The Barter Babes Project; November 2010-2011

The wave of new books which are catching up with the sharing innovators -and pointing out new directions

I was excited when a friend from the new economics foundation shared with me a copy of 'The Mesh' by Lisa Gansky at the weekend. (Amazon link to  book here);

Seth Godin (writer of recommended 'Tribes') -and an advocate of regular blogging to refine your ideas,  writes as follows:

The Mesh is here (don't miss it)

"My friend Lisa Gansky has a new book out today. You can read a bit about it here.
I hope you'll buy a copy right now. It's that important and that valuable.
Gansky has written the most insightful book about new economy business models since The Long Tail, and if you're not facile in understanding and working with the key concept behind this book, it's going to cost you time and trouble.
In short, the Mesh outlines how sharing resources and information creates an entirely new class of commerce. When you travel to another city, you don't buy a house. You stay in a hotel. A hotel, because it allows hundreds of people a year to share a single room, is a mesh business.
The thing is, the web has created thousands (probably more) of these businesses in areas you have never thought about. Zipcar, sure, and Netflix. But in all sorts of nooks and crannies as well. Lisa's online directory already lists thousands of these companies. Existing companies need to know about this, job seekers should be attracted to it, and for entrepreneurs, it really is a new frontier."

An Amazon review however warns as follows:

I bought this book as a result of a recommend by Seth Godin. I can only assume that he didn't get to read the final version.
The idea is OK - making expensive or infrequently used stuff available for short term rent rather than the customer having to buy. The main example given is companies like Zipcar who make cars easily available, via mobile phone booking & remote unlocking, in convenient locations. Then use the customer data gathered to offer complimentary products and services via other partner businesses. Problem is, all we get is the same points (often using the same example company) repeated in different order. Quite frankly, it gets tedious.

If it were a film, it is one of those where you keep watching expecting something to happen, but it never does.

I expected to learn some new ideas, some insightful formulas and get excited by the whole concept.Instead, I confess that I didn't even finish the book, so if anyone manages to actually get to the end please let me know if anything actually happened.

Other recent sharing books of (more?) note:

• What's mine is yours
• Collaborative Consumption

(Oh, I really wish there was more time for critiquing all these from the point of view of sustainability; the clothing they wear, yet haven't got a clear idea about!)
Let's have a book soon on 'Collaborative Conservation'!


If you are going to buy new books, please try and at least buy them with friends.
In case you haven't heard me saying this before clearly enough, in this decade I'd love to see a world in which people routinely list what they own on a site like freelender.org or letsallshare.com, which would link eg to Facebook and Amazon/eBay in ways that Amazon/eBay earns commission from letting you know that you don't need to order what you're looking for because x,y,z is owned by  your friend or neighbour who is willing to lend it, and knows how to lend/borrow responsibly.

Some discussion on Collaborative Consumption can be found at:
http://www.roughtype.com/archives/2010/11/the_unrevolutio.php
http://www.generationbubble.com/2010/10/26/flea-market-ideology-a-review-of-whats-mine-is-yours-the-rise-of-collaborative-consumption/

Freelender library now open in Hastings; your books can be in it whilst still at home!

In the wake of the Hastings Pier Fire, I'm moving to Hastings and opening a freelender library to share community resources. The themes of this library on www.freelender.org will be: 

• Mediation
• Management that serves
• Transition 
• Transformation 

The abbreviated name of this community resource is to be the MMTT library. 

PLEASE SUGGEST OTHER CATEGORIES OF BOOK USEFUL TO HASTINGS NOW.
One book I have is called "Dealing with Disaffected Youth"; let's have a category called "Engaging Youth & ending inter-generational apartheid"; the library now becomes the MMETT Library!

If you have any books & DVDs etc which you are pleased to offer to trustworthy people who will come round at a convenient time and borrow, then return the items as requested, or possibly forfeit a deposit, then please add these items to www.freelender.org

Some of the items will also be made available on www.letsallshare.com, which has a higher level of web design than freelender (though without the trust stats). Lets All Share also has the 'Please Collect' function on the site, so that if you add items to lend and then decide you are happy to give them away, you can easily switch them into that category.

In due course I intend to negotiate with ecomodo.com and ecobees.com about arrangements that would engage much more of the Hastings/St Leonards community in lending and renting. This would at the same time raise funds for people's favourite charities, no doubt including the Hastings Pier & White Rock Trust.

Ecobees - vote in the poll on the left when you've tried it!

Here's a review of Ecobees (if you get beyond the innuendo!):


On the Lend-It-All Man site the review of three other sharing websites is as follows:  

Reviews of lending websites

• www.freelender.org- special features: trust stats, all items are free, values of all items are listed (minimising later difficulties); mediation service provided in case of difficulty

• www.ecomodo.com – special features: you can easily arrange for your favourite charities to get money from rental of household items. {NB I expect my favourite charity, www.karuna.org to be added to the site shortly!}

• www.letsallshare.com – special features: lets you list items as rental or giveaway, which makes this site more optimum in terms of listing all your stuff then managing it.

Overall review:

What I advocate as sharing technology steps forward for society includes the following:
-the development of a culture in which we itemise all our stuff and offer it to others, recognising how this serves us
-trained community activists who promoting this on the doorstep and provide connections from which they take commission. (This commission -raised eg from the rental charges of a street sharing a co-created car pool) may, for example raise the money for the ongoing development of better 'stuff management solutions' or simply go to favourite charities through the money
-technology that 'saves' you from buying new things (eg a version of sites like ebay or Amazon that linked to your social networking eg Facebook- the function of which would be to let you know which of your friends already had what you were about to buy, hopefully disuading you from buying it -unless it's an iPhone:-)

To return to the quote from my alter ego, Lend-It-All Man (everything I own you can borrow):

The necessary ‘stuff management solution’ goes beyond what is provided by any of the above sites; what will get us closer to a strong way forward would be an amalgam of our resources into a bigger and better site.
Failing that, we at least would benefit from forming a consortium of some sort. For more on this theme see: www.twitter.com/sharingandgifteconomics.com

As a director of Freelending CIC I also believe that the future lies in an optimum ‘fractional ownership solution’ which starts from having an effective place where people post their ‘wanted’ messages and an effective way to build trust to share items not used all the time. I look forward to the discussions as to how this happens in the near future, for all our sakes."

Please now vote in the poll on the left about whcih site serves your sharing needs best?

The Moneyless Man (AKA Mark Boyle) on Freelender at Buddhafield Festival

For an extract of Mark Boyle's new book -The Moneyless Man- about his work with Freelender.org, click here
NB The Moneyless Man on facebook here.
NB2: The Moneyless Man reviewed on Amazon here.

Gandhi Book borrowed from Mark Boyle, whose book -"The Moneyless Man" is out on 1st June (promoted in the Guardian)

Join "The Moneyless Man" facebook group here

(freelender.org gets mentioned in the list of organisations and in the storyline; thanks again Mark & look out for The Guardian on the 1st June and the 8th June)

Join the Ecomodo Facebook Group please

Please try ecomodo.com -the latest (& fastest growing?) new player in the 'sharing and gift economy' -and please let us know what you make of it as a website/proposition?

Feedback on what you make of ecomodo's pitch is welcome via:

• adding a comment below this blog post
• contacting the Freelending Community Interest Company directors here
• linking to my twitterstream and direct messaging me

Edmund & I met Meriel & Tracey (ecomodo) at UK Aware on Friday and gave them a couple of our new freelender packs, which Freelending CIC will gladly post to people involved in promoting sharing in their communities.

If the bigger agenda is one of finding the best tools to support sharing; ecomodo offers, IMHO, a significant step forward. I particularly like how the money made from renting out my stuff can support my favourite charity.
(By the way, my favourite charity is karuna.org; all money from renting out/selling my stuff goes there.)
If I lived in Brent and wanted to support a charity addressing the most important issues of how we relate to each other, I'd likely choose to support the Centre for Peaceful Solutions, which is led by Maria Arpa and who I interviewed briefly on Friday morning before the UK Aware Ethical Living exhibition:



I've been working to develop the networking all the relevant organisations together so that saving resources and building community can take us towards the holy grail of sustainability in how we live.
To this end, Edmund Johnson and I set up Freelending CIC in 2008. Please subscribe to this blog to stay in touch with the key developments not only for freelender.org but also for the more important wider social movement (generosity) to which we contribute all we can.

I'm so impressed with ecomodo that I've just selected a large number of facebook friends whom I've recommended to join the ecomodo facebook group.

David from LetsAllShare.com -YouTube footage follows

Clothes Swap at UK Aware -YouTube footage follows

Cat Fletcher from Freegle at UK Aware

YouTube footage of The Sustainability 2.0 talk at 'UK Aware' follows

Freelender packs now available; Alan benefitted with a free copy of 'Age of Stupid'

Why Freelending CIC prioritised networking at the UK Aware Ethical Living Exhibition this year!

If you want to join in a conversation about our bigger agenda; the agenda is here

Katherine Hui from 'Do the Green Thing' & Social Innovation Camp -speaking at UK Aware

-YouTube videos follow

Green Book Swap at UK Aware Ethical Living exhibition -16th & 17th April

freelender.org goes open source !

It has always been our intention to make the freelender.org code open source, and to make distributed development more easy. Today, both those goals were realised as we put into practice our message of sharing.

Many of the web's most successful projects are open source, for example the Firefox web browser and Open Office, the free almost-clone of Microsoft Office. Open source code is available for anyone to view, meaning complete transparency of the project. This can result in faster development times, and more robust code as the team now includes anyone who wants to be involved. It also means that the code can be re-used in other projects at no financial cost.

The project code is now hosted on assembla.com.
Click here for the freelender.org project development page, and here for the freelender.org source code.

If you'd like to join the freelender development team, maybe to pick up some Ruby on Rails experience for your CV, or just because you want to support the project, contact us and let us know.

Meanwhile, feel free to browse the source code, and let us know if we could be doing anything better.

Jailbrake invitation received

Just received this in:

"I am emailing you about the Jailbrake weekend as although your ideas were not selected, we'd love to have you along to the weekend. 

There is one idea in particular that we thought could really use your help, with your background in Restorative Justice. It's called Common Ground and is about restorative dialogue in the web space. Is this something that would interest you? Would you like to come along?"

and replied:
 
Hi Katherine

Thank you for the invite to the Jailbrake weekend. It might be an opportunity not to be missed and I will get back to you on whether I have been able to clear my diary.

When I read that you wanted my input on one of the other projects, I had assumed that is was MyPA, because I had been in the group and key in moving the idea on from something that related to probation service appointments to youth being supported more generally with a host of appointments. I would particularly welcome an opportunity to look further at how this one progresses.

Meanwhile, I will look at the Common Ground proposal and at least let you have my comments. Today I'm working on [an urgent and important Restorartive Justice Business Plan], and that takes priority.
If you could clarify willingness to pay the travel and accommodation costs from Bristol for the Jailbrake weekend, this would help me assess how much my input is valued at this stage.

Meanwhile, with or without expenses met, I look forward to any opportunity to work further with the social innovation camp and I will let you know within the week whether I am willing to jeopardise a key relationship by cancelling my other current arrangement for the last weekend of March.

(It might interest to you know -re Web 2.0 that I am considering tomorrow putting a poll on my freelenders blog on which to prioritise for the end of March - and I will also conduct a friends' poll via facebook in order to inform my decision).

LetsAllShare.com in Hungarian and English

Thank you to Andrea (a freelender.org member in postcode BR2) for providing this translation:

LetsAllShare.com – Használjuk együtt!

A LetsAllShare nevű honlapot 2006-ban találta ki sörözés közben két angol srác. Stas beszámolt Lecky nevű barátjának egy korábbi telefonbeszélgetéséről: a nővére hívta fel – tudván, hogy Stas odavan az autókért és a hozzájuk tartozó kiegészítőkért -, hogy tanácsot kérjen, milyen tetőcsomagtartót vegyen az autójára a családi nyaraláshoz. Stas nem értette, miért nem kéri egyszerűen kölcsön az övét, ami az év 50 hetében a garázsban porosodik. A nővére pedig ezt válaszolta: „Honnan a csudából tudnám, hogy mit tartasz a garázsodban?”

Two English guys came up with the idea in the pub.  Stas asked his friend, Lecky about which roofrack  to buy as his sister was interested in getting one then he offered to lend him his, which gathers dust in the garage for 50 weeks a year.

Stas eltűnődött, mennyi minden van a garázsában, a házában és a sufnijában, amit örömmel kölcsönadna a családjának, barátainak vagy a szomszédainak, ha elkérnék tőle. Hogy mi minden? Sövénynyíró, sátor, szerszámok, alkalmi ruhák, etetőszék, sífelszerelés, könyvek, DVD-k… Feltette Lecky-nek a költői kérdést: Miért van az, hogy megveszünk és aztán tárolunk egy csomó dolgot ahelyett, hogy inkább kölcsönkérnénk őket a barátainktól? Milyen jó lenne, ha volna egy weboldal, ahol kialakíthatnánk a saját közösségeinket, és megoszthatnánk egymással a dolgainkat! Lecky egyetértett, egy korty sör erejéig elgondolkodott a dolgon, aztán azt mondta: „Csináljuk meg!” Így indult útjára 2008 elején a LetsAllShare.

Stas had a think about all the stuff he has in his garage, house and shed. He would be glad to lend them to his family friends if they wanted it. Tent, hedgetrimmer, tools, highchair, ski gear, books, CD-s. He put the poetic question to his friend, Lecky: "Why do we buy so much stuff and then store it instead of borrowing it from others. It would be great to have a website where people could from their own communities and share each others' things." Lecky agreed, had a sip of his beer and said: "Let's do it!" That's how Letsallshare started in 2008.

A pazarlás a múlté, a közös használaté a jövő! Wastage is the past, shared use is the future!

A kezdeményezés célja: The aim of this initiative:  

• 
  
  
  Összekötni az embereket Get people connected
• 
  
  
  Közösen használni a dolgainkat és megosztani hasznos információinkat másokkal; share usage of our things and information
• 
  
  
  Spórolni a pénzzel és a természeti erőforrásokkal.save money and natural resources

Így működik - How does it work
Ingyenes regisztráció után automatikusan a tagjává válsz két csoportnak: az egyik a „család és barátok”, ahová meghívhatjuk a közeli ismerőseinket, a másik a „helyi közösség”, ahova az irányítószámunk alapján sorol be a rendszer. Később tetszőleges számú további csoportnak lehetünk tagjai (pl. szakkör, klub, civil szervezet stb.). Ezekre a csoportokra külön-külön definiálhatjuk, hogy milyen feltételekkel milyen tárgyakat osztanánk meg a tagjaival.

After free registration you become member of two groups: friend and family where you can invite people closest to you and Local community where you are classified according to the post code. Later on you can create sub-groups (club, civil organisations, etc). We can decide the terms of lending and borrowing fro each of these groups.
Ezután felteszünk az oldalra pár dolgot, amit szívesen megosztanánk az ismerőseinkkel, és megadjuk a kölcsönadás feltételeit. Lehet, hogy a közeli ismerősöknek minden további nélkül kölcsönadod a könyveidet vagy a fűnyíród, de az idegenektől letéti díjat kérsz, esetleg kisebb kölcsönzési díjat. A lényeg, hogy pontosan megadhatod, kivel, mit és milyen feltételekkel szeretnél megosztani. Később, amikor l��tod, hogy jól működik a rendszer, biztosan egyre több dolog jut majd az eszedbe, amit szívesen megosztanál másokkal.

We advertise a few things that we want to share with people we know and we decide the terms of lending. You might decide to lend for free for family and friends whereas you may take deposit or a small rent fee from stangers. When you see how it works you may wish to add to the list of things for lending.Ha neked van szükséged valamire, akkor megnézheted, hogy a csoportjaid tagjainak van-e az adott dologból az adatbázisban. Ha nincsen, akkor felírhatod a keresett dolgok közé. Lehet, hogy valamelyik barátod kölcsön tudná adni, csak még nem regisztrálta, ezért te nem tudsz róla.

If you need something you can check if it is available or you can post it as wanted object. Someone might have it who hasn't put it on the datebase yet.
Mit oszthatok meg az oldalon keresztül? What can you share through this webpage?

• 
  
  
  Tárgyakat: pl. barkácseszközöket, kerti és egyéb szerszámokat, autófelszereléseket, sportkellékeket, túrafelszerelést, konyhai eszközöket, ruhákat, bútorokat, bőröndöket, könyveket, CD-ket, DVD-ket stb.
• 
  
  
  things: tools, garden or DIY, motoring equipment, sport equipment, rambling gear, kitchen equip.m clothes, furniture, suitcase, books, CD, DVD etc
• 
  
  
  Szolgáltatásokat: gyerekpesztrálást, szaktanácsadást, segítséget (szerelést, bevásárlást), üres helyeket az autóban stb.
• 
  
  
  Services: baby sitting, consultancy, home help (DIY, shopping), car share
• 
  
  
  Ajánlásokat: étterem, szerelő, kőműves, burkoló, festő, fodrász stb.
• 
  
  
  recommendations: restaurant, handyman, builder, tiler, decorator, hairdresser etc

Biztonság Security

Az idegenek csak az aliasodat, azaz „nickedet”, becenevedet látják, te határozod meg, hogy mikor és milyen adatodat osztod meg a másikkal. A tagok megbízhatóságáról tájékozódást nyújthatnak az adott tagról korábban beküldött (az e-kereskedelemmel foglalkozó oldalakhoz hasonló rendszerben működő) értékelések. A LetsAllShare honlap szolgáltatásai ingyenesek – az alapítók civilként fejlesztették ki és működtetik. A hosszú távú üzemeltetés és a fejlesztések érdekében azonban folyamatosan keresnek szponzorokat a szolgáltatáshoz, valamint új üzemeltetőkre is szükség van. A lap remek kezdeményezés, de sajnos csak az Egyesült Királyság területén működik (más irányítószámot nem ismer fel). Ha valakinek van hozzá kedve, megcsinálhatná a magyar verziót!

Stangers will only see your nickname, you decide what information you share with whom. Regarding the reliability of the members people can view feedback that is common practice in e-commerce. Services of Letsallshare are free, the founders developed and maintain it as non-professionals. In the interest of long term viability they are looking for sponsors and developers. The website is a fantastic initiative but unfortunately it only covers the UK, doesn't recognise other postcodes. Someone adventurous could create a HUngarian version!

letsallshare.com

Going beyond 'Has anyone got?'

Prompted by someone emailing the Bristol freeconomists to let us all know/remind us about freecycle, I wrote the following back: 

"Hi Sam

I saw your message about freecycle and wondered:
a) whether you are involved enough in the local freecycle politics to know why they haven't decided to defect to Freegle UK?
b) whether you see freelender.org as a more viable way for freeconomists to list all their possessions so that it is easier to search for what people have got and therefore not have all these messages saying 'Has anyone got...?'"

  
What's your position in relation to this?

The Laminator I'm borrowing for a friend via facebook, Collaboration/ Co-operation and user feedback

I don't think it's helpful for me to pretend that freelender.org is the best thing since sliced bread.

(By the way, the history of sliced bread is that -just like freelender.org- it took many years to catch on. That's another story though, and if you can find me the link to the source of the story about sliced bread I'd be grateful. It sounds like something Malcolm Gladwell would talk about on Ted.com :


 ).

So, to cut the hype, so far I haven't received more than one successful response to the 6 wanted requests I've put on that site. (By the way, if you are logged in to freelender, the top request I have is currently this one).

As I say, freelender.org is not where I've had the highest success rate in asking for items. Where I have had 100% success in requesting items which I want to borrow is via my news updates on my facebook page. (NB A social networking look-alike version of freelender.org would look like this.)

What amazes  me is that not only did a new friend called Richard look through my old news feed and find that a friend of mine wanted to borrow a laminator. What he did that was far beyond expectations was that he was also willing to put it on freelender.org:

• to log the transaction in the way that works best for me 
• and that makes one of his possessions available to the wider community after my friend has finished with it. 

Richard even went one step beyond, and agreed to test two other sites in the 'sharing and gift economics sector' to provide me with his take on them.

Hi Richard
People who provide feedback about websites I'm interested in are few and far between!

I gained a lot from your site testing of our two main collaborators/competitors :-letsallshare.com- and justfortheloveofit.org.

We haven't quite worked out in the 'sharing & gift economy' how we do the optimum combination of sharing our databases/code etc; that's some way down the line I imagine, though freelender is Open Source and does want to put it's code into a suitable forum soon, along with an organised set of suggestions we can get on improvements to be made to the site, and how it could also be integrated with freegle UK and freecycle UK.

Best wishes
Paul

If you have any time to try sharing more in your life and to try any of the sites in this blog posting please then send your feedback to Edmund and I, directors of  Freelending CIC via this link or join in the editing of the collective information in the wider freelender community site.

The problem with hubris and being two steps ahead

A couple of weeks ago I tweeted as follows:

You've heard of #Freecycle & #freegle ?The next step IMHO is #letsallshare & beyond that, us #freelender.org.

Being a 'clever clogs' often irritates and confuses others who can only see the next step. (ie I end up tripping.
As Edmund and I are now agreed that LetsAllShare.com is currently a more credible site than freelender.org at present, questions arise like:

1. Whether I put all my thousands of items on that site, instead of (or in addition to) freelender.org?
2. Whether I advertise freelender.org primarily in my neighbourhood and advocate letsallshare nationally?
3. What mix of websites is going to best serve the 'Sharing and Gift Economics' sector of the economy? 
4. What is the most responsible thing I/you can do in relation to the gap between where we are now in how we share resources and where we need to be ASAP?

As well as commenting below, please see (& join) the occasional twitterstream: http://twitter.com/gifteconomics

How to share the best idea so far coming out of two and a half years freelender work?

Yesterday, Edmund and I came up with an idea that we thought might save us a year out of the 5 years it might take for freelending (and associated resource-efficient ideas) to come of age. The latest idea, which we are calling 'Wanted', does not require us to create a whole new market of people wanting to share their stuff with strangers. It promotes helping people get deals that are even better than the best that the web offers. 'Undercutting' e-bay and Amazon put together, plus all web-lowest price search engines (apart from the car-insurance ones) is a bit daunting.
We'd like to build the trust with you so that you can join in the team too.
We are willing to negotiate giving you shares in Freelending Community Interest Company until the revenue comes in, which will of course be prioritised in further developing freelender.org and the other initiatives in resource efficiency and community connections about which we remain keen. If you want to hear more:
More details about what we are working on is at the 'private business wiki site'; to join in please contact us first.
Also please add any comments to this blog (click on Comments below) to say what you think our great idea looks like; your idea of what 'Wanted' does might be crucially inspiring (or correcting) again!

Money as Debt

The story of stuff -intro

The full video story of stuff  (and other stuff-type stories) are available at 'The Story of Stuff website'

The second way of contacting freelender.org

If you really want to get a message through to the maximum number of freelender.org team members and haven't got a response from this freelender.org contact page then please send to the two Pauls and Edmund via this Mediation Support Ltd contact page.

Profile Notes and Postal Items added to freelender.org

Today we've added two new features to freelender.org.

Firstly, as a member, you can add profile notes, up to 4000 characters (I'm not sure that will be enough for Paul though!). This will make it easier for you to give general guidance on what you would expect from other people who want to borrow from you, and to find out what others require when they are lending things to you.

Secondly, postal items have been introduced. This means that you can mark anything which you are willing to post out to others and it will turn up in the search results when people search in any area of the country. The borrower and lender can arrange how to share the costs of postage etc. between them. Similarly, your searches will start to show postal items from places which aren't so local to you.

Other new features are on their way, though if there's anything you'd particularly like to see on the site, contact us or add a comment to this blog to let us know what it is.

Freelender on a bicycle blog is taking shape

I'd love feedback on the leaflet I intend to take on my first freelender on a bicycle journey next week.
See the new 'freelender on a bicycle' blog.

Letting go

I divide my stuff into these categories:

1. A few things that are of most value to me (12 books, A bicycle, Panniers, Lights, Battery recharger, Some Clothes, Bedding, A computer, iPhone, A Buddha Rupa)
2. Things to which I'm less attached, but am not ready to let go permanently.
3. Things of which I would be glad to let go, so long as the letting go is done in a way that is as 'responsible' as I can presently be in how I let these things go.
4. Things which letting go of is more important than how I do it. 

I think that most of my items are in category 3.
Please help me test this, by putting WANTED notices on freelender.org for anything which you want and think that I might have.

MagicHarry borrowing my iPhone plug til May

Freelending, Renting and Fractional Ownership -your choice

As of today, all the money goes to my favourite charity, the Karuna Trust whenever I:

• sell an item
• find someone offering to buy a share (fractional ownership) of what I own on freelender.org
• rent out an item on letsallshare.com

I'm really interested to see if anyone wants to buy or rent anything from me when "Anything I own can be borrowed for free." What do you reckon?

If you want to buy (or fractionally own) what I'm willing to lend for free, the money goes to the karuna trust

http://www.karuna.org/

freelender.org - ahead of it's time?

Does this quote from Forum for the Future imply that the freelender.org website is ahead of its time, or simply that the social structure more able to support a post-carbon future for the UK is happening more quickly than anticipated?

"Local sharing schemes like Landshare, Hospitality Club and Freelender.org  mean you don't need to own your allotment, car or drill, and you can sofa-surf your way around the world without ever having to book a hotel. Such schemes were predicted only two years ago in Forum for the Future's project 'Low Carbon Living 2022; but are already proliferating on the web."

(Editorial from Forum for the Future;  probably the leading UK environmental think-tank).

More freelender activity

My facebook updates are another source of information and pictures of the joy I get from getting out there freelending. Jaws drop when I say 'You can borrow anything I own' to someone I've never met before. One youth then came back with 'Can I borrow all your money then?"; to which my reply was: "Of course, though for money I usually take a deposit in cash of equal value."
Anyhow leafleting in a Vue multiplex cinema in Plymouth after an Avatar viewing (my third) was an experience of note, as was Totnes leafleting /phone boxes. Today -Bristol bookshops etc.

The photo is of Karen in Totnes; borrowing the Age of Stupid 'Bonus Disc'.
Meanwhile ....setting up a new toy-library; which will be offered in one of the St Andrews Park neighbours freelender newsletters I'm producing. I was going to do this in Routh, Cardiff on Friday with a freelender-friendly parents group, then decided to keep it more local.

Additional Blog about the future of cities -Hi-Tech Shanty Towns

Inspired by Kevin McCloud's 'Slumming It', I'd like to work with others on developing the concept of Hi-Tech Shanty Towns . Hi-Tech Shanty Towns is now a new spin-off blog arising from my initiatives with neighbours and reflections on beginning work with The Karuna Trust.

Tom Butler's Thought for the Day was remarkable today

I hope the BBC puts up the link to the 2nd Feb thought for the day soon; I was both a little annoyed at an apparent series of 'climate change denial' statements; then in turn in awe of the skill used in getting across the key message; that the only response worthy of humanity today to its current predicament is to develop new ways of being generous. This methodology of empathising with the cynics then slowly showing that we are all but 'groundhogs' on one level and that we can be bold with our sharing to rise above the 'groundhog' of denial or despair -masterful. (If you prefer to listen to any of Tom Butler's Thoughts for the Day, including the 2nd February one (text below)- they are all here).

"In the Church's calendar this day, February 2nd is Candlemas: the day when we recall the parents of Jesus Christ bringing their new baby to the Temple in thanksgiving. The birth of any child is a cause for thanksgiving but all Christians join in the thanksgiving for this particular child because of the man he became, in the words of the old man who held him that day in the temple, he will be a light to enlighten the nations and be the glory of God's people. And that theme of light, illumination, new hope is taken up in worship with an abundance of candles - so Candle-mas.
It's intriguing that February 2nd Candlemas is also a day of hope in nature in the Northern hemisphere, for it's halfway between winter and spring. Some parts of the United States have adopted the traditional German name Groundhog day, for the story goes that the groundhog on this day peeps out of its winter quarters and, if he sees his shadow, he pops back again for another six weeks. If it's cloudy outside, he remains out believing that the weather ahead will be moderate and spring is on its way.
Well the groundhog might make a better fist at predicting the weather than we do. Certainly on this groundhog day 2010 its difficult to know what to believe about climate change. It had become common place to believe that global warming was the major threat to life on earth - then the disappointing outcome to the Climate Conference in Copenhagen in December was followed by the coldest winter for a generation, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change admitted that it had made exaggerated claims about the melting of the Himalayan glaciers, and climate scientists at a British university are accused of attempting to suppress experimental results that don't fit their theory. Like the groundhog, having sniffed all of this, it's not at all surprising if we're tempted to bolt back underground and sleep through it all.
I suspect that this would be a mistake. Of course it's in our short term interests to be sceptical about all this talk of climate change. Then we don't have to take unpopular decisions to curb carbon emissions, or see higher energy bills, but in the long term this might well spell disaster for future generations. If we in our generation on this Candlemas day are to be a light to enlighten the nations we'd better stay alert, keep sniffing the evidence for climate change and then be prepared to live generously or even sacrificially for others. But that takes us back to the baby in the temple and the example of the life of the man he became."

Kevin McCloud's Channel 4 slumming it exposes how consumerism impacts on community

This programme I rate as the unmissable TV of the year 2010 so far;
it has prompted me to realise some of the implications of a statement like "shanty towns are the cities of the future" and start reflecting on 'High Tech Shanty towns' in this embryonic blog.

What can we learn from 'gift economies'?

I'm encouraged by the clarity in this article about some of the consequences of misunderstanding the relationship between (inefficient) barter and efficient gifting. I hope to make time to reply to some of the points in more detail soon: http://campfire.theoildrum.com/node/6160
Some of the comments I'll be making on gift economics will be on this twitterstream: http://twitter.com/gifteconomics

Responding to a freeconomy request for mountain bike tyres

Hi Cai
I'm gradually putting all I own on the freelender.org website; though it's many thousand items (each worth over THE MINIMUM VALUE OF £1) so it may take me some time. When I see requests on the freeconomy site, I sometimes put the requested item up next; so I have now listed a load of tyres. If your friend needs other things feel free to ask me. I will insist on operating through the freelender.org site (as I preparing a national publicity campaign and need to have more experience of the new freelender site in operation). If you are up for getting stuff in this way that's great; if not then that's really interesting to me too. I giveaway a limit of three items per visit to my place off the Gloucester Road (St Andrews Park); when I did this with Mark Boyle (the 'no money man')

 and others at Buddhafield Festival last year, the results far exceeded what I've seen from freecycling.

LetsAllShare.com live -and working great for me already!

I'm loving the look and feel of the Lets All Share site; as I collect presents for a dear 5 year old who comes to stay at mine most half-terms, who particularly loves trains, I plan to hope to collect a giveaway trainset on offer in London tomorrow.

Please feel free to distribute this Avatar-Freelender leaflet on behalf of all freelenders

•  Here's a link to the pdf file we produced of the leaflet text below
  
• Here's the Freelender Community Page, which also includes the link to the leaflet; feel free to distribute on behalf of all freelenders; either outside cinemas showing Avatar, or just through neighbours doors.
  

What difference does the James Cameron film Avatar encourage you to make to your life?

Who is the character in the picture: Neytiri or.........................................?

(other interpretations welcome on the shared Facebook discussion started by Paul Crosland on 12/1/10)

"The Na'vi have a closeness and community that we, in our solitary, high-tech squalor, have lost on earth.

If we learn nothing else, we must learn again to trust when everything in our diminished lives says we can't."

  "Avatar - An Activist Survival Guide" - request your free copy at freelender.org

Also available - 'The Age of Stupid' DVD.

Now that governments lacked courage in Copenhagen, the UK release of the 'Age of Stupid' is a call to reduce consumption. Reduced consumption can increase the quality of life if we become more consciously inter-dependent in our world (and less dependent on the well-being of an unsustainable economic system).

The 'Age of Stupid' (staring Pete Postlethwaite) film is about the world in 2055; though the exact date of that level of environmental and cultural destruction is of course dependent on what you do with this leaflet.

Who is the character in the picture: Neytiri or..........?(other interpretations welcome on the Facebook discussion started publically by Paul Crosland on 12th January 2010)

"I see you, I depend on you and I'm looking for something bigger than a 'win-win' outcome.

Let's work together for systemic win i.e. No losers." 

(Paul Crosland,co-director of Freelending Community Interest Company)

Whatever you want, ask to borrow it.

Whatever you have to share, offer it.

Gain friends and build trust locally.

freelender.org

-and also try these other UK wide (or wider) websites, all of which are being invited to join a consortium of community organisations with a mission of caring for how household resources are used:

• Freecycle UK - uk.freecycle.org
  
• Freegle UK - ilovefreegle.org
  
• Freeconomy - justfortheloveofit.org
  
• LetsAllShare - letsallshare.com
  

The money fix video

Starting to watch this; which comes recommended by people whose insight into economics and social change I rate highly. When will we get to the point whereby buying something that more than one person could use (without sharing the purchase cost or having checked out the ways you could get it for free) will be seen as a sign of being porly connected to others; something requiring remedial action by concerned individuals? Probably when the big economic collapse comes. (Come it will; I don't wish it on us; I just have a sense of how unsustainable current economic strategy is). And when will the big economic collapse be? Who knows? Someone else I know and respect predicts that in 2011 renting and hiring household items is going to make a whole lot more economic sense to people than it appears to now. Start freelending now, to build your freelender credit rating and establish connections strong enough to withstand the money you have losing its value. By lending out your stuff you are (through trust stats etc) creating a new measure of trust. Why have trust tied up in bank notes? Is it because we've not dared to imagine have the kinds of connections that diminish all our 'needs for money' whilst increasing our quality of life? Food is a need, warmth is a need, and more needs are listed here. Money is not a need; it's just a strategy for meeting our real needs whilst often creating distance.

Preparing for UK Aware in April

Let's all meet at the ethical living fair at Earl's Court -UK Aware- in April.

"UK AWARE 2010 tickets are now available for our Facebook group at just £6.00: http://bit.ly/cL7Q35 compared to £10 on our website or £15 on the door."

Community Resource Care Consortium - a vision for the near future

Comments on whether this vision might be achievable by April 2010 please?

The relationships between trust, money and connectivity

The key part of the issue of 'trust and happiness' referred to below that I'm interested in are the relationships between:

• trust
• money 
• connectivity

eg some people's connections are such that they have lived for 1-13 years without money (eg Mark Boyle & Heidemarie Schwermer respectively).
Those of us who use money are often shielded by the indirectness of the exchange (middle-men/middle-women) from any 'inhumane' consequences of our purchasing decisions.
Is this distancing, enabled by money, the root of unhappiness?
Money enables us to privatise our lives and whilst private transport/ entertainment / washing etc has its benefits, the loss of connectivity, sense of safety with others and trust, is surely a matter warranting review individually and collectively?
Are we served best by money? What does the hybrid look like?
-It would involve monetary exchange and sharing of goods and servicesin a way that built trust, humane treatement of all and respected both people's wishes for autonomy and community, which are present (in my humble opinion) in us all.
For me, I will trade some of the autonomy of money for the collectivity of Giving/Taking, Lending/Borrowing, Renting/Hiring, Selling/Buying Collectively. In this way my limited money will go further and the benefits of community will come more to the fore in my life.
Is this more idealistic and/or pragmatic in your opinion?

How building trust in communities builds happiness too

I've been listening to a lecture on happiness (given by Ratnaguna at the Manchester Buddhist Centre and available from itunes as a free podcast).
What was of greatest interest was the indication of research (that I haven't yet fully sourced; links welcome please) showing the methodology for measuring the level of trust in UK society and the corresponding levels of trust. The happiness lecture starts from Lord Leyard's well publicisied work and then goes to the sources from Selegman and from the author of 'Flow'. The trust/happiness relationship is the one I'm keenest to follow at present:
"It is Layard's contention that, during the past 50 years, consumer society has become dominant and yet happiness has declined. We are richer, healthier, have better homes, cars, food and holidays than we did half a century ago. Unemployment and inflation are low, and yet so are levels of reported happiness. This is due, he says, to a series of things - the break-up of the family, fractured communities, a loss of trust. "The same thing has happened in America, but it hasn't happened in the same way on the continent. I think this shows we are suffering from the extreme individualism that we have reported from America. We are unhappier as a resultLayard talks in simple ways about these problems. "People would be happier if there were nice people when they went outside. But there is little confidence that there are nice people out there. Here and in the US levels of trust have fallen from 60% to 30% in the past 50 years." (From article about the government's happiness tsar)

Will freelender.org be clearly able to demonstrate the increase in trust and happiness achieved over the next five years? (Within certain neighbourhoods, I reckon so).

Wise advice about refusing money which is offered in ways that don't work for you

I'm reading "Banker to the Poor" by Mohammed Yunus, and was moved and refreshed by the combination of "acknowledge and move on" that is contained in this exchange with someone who has receieved the wisdom of old not to borrow money:
'when my mother died the last advice she gave me was never to borrow from anybody. So I cannot borrow.'
'Yes, your mother was a wise woman, she gave you the right advice. But if she were alive today she would advise you to join Grameen. When she  was alive there was no Grameen project. She did not know anything about this experimental project. Back then there was only one source she could borrow from - the money-lender, and she was advising you rightly not to go to him, because he charges 10 per cent per month, or per week! But if your mother had known about us, she would definitely strongly recommend you to join us and make a decent living for yourself.'
(page 96)