Freegle Reps Report 2012-01-12

Freegle Reps Report 12th January 2012

This Report is a summary of the Reps activities from 1st December 2011 until 12th January 2012. There were approximately 1600 posts on the Freegle Reps discussion group in that time.

REPS ROLE

a. The Team

We welcomed Richard and Jacky to the team, following the recent annual election and said a sad farewell to Kath. Paul tendered his resignation as a Rep which was regretfully accepted. The autopromotion procedure was implemented and Alison was welcomed as a new Rep to the team. The wiki and who's who spreadsheet have been updated with the changes of Reps' information.

b. Reps' Responsibilities

We agreed there wasn't any obvious conflict with Reps being owners or officials on Working Groups, although of course they can't also undertake any other elected position. The issue of how many groups and messages Reps and others need to read to keep up to date was raised and a proposal to look again at how Freegle could undertake national work more efficiently is being discussed at present.

c. Local Big Lottery Application

We are discussing whether Cat's local involvement in a potential Big Lottery application should be on behalf of the national organisation of Freegle, or purely as a local group owner.

d. Organising Reps' Workload

We are discussing how best to keep track of and organise our workload, given that the original idea of a task list has proved unsuitable in practice.

e. Central Survey

A survey conducted by the Central mods is ongoing. It was agreed that any specific complaints resulting from this should be directed to the Complaints procedure.

f. National Volunteers

Andy Baker was approved as a National Volunteer, as a geek with server access.

FINANCE

a. Accounts

Payments were authorised to three individuals to cover server and domain costs. The accounts can be viewed here: [1]

b. Finance Policy

Amendments were and are being suggested to accommodate `through payments' (payments received which go straight in and out of the accounts) for groups or individuals and to update the section on electronic payments procedures now approved by our auditor. We are also discussing the possibility of some future expenses incurred by individual Volunteers undertaking national work to be covered by Freegle and how this could be managed.

GROUPS

a. Inactive Groups

We had discussions about the issues raised generally and specifically about a particular group which appeared abandoned. This issue has been passed to Start to discuss, in the meantime the particular group has shown signs of activity, although another has subsequently been brought to our attention which looks totally inactive.

b. Animal Posting Policy

The mailbox forwarded a link to a Facebook page that is promoting a petition to get advertising animals on online sites prohibited, Freegle being mentioned quite prominently. Jane joined the page in a personal capacity and has addressed some of the issues raised; the Reps are prepared to answer any media enquiries about this.

c. Freegle Direct

Discussion is ongoing about the simplest way to explain and promote Freegle Direct to all groups.

NATIONAL ISSUES

a. National Reuse Forum and Wrap Report

The report from the Forum that Cat attended was discussed along with the report that Wrap produced. We have been invited to join national reuse working groups, which will help to raise our national profile further. Amongst other things, we have pinpointed the lack of statistics that Freegle can provide about amount of items kept of landfill. Edward has undertaken some work on this and is looking for volunteers to keep track of regular stats so we can compile realistic figures for publicity use. We have had three replies to this request, but unfortunately still have no-one to do this, so if you are interested, please contact Edward.

b. Nominet Trust and other External Funding

It is clear that our lack of a legal structure, along with limited funding opportunities and volunteers to undertake the work, impedes the ability for Freegle to gain grants; progress on technical innovations is lalso imited because of lack of funding and/or people who can do the work. It was agreed to support Chris in looking for funding for a mobile app and also to involve Julie (Bolton) in organising an appeal for IT expertise from groups. This has resulted in some interest and Edward is in the process of setting up a group with a specific remit for mobile development.

c. HMRC Registration

The form has been completed and accompanying paperwork compiled.

EXTERNAL ORGANISATIONS

a. External Links

Findmyrecycler site has asked for links to Freegle.

b. Research Project

A researcher from Sheffield Hallam University asked if they can contact Freegle groups to conduct a small survey as part of a research project on anti-consumerist movements and alternative forms of exchanging goods. A positive reply has been sent and when we have further information there will be a note on Central.

c. Trashnothing

Andrew from Trashnothing approached us with the offer of collaborative working on his new native mobile apps, which could be rebranded as Freegle apps by switching some graphics and the API endpoint. We responded thanking him for his offer but that we were unable to commit Freegle due to us wanting intellectual property rights and not wanting advertisements.

d. Freecircles

We responded to Mark from Freecircles explaining that we couldn't commit autonomous Freegle groups to definitely adopt his new platform so regretfully would not be able to commit to collaboration at this point.

e. External Research

Edward is in contact with a student from Cambridge keen to do some research to estimate how much Freegle groups keep out of landfill.

Freegle Reps
Alison, Cat, Edward, Jacky, Jane, Ollie, Richard, Saira, Sian
20.01.12

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