Proposal for DU Freecycle group.

[Maddy McCall]

Mission Statement and Rules for DU Freecycle: The DU Freecycle group provides a forum for DUers to give away items they no longer need or to find items that others may be willing to donate. DU Freecycle works on an honor system that, if you take something, you also should post something as an offer.

DUers who post in the freecycle group agree to abide by the following rules:

1) No one can charge money for anything they offer, nor can they ask for a trade. What you offer is completely without strings attached.

2) DUers offering items that are inexpensive to mail will pay postage to send the item to the DUer accepting their offer. If the item will be costly to mail, they may request that the person accepting their offer pay postage. If the DUer lives close to you, you may make arrangements to deliver the item yourself, or have the DUer accepting your offer pick up the item.

3) All correspondence between parties in this forum must take place through PM, NOT on the message board. If someone offers an item you want, you must handle arrangements to accept the item and to transfer the item through private messaging, NOT on the board. The person offering the item has the final word in who gets what he or she is offering.

4) Don't be just a taker. If you accept offers, you should also offer items. Try to make your first post in this forum an offer instead of a wanted item.

5) Any inappropriate offer or wanted posts will be reported to the moderator and deleted. Repeated offenses will result in your banning from this group.

6) Because arrangements to ship items requires disclosure of identity, anyone participating in this forum agrees to keep other DUers' identities and personal information confidential.

Here's how people would post in the DU Freecycle Forum:

If you have an item to offer:

Thread title: OFFER-bird cage
Body of OP: Small bird cage to give away. Taker pays shipping.

Then, if someone is interested, they PM the person offering the cage, and the two work out arrangements. When the deal is finalized, the person who offered the bird cage goes back to the same thread and posts that the item has been taken.


Or it also works for wanted items:

Thread title: WANTED-All the President's Men/VCR
Body: Looking for ATPM on VCR to show my senior history class.

When someone offers the video to the poster, and all arrangements are worked out through PM, then the original poster goes back to the same thread and says that the item has been found.


**********************
Anyone interested in this group? If you want to help adjust mission statement or rules, by all means, please make suggestions.

[qnr]

1. Hmmm, sounds interesting, but I thought freecycle only wanted

local areas in a geographical sense. I could be wrong though. Or are you using freecycle in a generic sense?

[Maddy McCall]

2. We are modeling our group after Freecycle.

It won't be be listed with Freecycle. It's just for DUers.

[Debbi801]

3. I was wondering this too...

How would we get stuff to/from other members? Unless, we'd only be freecycling in our local area. I guess that could work, because there are a bunch of us in my state.

I think freecycling is great. I've given away a lot through the local organization.

Debbi

[Maddy McCall]

4. On smaller items, you could mail them.

On larger items, you could request pick-up or you could ask the person accepting the offer to pay postage.

Of course, if you are offering a TV or a couch, then the only people who would be able to pick up the item would be in your geo area.

[Debbi801]

10. Ok. Count me in, too.

[Maddy McCall]

13. Great!

I think we'll have ten shortly. :-)

[qnr]

5. OK, I'm in. n/t

[Maddy McCall]

6. Great! Now we need eight more!

I think this will be fun. I've got some books and videos to offer, and some small stuff that others may collect.

:toast:

[MarianJack]

7. I Have Just 1 Word For Your Idea, Maddy McCall,...

... :thumbsup: !

I don't know if I qualify to be in a group yet since I don't have my gold star, but since I'm expecting a nice offer (perhaps within the next 24 hours) that will change VERY SOON!

[Maddy McCall]

12. Cool! Hey, that brings up another point.

DUers can offer to buy stars for DUers without stars in the freecycle group. It's gonna be fun. :toast:

[madinmaryland]

8. Sounds cool!

I have a 10x10 storage area filled with crap that i'd love to get rid of!

[Book Lover]

9. Count me in!

I have more stuff than I need, and not enough of the baby/child stuff I will need (at least temporarily). Thanks for organizing this!

[New Earth]

11. this sounds cool

[Texasgal]

14. I often post on Austin-free cycle

I would be even more interested if I ws giving away things to my buds here on DU!

Count me in!

[Zing Zing Zingbah]

15. Interested...

but I'm not sure how the getting the other person to pay postage thing works. I won't give anything away if I have to pay to give it away. I have given lots of stuff away using the Orlando Freecycle group. I can always find someone in my area who wants something that will pick it up at no cost or inconvenience to me.

[Maddy McCall]

16. This is different because DU is not geographically defined.

If you have a book or video, you can send it media mail for a dollar or two. But if you have large items, then you would want the DUer to pick up the item. You could specify, "For Pick Up" only in your post. I don't think anyone would expect you to ship a TV to them. :D

We can play with the shipping part. If two people can work out arrangements through PM, then that's fine.

Edit: I have some campaign bumper stickers I will give away. I won't ask anyone to send me 35 cents to mail them to them...I would just pop a stamp on an envelope and mail them myself. That's what I am thinking when I say "smaller items."

[qnr]

17. I don't necessarily need someone to pay postage, I'd be willing for

them to make a minor donation to DU or an organization (maybe specifically of my choice), if the postage was over $5.00 or so.

[Maddy McCall]

18. That's an excellent suggestion.

:thumbsup:

[tjwmason]

19. It's a good idea but the name...

Over in freerepublic they take anyword which begins 're' and add an 'f' to it; so regards becomes freegards. When I first saw this I thought it was the freeper version of recycling (which rather puzzled me as that's not really their sort of thing).

[Zing Zing Zingbah]

21. I don't think there is anything wrong with the name.

A lot of people already know what the Freecycle is.

[kittycat1164]

20. count me in, I love the idea! n/t

[Maddy McCall]

22. Kick

Let's see if we can get a few more names on here before I post a link for Skinner's approval. :-)