Anyone a member of a LETS scheme? (service/skills bartering)

[mollyroger]

I've just made enquiries about signing up to our local one but I wondered what you all thought of it? Do you use it much? Bad/good experiences etc

Thanks

i think its a great idea in principle, like communism

Not now, but where we used to live about 12 years ago there was a LETS scheme. We lived in a small village where there were lots of artists studios, a real little community feel and they used to grow vegetables to trade, pet sitting/walking, babysitting, odd jobs etc.

Seemed like a great scheme although I never really saw how much the wider community used it. Partner and I didn't really but moight have done if we were a bit older (was just out of uni and no children or pets!)

we had one here years ago....it was before the days when most people had email it was so long ago...
there were problems around aggreeing fair rates for work, I remember, eg do you pay the same rate for babysitters as qualified electricians....can't remember why people couldn't just set their own rates, now. I think it's a good idea in principal but will only ever be at the margins of a local economy.

rofl Custy!

This one's being going for donkey's years though.
They have also have a taskforce scheme where you can 'hire' a team of people to do something like a major spring clean or garden overhaul, which I'd happily take part in.

And I've been invited to a book swap night and a crafts swap night already.

I used to belong to one in Cambridge years ago, we found it really good - I used to sell spare vegetables from my garden and bought mostly stuff for our house as we were renovating at the time (help with guttering, upholstery, all sorts of things). We also made some good friends through it, we only left the scheme because we moved away from the city. I have heard that it has become less active lately though, perhaps it depends on their being a hardcore of active people keeping things rolling. We mostly traded with people in our immediate area of the city (not that Cambridge is that big, but it was more convenient as we didn't drive)