freecycle

Freakaholic

not just an addiction
gah.

i was a member of the chicago section for a while. used my yahoo address, and it so clogged up my inbox that i had to leave.

its a good idea, but theres about 100 posts a day of people asking for things. and according to the rules, you cant post anything before you post an offer.

i stick to craigslist if i wanna look for something free.
 

sufi

lala
there's one on another forum that sorted me out with a nice hub, ta very much :)
it's still in the box actually - i feel a bit guilty about that, perhaps i should liberate it...

...anybody need a hub?
 

massrock

Well-known member
Politics and shenanigans

We are now called Freegle
============ ========= =====
Hi everyone

You'll notice that our group has changed our name, and this also means that our address has changed too.

What's changed for you?
============ ========= =

Nothing much. The home page looks a bit different, and the email address is new (and you have seen it at the top of this page) but other than that - all the rules are the same, all your moderators are the same, and our group is still GRASS ROOTS and LOCAL.

We're still dedicated to keeping things out of land fill, and the same moderation team are still here beavering away in the background helping to keep the group running smoothly.

WHY?
****

The main reason for our move is simple. While Freecycle is a GREAT idea, all our UK groups were basically forced to work under a system devised in and for the United States. Leaders of Freecycle in the UK spent more than two years talking with the main Freecycle Network trying to get the freedom to run things in a way more suited to our own country and our own laws. Nothing changed.

In July four leading members of our National UK Freecycle team resigned. Moderators around the country then formed an Independent Association of Freecycle Moderators and again tried talks with The Freecycle Network. But again to no avail.

Since then an increasing number of Group Owners and Moderators have been SUMMARILY DISMISSED from Freecycle including the former UK Director of Freecycle UK.

So we have decided to go our own way.

-----------------------------------------------------

Hi everyone

Thank you all for your patience and understanding during this transition from
Freecycle to Freegle.

We have received many emails from members who are very supportive, and other emails from members who want a bit more information on why wh had to move the group so quickly away from the Freecycle banner.

This decision was NOT taken lightly, and had the support of the whole mod team.

What members have been shielded from is an immense power struggle in the Freecycle organisation. We in the UK were being dictated to by just two people in the US. We wanted just a little autonomy in the UK to adjust some of the minor rules to fit local custom. We were also part of a UK charity but the directors were diverting the money (not a lot) to the US fund. No one as paid in the UK. Every one works voluntarily and expenses were never reimbursed however one director was paying themselves a salary. Anyone who questioned where the money was going or the imposed 'unwritten rules' (which changed as much as the wind did) were dismissed without counsel. It made no difference how much time you had given freely to the organisation. You were dispensable.

We as individual group owners were further shielded from what was happening further up the UK arm of the org by some very dedicated and long term members. In the end they (4 of them) resigned on mass as a protest. This included the UK director. It was only after the resignations that we got to see what was truly going on and the confidential information flowed out to the group owners.
The abuse we were suffering was beyond belief! In an attempt to show our feelings a very high proportion of UK owners and moderators formed an association in which we democratically elected 7 very trustworthy people to represent us in negotiations with the remaining 2 US board of directors. They failed to even acknowledge our existence! On the odd occasion where engagement took place and were very specific questions asked they avoided the subject and rambled on about something completely irrelevant.

What followed was a absolute disgrace! A new person promoted onto the board of directors was never elected. The resigning UK director was publicly removed from the organisation swiftly followed by anyone who had asked any awkward questions. This included the seven people who we, in the UK, elected to be our voice, and over 30 group owners, including from this group. This number continues growing. Needless to say this has sent shock waves through the dedicated owners here in the UK. It was therefore agreed by many that we could no longer maintain any relationship with a dictatorship organisation.

The outcome is we had to remove all wording that linked us the former
organisation i.e. Freecycle(R) . Failure to do that would have meant Freecycle's trade mark people would have instructed Yahoo to remove the group without warning.

From our members point of view nothing has changed and in general nothing will. WE WILL remain a group dedicated to keeping tangible items out of landfill by gifting, and WE WILL remain a comminuty for local people.

This all happened in an exceedingly short period of time. In order to stand on our own in a united way we needed a name. All UK moderators and group owners were invited to make suggestions. Many were very good but could not be used as they infringed on other organisations or were not available as a top level domain name. We had two separate votes in a period of 24 hours. The name needed to be simple and could be used as a verb. It has been agreed that we would review the name in the near future and, if necessary, change it to a much better name.

In the emails we have had from our members, the word Freecycling was used several times. If we used that word anywhere on our site we would have been instructed to remove it in no uncertain terms. If we didn't then we would have been considered troublesome and been delisted from Freecycle.org. Following that we would get an order to remove all copyright material and change our name. If we did not we would have been issued a Cease and Desist order. If we still made no change our group would be removed from Yahoo.
That is a prime example of how we were being treated.
I'm sure more of this will come out in the press over the next few days.

Please understand, if we had the opportunity we would have consulted the membership, but we had no choice. The only option we had was to just get on with it.

I hope this puts this into perspective.

There is an article in the guardian about this, not fully explanatory, but good all the same. It should be noted that in the article, Nan and the rest of the Freecycle leadership in the USA were very aware of exactly what was going on here in the UK, even though they deny it.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/green-living-blog/2009/sep/10/uk-freecycle-us-network

Kind regards, and thanks again for being part of this fantastic group.
 

Slothrop

Tight but Polite
I'm getting all the emails from our local branch. Not because I particularly want much stuff but because of the unintentional humour, particularly in the 'wanted' listings. Recent favourites have been "wanted: boat, for fishing. URGENT.", combining massive optimism with a strange concept of urgency, the guy who's posted the same 'does anyone have a gents bike they're not using' every day for the last fortnight, the person asking for guns and the person trying to fix her female dog up with a 'sire'.
 

john eden

male pale and stale
It's a good thing, we've got rid of some stuff to deserving homes through it.

And I think acquired some bits as well.

There is a problem with people leaping in and saying they want stuff, but not picking it up though. Could maybe do with some kind of ebay feedback thing.
 
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