Grow Your Own Magazine

i have totally lost faith in freecycle now
i'm in a place that's roughly the border of 3 different freecycle areas
i've given a few bits away on one of them but joined the other two so i could give away more - got tons of stuff to go

posted to one of the new groups the other day, asking for bike or pram wheels so kids can build go-karts - message rejected cos need to offer on that group before asking (have given away stuff on other freecycle groups)

so offered stuff on the new group today - messages rejected cos gotta lump different offers into one message (not a problem on other freecycle groups)

waited in all day for people to collect stuff i'd offered - no shows - and when someone did come round, he had bluetooth headset on and was asking what else i was giving away and "you've got my email so let me know" - gave me the impression he was just scrounging to sell stuff

offered some more stuff on new group this afternoon, but posted it on neighbouring group as well in case it got rejected by new group - new group rejected message for cross posting on other groups - i replied to admin saying i cross posted cos they keep rejecting my offer posts

offering stuff on freecycle (and it's not "junk", it's good stuff, sellable), is just too much hassle
could make money at car boot sale but that's hassle too and i want the stuff gone
a trip to the dump tomorrow is gonna feel soooo good

Ditto F_G. Ditto.

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Big silver bird, come land low and slow
Cut your engines, cool your wings,
You've taken me home...

www.honeyjukes.co.uk

woke up this morning to a pile of abuse from croydon recycle admin starting with "what a f***ing retard you are .... " - not the kind of thing i would expect from an administrator of any organiser of something like that
probably only got the balls to send that sort of abuse by email ......

i get 3 sacks of croypost for every trip i make to the dump ..... no fuss, no hassle ....

the guildford one seems ok, there are the occaisonal a***ole on there but in generaly no problems. you will always get the Wanteds for laptops etc but thats the nature of it s'pose, whatever the system people will abuse it. I posted a wanted ad for a piano stool for my middle daughter, have had one time waster reply and always miss out on the ones that get posted. it is amazing how, when they do appear and are taken the very next day one appears on ebay within 5 miles of Woking - funny that

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Kernow rag nevra http://www.cornishnotenglish.com/

The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits
Albert Einstein

Just be ordinary and nothing special. Eat your food, move your bowels, pass water and when your'e tired go and lie down. The ignorant will laugh at me, but the wise will understand
Bruce Lee

We have recently moved house and had given away loads of stuff during the past 3 months on freecycle. Also received a few really useful bits ( like an old wheelbarrow for our new garden ). No real problems so far, no abuse just one small brush with a slightly snotty moderator about posting things on your home site first ( had done and i thought you were supposed to be encouraged to re-home, re-cycle ?? )
But in general I think its all going a bit wrong, the good feeling is gone and humans being what they are, why am I surprised and disappointed?

well i did get an enquiry bout stuff from a bloke who i saw had given lots away on freecycle - he came and collected, nice chap - and he's offered me a footy goal for my son and he's starting to grow his own veggies so i've offered him seeds and seedlings and pointed him to this website
so not *all* bad ....

There are good and bad on Freecycle, as in all other areas of life.

I have one question: please don't be offended. If your stuff is sellable, why don't you sell it? on eBay?
I find the buyers are more serious on there, as they are parting with actual money, even if its only a quid (I recently Freecycled some junk, but had no takers, even after a month. Stuck it on eBay, just to see, and I got a grand total of £1.20 for an iron, £1 for an exercise bike, and 50p for a table. The most important thing was that I GOT RID OF MY JUNK, hurrah! and WITHOUT ANY REAL EFFORT). Sorry to shout.

BTW*
I get a little sick of the hectoring on freecycle, people moaning about other people who re-sell stuff (not that I do). If someone wants to sell the tatt that I can't be bothered with, then good luck to them. Its none of my business what they do with it, frankly. People take stuff out of skips, charity shops, the dump, what's the difference?

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~ What do I think of Western civilisation? I think it would be a very good idea ~ Gandhi

Agree with you there Two Sheds, if I don't want it then I don't care what somebody else does with it so long as they don't skip it as that would defeat the object. Not had many problems with our Freecycle (although there are a lot of greedy g*ts out there who think they can get a car or the like without paying and some of the sob stories annoy me!) but have some more stuff to get shot of so will have to see if it's deteriorated in the past few months.

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Some of us live in the past, always talking about back then. Some of us live in the future, always planning what we are going to do. And, then there are those, who neither look behind or ahead, but just enjoy the moment of right now.

Which one are you and is it how you want to be?

The group I'm on is mostly ok too. I've had a couple of no-shows but mostly I can get rid of stuff, or pick up a few useful items.

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I'd rather sit on a pumpkin and have it all to myself than be crowded on a velvet cushion.

http://hollandsroadparadise.blogspot.com
updated 14 May 2008

www.bradleyroundtwo.blogspot.com

I can see both sides to this one. The Freecycle I'm part of now is new and the one I originally joined was about 10 miles away and people didn't like it so I left

I'm now part of a much smaller local one and I've given away quite a few bits and the people have been lovely. I've had replies to my "Wanted please" request of a buggy when some a-hole stole mine from right outside the front door in the minutes it took me to nip back in and get the kids on the walk to school.

You get to know who to avoid too... it took me 3 attempts to deliver a fish tank to a guy (didn't feel comforatble giving my address for him to collect) which annoyed me because each time we specified a time and he promised to be there. On the third time his wife was in but he still didn't have the curtousy to be there himself. Needless to say when I offered my sofas up on there 2 weeks ago and he replied, he didn't get them.

Oddly enough I tend to look more at the 'Wanted' requests to see if I have something to help them out.

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Shortie

"There are only two lasting bequests we can hope to give our children; one of these is roots, the other wings" - Hodding Carter

the no shows and scroungers are annoying - but it's the overall hassle and the abuse from an admin that put me right off

That email you received was definitely out of order

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I'd rather sit on a pumpkin and have it all to myself than be crowded on a velvet cushion.

http://hollandsroadparadise.blogspot.com
updated 14 May 2008

www.bradleyroundtwo.blogspot.com

We've been plagues by emails like this on our freecycle groups - all but one has come from a spammer, not a genuine mod.

Try contacting one of the other mods and keep the email for evidence.

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Live for something or die for nothing

I've never had a problem with people collecting, but I guess being in a good sized town I have lots of choice when it comes to picking a new home for my unwanted bits (it's amazing how rude some requests can be though!).

My main gripe is people asking for unreasonable things, including a car (with MOT, if you please) and a furnished flat.

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Resistance is fertile

i have only recently found freecycle and have managed to offload loads of stuff from the loft much to my hubbys glee. every wanted i put on has never been answered and the moderators seem to pick on me for not listing properly, cross listing, etc,etc,etc when i have done everything correctly and two seconds later lo and behold the same thing has happened with someone else and thye keep doing it. why me?
i used to ebay a lot but when the postage hiked up people didnt want to pay for stuff. same goes with car boot sales and with the amount of travellers, and non english speaking residents local to me (not meant to be offensive) it either goes for nothing or gets nicked.
i love the idea of freecycle but do think theres a lot of people who just grab everything and probably dont actully want it.
joolz x

hello

I have just joined freecycle this week and replied to an offered post for some small garden pots. I will keep you posted and see what happens.

WANTED: plastic propergator can you help?

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Cath

not all groups are bad, ours is thriving at 1000 members, and thats in scunthorpe which is hardly an eco/recycling hub. in regards to rules on freecycle groups... i used to run ours and while the rules may seem annoying and pushy they are there for a reason and they DO help the group run more smoothly (I admit i was a bit of a half assed mod, since someone with more energy than me took it over and cracked down the group has run a lot more smoothly). A good example of this is the strictness of what can and cannot be posted ... oftopic stuff while just a 'one off' to you becomes a flood for a group of that size ... excessive wants simply aren't allowed, so people don't get p*ssed off with repeated requests for Wiis, cars and IPods.

I've offered and received plenty of items from there. 2 sets of brand new curtains for our cold house, a hoover (after a desperate 'want' - ours broke down while we were totally skint), packaging materials including polystyrene for pot drainage, books etc. I've given away toys including lego, scales, an envelope of various packs of seeds (boring ones that nobody on here wanted ) etc etc. None of it is big excessive stuff... just little bits and pieces.. which is probably why I do so well on there.

I always specify in my 'offers' when items need to be picked up, and that anyone who buggers about (no shows, rude people, etc) will be promptly reported to the mod. Yes, it sounds arsey, but TBH i put a heck of a lot of work into starting the group so I feel I have the right Blunt emails like 'I'll take it', 'ring me on xxx' 'i'll take it all' get ignored, simple as that.

Despite all this? I still love freecycle. If you can learn how to use it 'properly' (by that I mean ignoring the irritating people ) it can be a total goldmine, especially for useless cr*p which most people would bin but enterprising lottie-rs can reused

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I am the Administrator of Croydon Freecycle, Whilst surfing about I stumbled across this thread. Everyone is entitled to their opinions, but it is much better when the thread is totally truthful. I have copiped and pasted some of the so called issues and responded to them.

There are no issues with a member joining three local groups, providing they are in fact local, the problem is when a member crossposts simulataneously to all groups. If this occurs, the member is advised, if it continues, then after a while they will be removed. We do not have the time to keep on repeating the same thing to individuals.

This is the downside of multi group signups, we can not spare the time to cross reference other groups to see if you have made offers elsewhere. Each group is individual, it clearly states on the 1st page that an offer has to be made to this group prior to requesting, also thereare rules and guidelines sent to you when you join, had you not agreed with them, you should not have signed up to the group.

This clearly displays your ignorance as everthing so far is detailed within the rules and guidelines, often alongside an explanation as to why the rules exist. Yahoo groups are email based, not the ideal platform for an organsiation such as Freecycle, but unfortunately we have no choice other than to use this. if you have half a dozen items to offer, it is stated that it should be sent as ONE email, Labelled Offer: Various Items (1st Part Post code), this helps keep the sheer quantity of mail down, on a group with many thousand members, the messages quickly mount up. because of your failure to actually read the rules, which were labelled (Read before making a post to group) or something similar at that time, you start to spout off negative reports, which are in fact your own fault. As with any forum, group, org, there are rules, the rules are there for a purpose, if you fail to read them, how does it become our fault? So far you have stumbled on all the main rules, as well as tried to debate them, we will help and guide where we can, but if someone continues to take up lots of admin time, then it becomes an issue.

No shows I agree are annoying, we can only act when we are advised and we give a one hit and out unless there is a genuine good reason. As for selling, some think it is ok, some dont, personally i beleive that if someone wanted it sold, they would do so themselfs, we put the vote to our members, they agree, so we do not entertain sellers.

Again, all explained in the rules, you failed to read fchelp.co.uk explains fully and why.

If your aim was truely green, you would know thereare plenty of options aside from Freecycle, Gumtree, the great giveaway to name a couple, charity shops, so a trip to the dump will make you feel sooo good.....then why did you join FC in the first place?

======================
Due to the amount of emails dealt with on a daily basis it is hard to reflect fully on this. We are volunteers, if we receive abusive mail, we will respond accordingly. I can categorically state that the phrase you mention above is not a term I use, maybe you can show some hard evidence? (Doubtful). If I had something to say, believe me, if I say it in Email, I would say it to your face. Your criticism is unjust, are you too shallow to accept that perhaps if you read the rules, you would not have had any issues, can you not be man enough to accept you are the one at fault?

No idea what your on about there


In future just be truthful, you may feel better for it. Our group is heading towards 5000 members, we came second as highly commended in the Croydon Green awards, if our group was as bad as you attempt to make out, this would not have been acheivable, as the results are by way of public voting, we was up against many other orgs as well.

I doubt I will be back to visit this thread, but it is down to the members here to read and come to your own conclusion. The only time we get members who are upset is when they continually flout the rules and they are removed from the group, or they are caught out abusing the system. Overall we strive to make the group fair, safe and as pleasant as can be. When ever in a position of enforcing rules, therewill always be times when you are made out to be the ogre, little hitler etc.

Regards

Admin Croydon fc

*cheers*
well said.

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I have to say that (as a freecycle mod myself), I agree with what fccadmin's said, but not in the tone they used at all.

Every freecycle group has slightly different ways of working things - the mods have usually been doing it for a while and know what works for their particular group - so if you join multiple groups, be sure to read the etiquette file for *all* of them, and don't be surprised that while one group might be more lenient, another may stick to their stated guidelines more closely.

I've noticed around our way, one group allows animals to be 'freecycled', whereas most of the others don't. The best way, as you say, is to read the guidelines, and let's face it, even if things don't work out quite as we'd like, let's just be grateful for all the stuff that does find new homes instead of in landfill. (I'm sure the animals wouldn't end up at the tip )

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I could not live without a garden, it is my place to unwind and recover, to marvel at the power of all growing things, even weeds!

http://potagerplot.blogspot.com/