Freegle Reps Report 2012-09-16

Up to 30/9/12

STRATEGY

Cumbria Action for Sustainability

We were delighted to hear that the SustainEden partnership were one of 10 winners for Big Lottery money and they will receive £955,000 over 3 years. The details of what Freegle needs to do now are being discussed by the Reps and on Structure and some legal advice has been obtained. Chris is liaising over Public Liability Insurance.

Edward has signed the Contract and Agreement. He has done so in a personal capacity; specifically he has assumed personal liability for this contract.

The Reps have decided that the CAFS project should be regarded as a national pilot project for Freegle income, and one aspect of this is consideration of whether we need a legal entity to limit personal liability.

A Yahoo group has been set up to discuss the details. The members are:

Edward (IT development)

Chris (Penrith Freegle/IT)

Sian (Rep observer)

Cat (Media advisor)

Jacky Barrett

Jane Loveday (Freegle Treasurer)

Peter Clarke (Director of CAFS, Observer for CAFS and PACT and IT)

Equality and Diversity Policy

We agreed with Structure’s recommendation to adopt this as Freegle policy. Equality_and_Diversity_Policy

PUBLICITY

Helen’s Run

Big thanks to Helen of Stirling City Freegle and Tower Hamlets Freegle who is running for Freegle on 21 October.

http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/HelenFreegle

She’s raised £425 (£517.50 with gift aid) so far

The House that Kevin Built

A very exciting project that Cat is involved with. She started working on the project as Waste Coordinator in August Local Freegle groups will be used to obtain things like toothbrushes, video tapes, polystyrene, DIY materials, and other unusables for the build.

http://arts.brighton.ac.uk/business-and-community/the-house-that-kevin-built

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/oct/03/brighton-waste-building-project-grand-designs

Thanks to Cat - a great opportunity for publicity for Freegle.

Business Cards

We were very pleased that so many groups took up the offer of business cards and ordered another batch of 5,000. The demand exceeded our stocks so we had to restrict the numbers sent to some groups so that every group that made a request received some.

Posters

Ollie has produced customised poster designs for each group. http://www.ilovefreegle.org/poster/index.html

Waste Less, Live More Week

http://wastelesslivemore.com/

1. WasteLessLiveMore

We agreed to register as a Supporter. Cat went to the launch in London on 17 Sept

Scottish Green Awards

Cat nominated Freegle in the Best Green Community Initiative category and we were finalists. They gave us a ticket for the award ceremony so Edward attended, but unfortunately we didn’t scoop the gong.

Great Recovery

Cat went to the launch of the Great Recovery. The is the RSA and technology strategy board inititiative to promote circular economy and reuse.

http://www.greatrecovery.org.uk/

StreetGrowers

http://streetgrowers.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/going-for-freegle-gold.html

have given us some great publicity.

We can follow them on Twitter @streetgrowers

Brighton Argus Achievement Awards

All Sussex Freegle groups were nominated by Cat for an Argus Achievement Award and the Brighton group has been nominated by someone else. Three (of the 5) nominees become finalists. The Awards are at the end of October.

http://www.theargus.co.uk/yourargus/argusachievementawards/index/

• • Nominations are now closed, the following People/ Projects have been nominated:**

Freegle, Green Cycle Sussex, Nicola Cunningham, Peter Knight, Climate Connections.

FUNDING

www.freegle.it/accounts

Annual Accounts

The annual accounts have been signed by the Auditor, Jean, Ely.

Nesta

Cat has submitted 2 applications for this Nesta prize (England only)

http://www.nesta.org.uk/areas_of_work/challengeprizes/givingchallenges/assets/features/waste_reduction_challenge_prize

1) resource coordinator for Brighton

2) mobile phone app for Freegle (trial in England)

OTHER

WRAP Reuse Form

Cat went to a WRAP Reuse Forum meeting in Banbury on 5th September, mainly to help develop the governance of a National Reuse Steering Group and contribute to recommendations for Defra about reuse - forming the agenda for a meeting with Defra in London on 8 October.

Olympic Waste

Cat has been negotiating to get 2 shipping containers of waste from the Olympics and offered Freegle to http://www.nisp.org.uk/ as a channel to help shift stuff once they have exhausted their channels.

Complaints

We have received complaints about inappropriate/abusive emails being sent to Freegle members from volunteers and are discussing how best to respond in these cases.

Masters Thesis

We agreed that we would promote an academic survey for Andrew Norris, Sheffield Hallam University. He was very pleased with the responses he received and will send us the results which hopefully will be of benefit to us as well.

IT

We agreed to the addition of an extra RAM node to our secondary server.

AGM

This will be run in the same format as last year from Sunday 19 November to Sunday 25 November 2012 with Edward as Chairman.

Inactive Groups

We continue to investigate reports of inactive/abandoned groups and report to Central as appropriate.

Sad News

We have heard some very sad news. Russ, owner of Bracknell Freegle, passed away. We would like to extend our heartfelt sympathies to his family, friends and all those who worked alongside him.



Back to Freegle Representative Group or Freegle Reps Report 2012-08-16