September 2012
HAPPY BIRTHDAY Issue…
Birthday Wishes from the independent FreeSpOut team; sending news from the world of Freegle to Group Owners, moderators and friends of Freegle. Please feel free to pass this on to anyone who may be interested.
The place to go for a chat and a laugh is the... Freegle Cafe
Keep on Freeglin’!
A Very Happy Birthday to
FREEGLE 3yrs old on 11th September
Congratulations to everyone who has made this anniversary possible, be you a very new member, one of the stalwarts who have been here from day one, or someone who has joined us anywhere in between. Give yourselves a big pat on the back and celebrate with us in recognising the tremendous amount that has happened in such a short space of time. Freegle has grown from literally nothing to a nationally recognised organisation and is fast becoming a household name across the UK. There is still much to do so no time to sit back on our laurels, although today you may, if you wish, just pause a while for a slice of our delicious imaginary fruity cake (there was a chocy one too!! Who ate it??) and a sip or two from our bottle of bubbly (if you can catch the monkey). Three Cheers for FREEGLE; Hip Hip Hooray, Hip Hip Hooray, Hip Hip Hooray. © FreeSpOut 2012
Freegle AGM…………… Penrith and Eden The second Freegle AGM is planned to be held on Central from Monday 19th November to Sunday 25th November 2012 . Following the format of last year, the AGM agenda and papers will be available on the wiki in the run up to the ‘meeting’, which will be chaired by Edward (Rep, Edinburgh). Everyone will get official notification of the AGM a month before the meeting and have the opportunity to submit any discussion items they want to be included. Polls and discussion will all take place on Central, so if you are not a member at the moment, please join in plenty of time!
Way to Go, Birmingham!..... James reports: “I entered Freegle Birmingham into the Birmingham City Council recycling awards and we've been shortlisted under the "Best Waste Reduction Scheme - Home" category! The awards ceremony is on Friday September 28th; I will let you know how it goes! “ Fingers crossed.
September 2012
Big Lottery Success! ……… Chris reports: “Cumbria Action for Sustainability (CAfS) has been successful in its £1m bid from the Big Lottery Communities Living Sustainably fund. ... Penrith and Eden District Freegle is a partner in this bid and we'll receive funding through Freegle UK to develop a specialist food—seed—plant sub-group facility within Freegle Direct. . ………... We'll be working with CAfS and my transition town group Penrith Action for Community Transition (PACT) to publicise the new system, run events, make films and have a phone line to put messages online for people. …………………… The funding for the whole Freegle project activity is £10k over three years with £4.3k going to Freegle. I'll put the project plan and proposed activity sheet in the Central files section new Projects folder. I'm drafting a page about the project to go on the main site. ……………………………. The reps know of this funding. We've already set up a working Yahoo group team to run the project with a member who is a CAfS direct, PACT member and local Freegle user.”
Local Promotion ………………………………………………………………………… Terry, who owns one of our newest groups, Presteigne, shared the following great ideas on getting local promotion. “Apart from the usual local newspaper releases, we've targeted our local village and town websites to include our logo and a bit of blurb on the Home Page and/or Links and most have been very happy to do so ! …………………….. We've also sent out 1/4 A5 page notices to all our area Parish Magazines and village Newsletters. The advantage of these is that they are usually monthly and often are kept by recipients for a while because of the local ads, events etc. Our home town (Presteigne) Parish Magazine was very happy to run a full A5 page article.” …………………………. Terry shared the documents he devised on Central, so if you would like to do something similar in your area, but don’t know where to start, have a look at: (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FreegleUK-Central/message/31696) and be inspired! © FreeSpOut 2012
September 2012
Membership Numbers …… Collecting for Recycling …… Do you keep an eye on the growth of members on your group? For all online reuse groups, Freegle and others, the trend is that new memberships are slowing down (http://freegle.it/GroupCounts). The reason for that is probably a combination of several factors, including the present economic situation, but what it means for us is that we need to grab every opportunity we can to make our groups the best experience they can be. …………………………………... It is worth considering: ……………… - Do you promote your group locally? … People won’t join unless they know you are there! ……………..…………………... - How many obstacles do you put in the way of people joining? (are they bombarded with lots of emails, do you hold up their application by not having open membership?) ………………………. - Is their first impression welcoming or is the emphasis on what they can’t do on your group, rather than what they can? - Is it easy to use your group? (do you provide access via Facebook or Freegle Direct?) Don’t put obstacles in the way! The ‘good old days’ of just sitting back and watching as people joined the groups have gone. We all give our valuable time as volunteers, so we might as well make that worthwhile by attracting lots of people to use our groups and keep those lovely items in use, rather than be dumped! … ………… There is some great advice on the wiki http://wiki.ilovefreegle.org/Best_Practice why not have a browse and consider if you can make your group a better place to be for your members? ………….………………...
PreemiesUK is a group of Volunteers who knit and crochet for premature babies and babies that are born too soon. They supply over 140 Neonatal units throughout the UK Kylie (Croydon) has told us that they are collecting the following, which they recycle for cash to help pay for the parcels they send to the units. …………………………. Empty Baby wipe packets , Kenco pouches, Ella’s Kitchen pouches, Activia or Shape pots, Actimel bottles , Tassimo Discs and foil packaging, and Biscuit packets, Used felts/pens (no pencil or crayons), Ink cartridges and Stamps, old or broken Mobile phones Tooth brushes and Tubes. If they can recycle them for cash, presumably other good causes can do the same, so if you get asked on your group or cafe for places to recycle then Preemies would be a good starting point! ………… You can find them on Facebook PreemiesUK | Facebook or contact Shelley Mitchell on 07707085511, or send some of the above to 138 Farmers Green, ………… Droitwich,WR9 9EH
Business cards …………….. An anonymous donor has given some funding for national media and publicity use. The Reps are organising printing of Freegle business cards as part of this. The uptake has been great from groups with another order having to be placed to fulfil requests. Although this round of printing has now all been despatched, you can email http://freegle.it/CardRequest to log future interest if another offer can be arranged. © FreeSpOut 2012
September 2012
Ah ! Here it is !! NO!!!!!!! not too big a slice it’s got to go round you know !!
Please clear up your crumbs before you leave and don’t spill your drink —thank you
Melissa Minty (Eastbourne Freegle) has volunteered for a Media project, compiling a list of all awards (national and local) that Freegle, as local groups or the whole organisation, could enter - everything from the Eco Awards down to the Eastbourne Achievers award. Do you know of any awards that can be added to the list - they can be community, volunteer, green or anything else that might be of freegly interest. Please email any suggestions to Melissa on media@ilovefreegle.org
Sponsored run: Helen is doing a sponsored run on 30th September 2012 in aid of Freegle. She is heroically tackling the 13.1k 2012 Kilomathon Scotland Autumn event. Her sponsorship page is http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/HelenFreegle Go, Helen, Go !! if you would like to support her and Freegle. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Volunteers Still needed
Volunteers / nominees were asked for these panels last month: http://wiki.ilovefreegle.org/Appeals_Panel_Procedure and http://wiki.ilovefreegle.org/Mediation_Service If you think that you have some/many/all of these qualities then please nominate yourself to be in one or both of the pools of panellists. If you know someone who would fit this role well then please nominate them by emailing Kathy at ombudsman@ilovefreegle.org
FreeSpOut is produced by the independent FreeSpOut team; these are our words. GET IN TOUCH! The team presently consists of Jacky (Great Yarmouth), Carole (Hayle & St. Ives), Liz (Stafford,) Hazel (Stevenage) & Ray (Thanet). If you have any suggestions, contributions or want to be involved in producing this newsletter, contact us: Team@freespout.org.uk © FreeSpOut 2012 We would like to thank the Reps for their support. (Alison, Cat, Edward, Jacky, Jane, Ollie, Richard, Saira and Sian. reps@ilovefreegle.org