Give and Take

A give and take is...

..... is a great opportunity to meet some of your members, interest new people to your group, have a bit of fun and gain some good publicity. You’ll need a venue, some volunteer helpers, good forward planning (you’re making the best start by reading this!) and enthusiasm and energy. Have a go, enjoy yourself and keep more things in circulation and reused!

IMPORTANT MESSAGE Message posted on Central 8th March 2017 [1]:

Some local groups run Give and Take events, and the Board would like to encourage this. Where possible, costs for these events should be covered via local grants (e.g. from councils), and the Funding group can help with grant applications.

But in the absence of other funding, Freegle will provide up to £100 per event towards the costs.

This must be agreed with the Board in advance, and pictures of the event and a very short report must be provided afterwards for social media purposes.

Edward
Board Hat

First Things First

• Start planning at least a couple of months before announcing your event. This spreadsheet [2] is useful for you to use as document to note everything down.
• Don’t be afraid to ask for help: from your local mods, mods groups, and most importantly your members. There may be people with experience in events organisation, publicity, people who can help transport things, people to lend folding tables, people to design/put up posters, people to help on the day etc.
• Either do the planning in your mods group (if only mods) or in a separate, custom group (that all volunteers can join) so that you have a record that all relevant volunteers can see, of who said what, who’s doing what etc, and storage of information. It’s also useful to look back on if you want to hold another give and take.
• Will you have enough volunteers?
• Have you got a Freegle banner? You may be able to borrow one, instructions here.
• Think ahead about other publicity stuff – publicising your event and also publicising Freegle on the day. Consider a snappy description for the event, eg. Freegle Live or Neighbourhood Freegle
• Is your local council doing a give and take that you can join with? If so, many of the activities below will miraculously become easier and/or be done by them <grin>.
• Plan what you are going to do with left over items after the event. If you intend to donate these to a charity, make that clear in your event publicity.

Date

When is convenient for the venue, other organisers and your volunteers? If it’s going to be outdoors, how will you handle rain on the date (hold next week, next month, never, later)?

Finance

No buying/selling, charging for entry or cash donations for goods allowed, including (sorry for mentioning this, but.....) accepting items and selling, or donating elsewhere, before or after the event yourself.

You might incur some expenses yourself so give some thought about how you intend to cover these for you and your volunteers. Freegle will cover up to £100 in expenses per event, up to a limit of 12 events per group per year. If there are any costs beyond that, is everyone happy to bear costs themselves? If you are lucky enough to have received a grant that is going to cover your event, make sure you keep receipts and follow your local financial procedures.

Public Liability Insurance (PLI)

Are you covered by your venue’s public liability insurance?
If you aren't, you may wish to take advantage of the coverage that may be available through Freegle, click Insurance for more details.

Health & Safety and Safeguarding

There is a lot of detailed legislation surrounding both Health & Safety and Safeguarding. It is wise for you to make sure you keep yourself safe and don't put others into any inappropriate or hazardous situations through your activities at an event.

Safeguarding at Events gives some indicators of the type of things you might wish to take into account.

A Risk Assessment form is available [[3]] as part of Freegle's insurance requirements. You might wish to use that even if you don't take up the insurance cover.

Other Liability / Disclaimer

Here's a form of words that you might want to display on the stall:

The goods supplied by this stall have been supplied by other people, and so the volunteers on the stall cannot provide any guarantee that anything on the stall is in working order. We don’t have any more information about the manufacturers of the goods than what is on the labels of the items.

Also, because all of the goods are free and we are not a business or professionals, your legal rights against us are limited.

It is your responsibility to ensure that any goods you take from this stall are suitable for what you want to use them for, and are not defective in any relevant way.

The organisers of this event shall not be held liable for the failure, functionality or other faults associated with any goods acquired at this event. For the event the organisers are acting in the capacity as the facilitator of the exchange of goods between the giver and receiver.

Responsibility for the safe functionality of the goods is the responsibility of those acquiring the goods.

Note: Freegle Ltd is not liable for any events held in the name of or using the name Freegle.

Location

• Is it free (remember, you can’t charge for entry)?

• Indoors (safer for rain) or outdoors?

• Is access suitable for people with disabilities?

• Is there easy transport for those without cars?

• Is there suitable parking if no public transport is available?

• Will the venue’s Public Liability Insurance cover you?

• If you aren't covered by the venue's insurance, have you made alternative insurance arrangements? Freegle may be able to assist.

• Are there tables and/or display boards or will you need to bring your own?.

• If it’s a free car boot sale, is there sufficient space? (for items and information/publicity)

• Have you got responsibility for traffic management?

What items to allow

Unless you have a large area and suitable means to dispose of the goods immediately afterwards, don’t allow (large) furniture or you may get lumbered. The collection and delivery of large items is always pretty hard, but if you want to accommodate them make sure you have the facility to accept and dispose of them.

Let people know beforehand, and print on the posters/flyers, what they can and can’t bring!

Also, Make sure you have some guarantees of items to start the event – don’t stand with an empty table!

Electrical items:

We have consulted with the vast amount of information on the internet and even had a conversation with a Trading Standards bod - and we are still not clear on the legislation surrounding PAT testing of electrical items that are transacted for free. (For latest views on this, see thread on Central beginning [[4]])

Therefore, we suggest you make a decision yourself on whether to allow them or not, whether to get a qualified electrician to PAT test or not and whether to contact your local Trading Standards Office or not about the issue. Whatever you decide, please make sure you safeguard yourself and please don't assume that insurance (whether Freegle's PLI or any other cover you have for the event) will cover you.

Age Appropriate items

As above, this is your decision as legislation is unclear about gifts of things like knives, alcohol etc. This wiki shares advice about Specific Items which you might choose to use for your event as well as the messages allowed on your group.

Leftover items :

Have a plan for what to do with your left over stuff. Possibilities are:

• Take home and offer on Freegle

• Store for a future give and take (if you have suitable storage space)

• Take to charity shop(s)

• Arrange with a local charity to collect them from the venue at close of play (beware of them being selective – specify if they must take it all or you may get lumbered).

Promotion

• Publicise the event in plenty of time and ask neighbouring groups to do so too (if they’re close enough).

• Use snappy wording - Freegle Live might work better than Give and Take, or think of something else that will fit your particular event.

• Specify what items may and may not be brought!

• Put a poster(s)/flyer(s) in the group files and ask members to print and put them up in workplaces, community notice boards, libraries, local shops, church halls etc.

• Do your local papers have free/cheap ads?

• Useful site to enable you to print large posters on your home (A4) printer http://www.blockposters.com/default.aspx

• Ask to put info about the event in local school book bags - provide them with enough paper slips for all kids

Clearing up

Take a bunch of old carrier bags (or whatever) for people to carry stuff away in. Better still, see if your local council/businesses will give you free, reusable material bags. Many of them produce them for publicity these days.

Be prepared for a big clean-up afterwards. Ask for volunteers on the group beforehand. Remember to have brooms and bin liners.

On the day

• Signpost the immediate area to help people find you (if possible, waterproof the signs in case of rain, you can reuse them for your next event).

• Have a big sign at the entrance.

• Have you got a banner? you may be able to borrow one Can you borrow one?

• Have you got flyers/cards with the UK website / your group(s)’s website?.

• Set-up time takes awhile and so does clean up. People will interrupt your set-up to chat, so have help and arrive early.

• Give volunteers a logo tag, and/or Freegle t-shirt so folk can ask them questions. Name badges/stickers are also useful.

Information stand/table

• It’s a good idea to have a moderator ‘manning’ the stand.

• Try to have a display board with information about Freegle, and maybe pictures of some of the items given away. Maybe a folder of screen shots/info posters in plastic sleeves for people to leaf through (or to store them if you’ve put them on the noticeboard) is useful.

• Have screen shots showing people how to join and how to post.

• If you have enough volunteers, have you got a laptop you can bring, with screenshots, to show members how to use Freegle? Better still, any chance of WiFi to sign people up on the day offer them help? LABEL the laptop that it is NOT part of the give and take, and with your name and contact phone number, just in case, and don’t leave it unattended!

• Signing in: Have someone counting in the attendees. If you have enough volunteers, you may also want to weigh in the goods that are brought (have you got suitably big scales?).

• These may produce useful statistics to post on the group afterwards. Members will like to hear how it went, and maybe post some photos from the day or of items on the group or cafe. It may also be useful if applying for help from local councils.

• Tables: Are tables provided? Do you need to bring your own? Wallpaper pasting tables/trestle tables can be useful here!

• Have different areas for different types of goods so that they’re easier for volunteers to put out and for members to take. Label the tables (hang posters from the edges or on the wall over the tables) e.g. books, women’s clothes, men’s clothes, children’s clothes, videos/dvds/cds, bric-a-brac, kitchenware

Other activities

If you want other activities on the day, make sure you have planned for them in advance. Examples might be:

• Something for the kids (making puppets from recycled bottles, paper and material)

• Making kites from recycled materials

• Scrap paper and crayons/colouring pencils for drawing

• Screen-printing on old t-shirts and fabric bags

Media

• If you want to, invite the media (local newspapers, TV, radio)

• Ask newspapers for permission to use/post/quote any articles they print and for copies of photos

• Set your VCR/DVD beforehand to record the local evening news so you won’t need to remember to do it when you get home!

Your stuff

Keep clean-up items and things you don't want taken in your car (brooms, rubbish bags, tape, staplers, coats, handbag).

And afterwards?

First, pat yourselves on the back for doing so well!

• Thank everyone who contributed to the event – volunteers, venue, people who attended (via your group, use the media, e.g. letters page in newspaper, personal letter/email).

• Advertise your success – notice on your group, local mods group, inform your local council, media (include some stats if you collected them – weights, number of items and participants etc – and some photos if you have some).

• Share your tips with others – how it went, what worked and what didn’t, pitfalls and successes – on your regional mods group or Central Groups.

• Book a date for your next one!

Good luck and have fun! Let us all know how it went, and any problems you had or tips to share.

School Advice

A local school held a Freegle Bring and Take in 2023 in Brighton. This is a link to their 'How To' guide for other schools - https://www.ourcityourworld.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Cardinal-Newman-Catholic-School-Eco-Ambassadors-Freegle-guide-pdf.pdf

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