Can anyone tell me about Freecycle?

[notnowbernard]

Have joined (read about it in a book) but don't really know what I'm doing!

You should get some welcome emails from the moderator soon after joining that will tell you all you need to know.

The general principle is the same nationally but local groups have different rules on certain issues such as whether you can offer unwanted pets etc

You will start to receive emails (LOTS!) from people who have stuff to give away. You respond if you are interested. Or send an email yourself if you have things to give away. the network I'm on has instructions about how to post, etiquette etc - should be on the website.

Freecycle is ace - have cleared out loads of my unwanted stuff and got some wonderful things from others.

You offer things you no longer want for free ,people email you and you choose who to give it to and they pick it up.

If you see something offered you want you email and ask for it or you can post asking for something and see if anyone has one going spare .
HTH

i did start with loads of emails, but now have a newsletter or somethign with all the offers enclosed. unfortunately that means some thigns are gone, but if you are home during the day and can cope with hoards of emails, (probably 10?) that might suit you?

Sure. You will get emailed Wanted and Offered posts, browse through them, if anything offered takes you fancy, reply to the person saying you're interested, ask if the item is still available and (I always find this helps) offer an idea of how soon you can collect it. Add your phone number at the end of the message but don't actively ask them to call you as some people find this cheeky! Please and thank you's go without question (surprising how many people don't ask politely though!)

If they email/call you back offering it to you, then take their address and arrange a time to collect.

Place a wanted ad by going to the freecycle group you're on, and clicking the "post" tab. Always write the title like "Wanted: Table" no extra info. Then people will respond to you as above.

Place an offered ad in teh same way but always put a location in brackets at the end of the title, as it saves people just emailing to ask how far away from them you are.

Then, after you have given/taken, write a Recieved or Taken post to let people know stuff is gone, and thank the giver/taker in the bod of the post.

HTH!

Generally etiquette (at least on our group) is to get started with an offer email.

Fantastic way to pass on junk things you no longer need.

Have fun.

Thanks!

Normally give to charity shops, but have got bits of furniture etc that I want rid of

Sounds like a great concept... do people ever abuse it though? I think in my local group you can only post 3 'Wanted' a month

i spose that's the chance you take, you would hope they would make use of your piece of furniture rather than bootfair it, and i think there are unreasonable offers and wanteds sometimes

Set your computer so that you go to the Freecycle site to read the offers and wanteds etc. I don't know why I didn't do that sooner...I used to get hundreds of e mails every day and spend hours reading and deleting...now it's MumsNet

I think what I'm drawn to is the environmental aspects (you know, avoiding stuff just being dumped in landfills etc)

If a sad bastard wants to spend time trawling internet sites for free goods offered in good will and then flog them for his personal gain, so be it... Karma and all that

Thanks for all the info

Solo, if you want to get a bit techy and organised with your freecycling, you can set filters on your yahoo account so that your freecycle emails go straight into particular folders rather than clogging up your inbox.

First, create a folder for your emails to go into by clicking "Add" on the folders menu on the left and typing in "Freecycle emails" or whatever you want to call it.

Then go to "Options" select "Filters" and on that page click "Add" then type in a filter name like "freecycle"

Then in the subject field, type in the name of your freecycle group exactly as it appears in the emails, including the square brackets.

Then at the bottom, select the folder you want those emails to go into, and click "Add Filter"

I have seperate folders and filters for Wanteds and Offered's so I can quickly browse through and delete them.

Have just realised, I signed up using the Yahoo address but used my full name to do so. Now I have sussed out how it works, I don't really want my actual name used!

Can I change the Yahoo name or will I have to re-join?

yes, i thought that myself - does it matter?

but i spect you can change your name

Slarty, do you mean 'does it matter' if I'm using my real name?

yes i do, but i don't know how to do - unless you set yourself up another email account

I might e-mail the moderators or something, or just try and set up using a new posting-name

I'm a bit funny about needing to remain anonymous (work reasons)

you could leave and join again, i left, when i thought my name showed, now i realise, well i think i realise, it doesnt.

Hang on, do you mean you've used your real name in your email address, as in racheljones at yahoo.com, or do you mean you gave your real name when you signed up for the address? cos you can change THAT easily.

Just go to "options" then "general preferences", and change whatever is in the "From name" box to whatever you want people to know you as.

JATGB, thank you for explaining that. I could never work it out tbh. I still don't want hundreds of daily F/C emails in my inbox/folder etc, so find it easier to go into the sites individually and check it out.

I will keep those instructions though, as I'd like to try it with other sites. Thank you!

we have a local version, called swapshop, basically it's an email circulation list, comes once a week on which people post offers/wants- has the advantage that all is local s can be easily collected, plus fascinating to see what people are throwing out/looking for!

There's also Free To Collect which are all regional areas, much like Freecycle.

And don't forget GumTree, they have classifieds and freebies I understand.

If you're in London, join your local borough's one rather than the one for all of London. For rather crap stuff, it helps to indicate roughly where you are - people will take anything if it's just round the corner! Someone even took my bottle of out-of-date head lice lotion, for example...

There may be a weblink in your welcome email that you can use to ensure your post is in the right format - this is useful. I find asking people who are interested to say when they could pick up the item helps weed out the no-shows.

If you're interested in an item, using capital letters, punctuation, please and thank you, and saying when you could collect, all increase your chances of it being offered to you if multiple people have expressed interest.

Message withdrawn

I love Freecycle - partly because it lets me get rid of all our clutter, and partly because I've met some really nice people through it.

You soon start noticing who the car booters are (probably). I am signed up for the digest as I just use it for giving stuff - you'd get at least 50 emails a day from ours.

Ours has a standard title format of (for instance) Offered: lightly used stadium: Bejing so that you can see where things are.

I like people to say when they could collect as it shows that they have actually thought about that end of things. I rarely give a phone number and never ring someone who has asked for something