safety for people on bikes as the Government was forming its road safety policies. The campaign involved creating and promoting an online survey (we had 1100 responses) then we used the results to raise some money and create a petition to a Minister calling for action on people's 3 top requests (and got 11,000 to sign). You will be great for this role if you have campaign experience or want to gain it, and if you can offer skills in areas such as using social media platforms, graphic design, writing, direct action, and more. It's very rewarding and a great opportunity to make a difference. Role length varies. Part-time. If you're in Wellington that's a bonus, but you can be anywhere.

Get in touch!