AGM Board Annual Report 2026

Freegle Board Annual Report 2026 - Part 1

To follow.

Freegle Board Annual Report 2026 - Part 2 National Team Reports

Geeks Team Report

Geeks team is now, in practice, Edward alone, and there's not much of him left. In 2024 he was funded 3 days per week, is now at 1.5, and from November will be 0.75. At this level, we may or may not be able to keep the site up. Grand strategic goals beyond this are pipe dreams without significant tangible resources.

Chris Cant has retired from paid geek work and we are enormously grateful for many years of calm, patient work, most of it behind the scenes. Edward is thankful to the Board for funding AI subscriptions and time from Finnbarr (developer shared with TrashNothing). Be aware that we have been spoiled, and must now pay more to get less.

Edward has done significant improvements over the last year, including a large amount of code modernisation and simplification.

• Finished the code and hosting modernisation. Code up to twenty years old has been replaced, the website, ModTools, background jobs and email are all on the new platform.
• Rebuilt member emails, including one combined daily summary instead of one per group. We launched Rippling Out, so posts spread into neighbouring areas when there is interest. The biggest change of the year and by far the most contentious, with some long-standing moderators stepping down over it.
• Made much heavier use of AI in coding, and also in responding to volunteers (which isn't ideal, but the only option).
• Started a promising approach to bulk rehoming of items (e.g. office clearances) which may yield income.

As ever he is grateful to the Support and Info team, and to the volunteers who test and report.

Info Mailbox Team Report

The vast majority of our work relates to donations to Freegle, as we send personal thanks to the kind members who commit to a regular monthly donation, cheque and bank transfers, and for all donations over £20.00. The generosity of our members is continuously surprising and gratifying. We wouldn't be able to thank them, though, if it wasn't for the tireless work that Edward and Jane do in generating and accounting for the donations.

The rest of the work has slowed down over the years as others deal with different aspects of Freegle (Partnerships, Media, Support). We continue to have enquiries from external organisations who are looking for help and information, and a handful of complaints from local members - usually about local rules. These last ones are always sad to receive, time consuming and usually difficult. Any complaints that can't be smoothed over are passed onto the Ombudsman team.

Jacky and Angelika

Mentors Report to 31st July 2026

The team at present consists of 12 members. We have had a successful if very busy year, with a few members of the team bearing most of the burden.

We are ever mindful of the need to bring new volunteers into Freegle as we are continually operating beyond an ideal capacity, making it difficult to do as much as we’d like or deal with any influx of groups such as those instigated by changes to how Freegle works, or the loss of any member of the team.

• Caretaking:

Caretaker groups run by the team number 66, an increase of 15 since our last report to 31st March 2025. We took on 42 groups and handed over 27 to new owners. Each group has 2 caretakers from the team, a total 132 caretaker roles, though not all second caretakers will be active.
Caretaker groups can be seen here https://modtools.org/map/caretaker

• Actively helping on local groups:

There are 10 groups which mentors are helping out on in some capacity.

The team has supported a number of moderators covering for holidays and other breaks.

Over the last year the team has mentored 3 new moderators for their first 6 months.

The team also provides unofficial backup to a number of lone moderators, we have not always kept records of all these but they number over 40.

We continue to look out for groups that aren’t being moderated reliably and offer support. In some instances groups may be declared abandoned.

• It has been a busy year with particular pressure points:

The Board requested a significant number of new groups to fill gaps in the Freegle coverage of the UK, making an unusually large number of groups in a short period of time.

A number of local owners decided it was time to call it a day.

Derek decided it was time to move on, though he continues to run his local groups. We would like to thank him for his many years of service, he was an integral part of the mentor team. He had an involvement in some 70 groups across the UK and it was challenging for the Acting Team Co-ordinator to find replacements in a short period of time to keep all running smoothly.

As always, we would welcome new recruits to the team, should anyone feel they might be able to help, particularly with recruiting new volunteers and also mentoring and/or caretaking. We also welcome enquiries about permanently taking over a caretaker group.

Mentor Team

New Groups Team Annual Report to 31st July 2026

The New Groups Team launches new groups and deals with any name or area changes. The team currently has 4 members, most of whom are fairly inactive here but busy elsewhere. We were sorry to lose Derek from the team recently as he was pretty much undertaking nearly all the work required. With requests for new groups to be formed by the Freegle Board it has been a busy year.

Derek did an amazing job not only continuing the process already started of launching new groups for areas not already covered - 18 since our last report but also extending core or default posting areas for existing groups to provide better coverage. 14 groups in total had a core area and / or name change

1 other new group was launched with an applicant from a nearby group with other tasks completed as well.

The Freegle map is now pretty much complete, bar some remoter areas and islands which haven’t done so well, so there is far less for the team to do but there are still the occasional tasks with most of the team also fulfilling other roles elsewhere so we welcome applications from anyone interested in joining the team to newgroups@ilovefreegle.org

Jo

Ombudsman Team Report

We confirmed 7 volunteers to serve on the Advisory Panel for this year. They assisted in dealing with one of the complaints received and we are grateful for their advice and contributions in this matter. We received 3 referrals during the year:

One complaint was that their local moderator had not done enough to help them when they gave a wrong item to another member in response to a Wanted post. Instead of an old camera, they had mistakenly given their new camera containing an SD card with all their family photos. The moderator had tried to contact the other member several times but they left TN and Freegle very soon afterwards and blocked any further email contact.. We found that she could not have done more in this case and therefore found the complaint unfounded.

Another complaint was very similar in nature to some others received in previous years. The complainant had been a member for some time but the local group moderator decided to remove them when it was discovered he no longer lived in the group area. He had grown up in the area and still had family living there but had subsequently moved about 15 miles away. Unfortunately the group refused to reconsider reinstating membership. We hope that the new system of rippling out posts may help to prevent such occurrences in future.

The third complaint came direct from a member who thought her local moderator had not done enough to help her when she had received inappropriate messages from another. In fact the moderator had contacted the other member to advise him and we found no fault. We also advised her that to include heart emojis and XXX in her messages to other members was likely to give them the wrong impression - she thought she was just being friendly.

Jeni & Kim

Partnerships Team: Year in Review (July 2025 – July 2026)

Over the past year the Partnerships Team has driven forward several major workstreams, with the Little Free Shop (LFS) project as the consistent thread. Early groundwork included securing partnership and developing the offering with metroSTOR and then scoping with a number of local authorities. By autumn 2025 the project gained momentum with Polly joining as a volunteer to help move the project on further. The team built a full budget, secured Wandsworth Council's support in navigating planning permission and potential part-funding, and fielded growing interest from Essex, Southwark and Suez. Progress has been steady: Wandsworth's pilot was pushed back to spring, planning permission proved necessary, and by summer 2026 the team was still awaiting word from Suez on Milton Keynes while researching Waste Regulations implications with Wandsworth. A trademark concern around "Free Shop" was assessed and judged low-risk.

The Wandsworth partnership evolved through multiple phases: the second project concluded with a final report in July 2025. The third project is funded at ~£8k over 9–12 months. This includes mapping local food support provision, building Charities and Community Groups landing pages, and producing an explainer video.. The team also supported Wandsworth's Voluntary and Community Sector petition and presented at their Eco Lunch event.

The Material Focus-funded EEE identification project is progressing steadily, combining Natalie's manual checks with Edward's use of Claude AI.

Community Clearance (formerly "bulk freegling") emerged as a fast-growing new offering, successfully redistributing furniture for organisations including the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts and Mind in Brighton & Hove, with other projects in development. One-pagers now being developed for local authorities, Suez and other partners, and one already submitted to Reusefully for a funding bid.

Throughout the year, the team has built strong relationships with a wide range of local authorities — through the ongoing Reusual Suspects network sessions (covering topics from social value and Tech-Takeback to international comparisons with New Zealand, and drawing consistent, strong council attendance, through general enquiry meetings with councils including Southwark, Essex, Preston, Cheltenham, Oxford, Lincolnshire, Durham and Greenwich, and through conference presentations at RWM and CE Week London. This breadth of engagement has generated a healthy pipeline of ongoing conversations and potential future partnerships.

Other notable activity included: securing Ealing Council's annual sponsorship whilst maintaining existing partnerships; a strategic meeting with former ReLondon CEO Wayne Hubbard prompting new work on impact measurement (including an AI-assisted draft impact report); exploratory talks with Growsie on plant-swapping collaboration; exploring the opportunity to be involved in Reusefully's ReYorkshire project; and ongoing conversations with various volunteers.

Communications through Freegle Bites and LinkedIn have continued but National Reuse Day planning has repeatedly stalled pending budget and mandate clarification.

Natalie Ibbott AssocMCIWM

Returning Officers Team Report

This role involves quite a lot of work in a short amount of time, then goes quiet for the rest of the year. The 2025 AGM was held on Discourse for the second year, this time with two special groups - a pre AGM discussion group and the AGM meeting group. A full voting election for new Directors wasn't held, as the number of candidates didn't exceed the number of Board vacancies, so they were elected unopposed. We were not asked to organise any polls outside of the AGM during the year.

Jacky and Wendy

Social Media Team Report

As we have removed support / reposting to Twitter (X), and cannot automatically post to Freegle groups on Facebook, I'm afraid there is no report from the Social Media group, as there's nothing currently to do! The only page that functions (unless individual groups are actively doing things locally) is the national page, which I believe is managed by Cat.

Melissa

Spammer Team Report

Sadly Freegle continues to suffer attempted attacks by spammers along with other organisations and individuals. The internet is unfortunately a very convenient and easy way for them to do this. Some central safeguards have very usefully been put in place by Edward to identify potentially harmful communications and posts but dubious posts and communications can still occur.

When a moderator identifies a potential problem member or message then they submit a spam report. This is reviewed thoroughly by the Spammer Checking Team. If it is a valid submission then the email address is added to the list of Confirmed Spammers and the reporting moderator is advised. Otherwise the reporting moderator is just informed of the reason for the submission being rejected. Courier spam used to be the most common problem. A desirable item would be offered then a member would reply only to be told that they had moved some distance away but the item could be couriered to them at a cost. The item probably never existed. Worry words will often be highlighted in chat checking and post checking so that members are not put at financial risk.

During our investigations it is sometimes possible to identify very similar emails - e.g.name1@somedomain, name2@somedomain, name3@somedomain - which can enable us to identify problem email addresses and block them before they are used maliciously.

Spammer/scammer tactics change over time. Recent practices involve offering desirable, and possibly slightly older items. These can be computers, mobile phones, musical instruments – the variations continue. We have also experienced Football Tickets, patio furniture and even an Acer Tree! IP addresses are often outside the UK, but not always and more frequently as the year has progressed, the attacks seem to from UK based IP addresses making them a little harder to spot. It seems to be a fairly regular practice by spammers to send strange spam to group volunteer addresses. It is unclear what they intend to achieve with this so moderators should be very wary of such doubtful messages. Moderators should not post “what do you think about this” on Central etc. Always submit a spammer report then it can be fully investigated by ourselves. Reports are always investigated thoroughly and sometimes this can be quite time consuming.

The outcome of each investigation is recorded in our mailbox for an historical record. Additionally, the reporting moderator is always advised of the outcome for their information. The number of entries in our mailbox is not a reliable way to count spammer/scammer impact because we sometimes combine banning of commonality of email addresses and profile names as described above into single recorded mailbox records. However, there were 181 separate spammers added to the list last year in the 12 months to the end of July 2026.

If anyone would like more information about how we track down and identify spam and scams please feel free to get in touch – we would prefer to keep it off public record to prevent our job from getting any harder.

Saira, Sheila and Roger
The Spammer Checking Team

Support Mailbox Team Report

The major major changes of Freegle’s systems has affected Support too.

Some specifically help us to deal with problems from users and Mods, and we appreciate the simplification.

Others, like the daily summary What’s New Digest caused a spurt of enquiries which seems to have settled as freeglers got used to them.

Rippling out of posts has still to reach this happy equilibrium.

None of them could have been achieved without Edward’s vision and the help of AI. But so many users, with different motivations, hardware/software, computer literacy and experience are bound to flush out any bugs left by AI in the far corners of the system and this is reflected in the stats which Jacky has kindly sourced. We are changing the reporting year to the end of July - because the end of March was a long time ago, lots has changed since, and a report to the end of March would be rather out of date We have noticed an increase in technical and password issues and unsubscribes in particular.

Last year
1st April 2024 - 31st March 2025 - 1712 conversations

This year
1st April 2025 - 31st March 2026 - 1836 conversations

The last few months
1st April 2026 - 31st July 2026 - 1364 conversations

Of those,

• Password requests/issues

1st April 2025 - 31st March 2026 : 61
1st April 2026 - 31st July 2026 : 215
Many influenced by changes to the app

• Unsubscribe problems/requests:

1st April 2025 - 31st March 2026 : 153
1st April 2026 - 31st July 2026 : 137
Not a lot, considering our large membership

Dee

Training Group Report

Since the last report prepared in March 2025, the Training Team has had 21 candidates for the programme. Of those, 11successfully completed the training, while of the remaining 10, 9 withdrew and one did not answer the phone.

The successful trainees went on to become moderators across the UK, being mentored for 6 months by members of the Mentors team. This is an integral part of the programme and contributes at least as much as the formal programme to the success of our new moderators.

It is common for prospective trainees not to realise fully what is involved in Moderating for Freegle and this explains the high rate of withdrawal. It is less common for a trainee not to answer the phone but it does happen as can be seen from the figures above.

Trainees are given a good understanding of Modtools, practice in recognising good posts that can be approved, posts that can be edited to make them suitable, and those that need to be rejected for a variety of reasons. They are encouraged to add notes where necessary to help colleagues in the future, and to communicate with members to improve future posts.

Sadly Derek has decided it is time to move on, and this has left a huge hole in the training team that we will find it difficult to fill. No-one other than Derek has delivered Freegle training since 2022. Fortunately he has offered to remain available should we need guidance and advice.

With the changes to Freegle operating practices - Rippling Out and moderation of posts after they go live - some redevelopment of the programme will be required. We do not propose to undertake this until the changes settle down and the challenges our moderators face become clear.

The current programme remains available although it’s likely that in the short term the Mentors team will have to pick up any changes to operating practices.

Martin
For the Freegle Training Team

Trust Pilot Reviews

We had 6 reviews during the past year, all were answered. Two were 5* and complimentary.

Of the others:

• One 3* from a member having problems using the site; he was given appropriate advice.
• One 2* complaining at the number of time wasters and others not saying please and thank you.
• Two 1* - one complaining that he had been asked not to put his telephone number in his post and he considered this his prerogative; the other re our use of AI generated images.

Jeni

Wiki Team report

The wiki continues to provide a depository of information that helps volunteers run their local groups and the national organisation. It also serves as a record of activities in various areas of work. Always open for ideas and suggestions, the wiki has had an overhaul very recently by Edward, with the help of AI, which we hope will help navigation of its c.1200 pages. A small informal team quietly keeps the wiki up to date, and all volunteers are encouraged to become an editor if this interests them.

Jacky, Neville and Edward

Link: AGM 2026 Agenda