Having a more connected (and less expensive) Christmas this year.

Merry Christmas …..........
If you bought me a present, many thanks. If you haven't, that's fine. I'm doing some major de-cluttering and I hope that you can help? It might be a bit confusing at first when I say that without spending any money this Christmas, I'm giving you twice the normal amount I'd spend on presents. You might also be annoyed if I mention freelender.org once again. The name is annoying at times, because it doesn't convey all of what's going on here. I simply want you to take whatever of mine you want, up to the value of  £x. Only some of my stuff is on the website, and you might prefer to talk with me about books and films and CD that you like, so that I can help you select a few of mine.
I'd prefer a phone conversation; but if you want to look on-line you only have to press 'Search'. What happens then is that all my stuff (everything in BS7) comes up (Books, CDs, DVDs and General Items). If there isn't something in the list of general items, then I'm confident that a phone conversation will help us find something I have that could be useful to you. The best number to reach me on now is Zero-78-Zero 70 66 202, and I'll be able to call you back, thanks to the generosity of the friends who bought me the new freelender iphone.
I dearly wish you a prosperous new year that costs you less and improves the quality of life for us all.
With love,
Paul

Simon just sent thanks to freelender for the highlight of his summer festival

"Thanks for the best wishes paul...my time in the freelender tent (read: comedy tent) was the highlight of my festival" (Simon)

(NB Here's the link to the interview I did with Simon about his lending and borrowing. Interviewing Simon with his preganant partner brought out some amusing differences of approach to looking after the family resources,and it was all undertaken with such good humour and a sense of the surreal that this conversation produced the most laughter I've had all year. Maybe it was one of those 'you had to be there' moments -lasting 20 minutes. Thank you Simon)

Copenhagen & Generosity

"It is now evident that beating global warming will require a radically different model of politics thatn the one on display here in Copenhagen" (John Sauven, executive director of Greenpeace UK)

"Generosity is right at the top of the list of six perfections for a very good reason, which is that our natural tendency is not to give, but to take. If any new proposition comes up...our usual reaction, at least half-consciously, is 'What's in it for me?'-(truncated Sangharakshita)

User feedback on the freelender site as it currently is came back with the message that "it should just be simplified to two buttons: 'I want to lend' and 'I want to give'. If Edmund and I follow this kind of advice, and record over the coming years the number of people chossing each of the two options, I wonder if post-Copenhagen the number seeing the importance of giving will slowly outstrip the number taking?
I do of course need takers so that I can give; and I need givers, so that I can live.

'(N)either a borrower or a lender be'? That is the question.

I find myself in a number of conversations which refer back to the words that Shakespeare put into the words of Polonius in the play Hamlet: "neither a borrower or a lender be". Most productions of Hamlet that I've seen (and I've seen a few as it was a favourite A level text for me), play Polonius as a bit of an unwise old man dispensing words that he's heard but that have little value to offer his son, Laertes. (Of course, Polonius was referring to money, and my main interest is in borrowing & lending our possessions to each other as a way to evolve consumerism into a more responsible custodianship of limited resources, enabling us to have the opportunity to develop more global justice i.e. to all ive with dignity.)

The phrase 'neither a borrower or a lender be' is one I've been reflecting on further, as I can imagine others saying this to me. I would say that this phrase has (largely) outlived its usefulness. What the attitude behind that phrase produced (which some would call miserliness and some would call protecting one's gains) was a society in which only the most plausible ideas would get venture capital. (What was lost by not supporting requests for borrowing which didn't seem grounded is difficult to tell). Without borrowing or lending of possessions, most people felt some odd compulsion to "Keep up with the Jones" and buy a similar set of articles to those which the neighbours had and which the neighbours only used for a small part of the time eg car, lawn-mower, leisure equipment, collection of films and books etc. The compulsion to own so much led to longer hours of work, degraded family life and community life; not to mention the massive environmental cost which is finally being recognised as a threat to our survival as a species. Comments please, as there is a lot more to learn about the usefulness at times of prudence with our stuff and also about how to make calculated risks to lend for the benefit of all.

Continuing to build-trust and clarity within the non-buying sector

Edmund and I are looking forward to meeting up with two of the key individuals behind letsallshare.com, Stas Murzynowski and David Marrinan-Hayes, acutely aware that Freelending CIC represents both potential collaboration and competition. Walking the talk of responsible sharing is our current challenge and this is today's email from Edmund:

"The meeting is one in which we'll no doubt get more of a sense of each other's projects and where we are at with them. The common ground between us is clearly that we've each spent a lot of time/money developing something that we think will be really valuable once it is widely known and used within a specific geographic area.

Paul and I acknowledge that there is a potential mix of competition and/or collaboration between Freelending CIC and LetsAllShare Ltd. Consequently, we may well want to keep some things private until we've generated some more trust. We are keen to generate some trust between us, and believe that this could well link in with the trust-building messages we put out to our potential users.

We've identified a whole list of things that we imagine that we could offer to your organisation, and, that you could offer to us, either as competitors or collaborators. You might well come up with something similar!  We will be glad of the opportunity to explain the potential for cross-over in the context of our agreed meeting."

Something more sustainable than Buy Nothing Day

Am I the only one with an ambivalent attitude to the Buy Nothing Day on 25th November 2009 in UK?
My intention is to do my shopping tonight (i.e the night before), so that I still have food to share at a training event tomorrow, but if I don't make it to the shops tonight, the sharing would be more important than the not-buying tomorrow.
I intend to start 'buy nothing day' tomorrow by adding 50 items (probably CDs and/or tools) to the most local (and flexible) library I know -freelender.org, so that there are some ways in which others can be supported to save money and share more.
In terms of the big picture, the imperative of our time is to consume less and to share more.By doing this I am confident that we will improve our quality if living. There's quite possibly no other way.Consuming less doesn't close down all businesses; only the wasteful ones.
I tweet about once a week about the vocation involved in finding a sharing response to the interesting times in which we live -try following this occasional twitter-stream.

FL comment on Government Watchdog calling for 20% of household purchasing to be replaced by hiring (i.e. £148 billion a year)

I added beneath the Times Story on-line : Stop shopping, rent your wardrobe and save the world, the following comment:

I'd like to offer a range of places that people can go to start renting and hiring out their stuff -and also doing it for free if that way works better for people in their neighbourhoods. Many links to further information are provided at freelender.org.
(The work of Freelending Community Interest Company, of which I'm a director, is partly to bring coherence to what are presently a range of ideas requiring more pioneers sharing their learning about how to shift from consumerism to sharing.)

Today's letter to LetsAllShare.com

Dear Stas

We have been working in the area of web-based sharing for more than two years now, and have established the Freelending Community Interest Company and developed a wide range of freemium models for sharing.
We heard of your site through the Guardian Freegle story and read about you on the web. We enjoyed filling in your on-line survey, and noting how similar it was to the questions we asked in our detailed market research.
LetsAllShare appears to us to be a very well-thought through site.

We value collaboration and seek it out, where it works to everyone's advantage. We'd like some open discussions about what possibilities there are for co-existing in this field of work in a mutually beneficial way. Amongst our activites so far, we have already formed a partnership with another UK lending site which has over 10,000 users. The live site that we will shortly take to the next level is at www.freelender.org.

We suggest a meeting in December (which may or may not still be your intended re-launch month); the best days for us are Monday 14th pm or Wednesday 16th am; and we'd be happy to come to see you in Wimbledon.
Wishing you all the best with your re-launch plans,
yours sincerely,


Paul Crosland & Edmund Johnson
(Directors, Freelending CIC)

'Wellies Reunited' -matching is all we do

The Freelender.org database can (theoretically) be used by anyone wanting to offer or find anything. When freelender ran a tent at a festival this summer, we saw that people were losing their wellies. (This was because of the requirement to take wellies off in a number of other big tents; and in the dark, people walked away wearing the wrong wellies). Thus, we used our freelender base to run a "Wellies Reunited" event; a kind of wellies amnesty and pick-up point. It required people with wrong or missing wellies to turn up at the same place at the same time.
The directors of Freelending CIC have many big ideas about how innovative ways of providing a matching function can be undertaken online. Join in one of our numerous (themed) monthly meetings and we'll share more about the difference that matching technologies could make to all our lives, reconnecting us, saving resources and more.

Compensation payment on freelender -the first story

I've been asked about the 100% satisfaction rating by freelender users, and also about the compensation payment that was made. The story is as follows:
Freelending CIC ran a tent at a summer festival (Buddhafield.org). Amongst the many things lent out to people never met before & with no deposit were Wellington Boots.
What happened?
1) On the return date the borrower returned to the tent wearing a non-matching pair of Wellingtons.
2) Both parties had previously (at the time of lending) agreed the value of the Wellingtons (£10)
3)The borrower gave his email address and agreed to pay the £10 into the bank as compensation.
4) The money was paid into the bank the following week
5) 100% satisfaction was recorded with all lending done at Buddhafield Festival by festival goers and by Freelending CIC.

Raised Profile of Freelender on Great Turning Times

At present, freelender.org is looking to have people register and to offer what they can. In November, the fully functioning site is expected to be running.
Meanwhile Chris Johnstone has advertised our work in the August edition of Great Turning Times, alongside that of the Freeconomy, with whom we work. Great Turning Times's is a newsletter that's well worth reading.

The pleasure of adding DVDs to freelender

Pay it forward trailer

La Veuve de Saint-Pierre

This morning, adding the films I am willing to lend to other freelenders i.e all my films, I realised there was at least a threefold pleasure in just typing them in:

1. The pleasure of summarising in just 30 words or so what each film means to me.
2. The pleasure of offering something I've enjoyed to others
3. The pleasure of imagined browsing through others comments about their list of books, films etc, and then picking-up the themes of mutual interest on the threshold of my or their door.

Is this is a new development for social networking, or just a better way to do it, by lending it forward?

Housing Associations looking at freelender

There has been interest from a large housing association and we have written up a proposal that might achieve it's quickest result in terms of tenants sharing more children's equipment (pushchairs, clothes, toys), either by lending or giving in a chain. What else people most want to borrow and how to obtain it will also be researched in the plan -which can be previewed here.

"being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one"

From this morning's radio programme on Volunteer Vision, I relished the insights into the organisation 'Tools for Self Reliance' with Glyn Roberts.
Also the following heart-resonating George Bernard Shaw quote:
"This is the true joy in life...being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one...being a force of Nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy...I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as long as I live it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can. I want to be used up when I die. For the harder I work the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no brief candle to me. It's a sort of splendid torch which I've got to hold up for the moment and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations." (‘Dedicatory Letter’ from Man and Superman, written by George Bernard Shaw.)

I hope you join in with the philosophy -Buy Less, Share More, Build Community- freelender.org .

Other relevant newstories, including Something Understood on 'Buying and Selling' here

Three Freelending Websites to be aware of:

freelender.org -the main public-facing site
freelenders blog -the main repository of stories (where you are now)
freelend wiki -the main planning of how we combine technologies with transitional cultural change".

Preparing to market generosity at the 16th July 2009 (Buddhafield festival) launch of freelender.org

Next time you think of buying something, what would it be like to get it for free instead?
My favourite way to get things for free is borrowing them.
Are you one of the people who recognise just what a potential difference it makes if we really get serious about borrowing responsibly?
Whatever your experience of borrowing & lending, वे believe that you have significant knowledge that would help create the cultural change for which we yearn.
It would be incredibly helpful for us all if your share your experience of borrowing & lending for our mutual learning and for planning to live in a better world.

(Our emerging market research into borrowing & lending is being co-ordinated by the marketing group which you are welcome to consider joining here )

“There's nothing I own that can't be borrowed”(freelender member 'director007')

Thank you also to Mark Boyle for joining freelender.org at Buddhafield and offering his workshop on "Freeconomy & “living without money”.