Freecycle requests: ATBU?

[mamamea]

From the last few days:

"hi there i dont believe my luck this week but my telly has just broken down and
i am using my little portable one at the mo . i am skint till next pay day and
wondered if anyone had a spare 32 or bigger screen telly i could have .. maybe
if you upgrading to newer telly or had one lying about .. it would be very
appreciated .."

Plenty of TVs going, but 32" or bigger?

"WANTED - DISHWASHER

Our machine has just broken and is beyond repair - we have a new kitchen coming
but not until November could anyone save us in the interim as we don't want to
have to end up buying two."

Can't do washing up even for six weeks?

"WANTED please CAR or VAN

A friend of mine is out of work and would like to have a VEHICLE in good
condition, so that he could accept a job with a company that requires him to
have his own CAR or VAN..."

Lend him yours then....

"I want a Nintendo for my daughter but does not have the funds in these financial
times that we live in. Her birthday is in October, but I would like to get it
before that if possible.Thanks for anyone that can help in regards to that"

Nintendo what? Wii? You should be so lucky. 15 year old Super Nintendo ? Quite possibly.

Everytime I offer something I say to myself "I will let the first person who replies have it."

And almost without fail, the first person always just replies something like: "I can use this, when can I pick up?"

So I change my criteria to "I will let the first person who replies and says PLEASE have it."

And although collectors have always been nice and said thanks, they have NEVER posted the "received" message they are supposed to.

[wants the whole world to appreciate her generosity emoticon]

Chickbean, you'd get on so well with ds... he's obsessed with the postamn's elastic bands! We've missed buses countless times because he has to pick up every one he sees!

Balloonslayer people arent meant to post a recieved in response to an offer
Arghh that doesnt make sense, will try again

OK, If you do
OFFER-Item- location and someone takes it you do a TAKEN -item- Location

If someone does a WANTED-Item- Location then they should do a RECEIVED -Item- Location

Does that make sense?

Oh and definately post the wanted for an oven tray, especially if you dont mind waiting aweek or so and say that in your WANTED post, as there maybe someone whose cooker is being dumped over next few weeks

mustrunmore - you must be glad that they've been told to stop dropping them! Though I have noticed that they are creeping back onto the pavements. Does he do anything with them?

Okay, normally I think that these threads are a bit unkind. But a Wanted Notice this morning made me snigger:

Wanted: a Wooden baby doll's cradle.
Not plastic, you know, but must be wooden.

I never know the etiquette on saying Who I'll 'Let' have something. What I really want to post is:

"I will give it to the first person who is truly local (not coming from half way across the county) and who knows that they really WILL turn up soon to collect it, on the day and approximate time when they say that they will. NO TIME WASTERS PLEASE!!"

Is that way OTT? I haven't posted it yet, but I want to...

Yeah, he hangs them on the door handle of our front door . Oh, and we nearly had to buy a new washing machine, till we found out the non-working was caused by elastic band round the pump

clop
You could just tick the fair offer policy ?
It says something like
'I will wait a suitable length of time to give people on daily digest a chance to see this and then offer'

You absolutely dont have to give it to the first person. I did an ADMIN the other day on exactly this

'No member should ever feel pressured to give their gift to anyone
other than who they choose. Be that the 1st reply, the 5th, 21st or
100th! Or the nearest, most needy or nicest! It is always YOUR choice
and you never have to explain why you made your choice.'

HTH

I don't think there's anything wrong with asking atall. As long as you are polite and also offer items yourself, then why can't you ask?? There's no harm in it. If you don't ask you don't get.

At the same time, I do understand where you are coming from OP. It's people who ask for flatscreen tellies that get on my nerves. We have a basic TV, nothing fancy but not sure how I'd feel about asking for a 42" on freecycle

When I post offers I usually end up offering the first person who asks and end up frequently regretting it. I think it's perfectly reasonable to decide your own criteria for yourself. When I gave some records away I did make positive decisions on giving to people who I believed had a real affection for that particular music, as I had replaced the records on CD and was unlikely to play them, but wanted the recipients to care.

Clop, maybe you should post about your policy, or do you have a discussion subgroup where you could talk about it?

Or a toned down version -

I really want to offer this to the most deserving person but will prioritise polite people who live in my area and let me know they can come to get it as soon as possible. It would be great if you could turn up when you say you will.

Recently I've been given nappies twice - mainly because both lots were too big for newborn babies, I think it helped that I explained I am trying to move over to using them and would try to pass on anything again that I didn't or couldn't use, or if appropriate when I've finished with it.

I've probably ended up messing people around a couple of times - with 2 under 3s and no car, sometimes I'm interested in something but life gets in the way of collecting. I think I try to let people know, but if one of them was you and I didn't, I'm very sorry.

I have also hung on to a small number of WANTED posts which I think I might be able to help on, mainly for baby stuff, while I work out whether I actually can.