Best way to set up very local freecycling/swapping/services offered?
June 19, 2020 3:24 PM Subscribe
Looking for a solution to set up a very local system for people on my road to record items they have to lend, services they have to offer, things they are looking to donate/find a new home for, just for a handpicked group of local residents.
I live in London on a small road with a pretty tight-knit community. There's both a WhatsApp group chat and a Facebook group, which are somewhat overlapping in membership but not entirely.
People, on both those groups, often post that they have unwanted items of furniture etc. to give away, that they are offering a particular service (perhaps at discount rates to neighbours) (haircuts, babysitting, handyman skills etc.), or that they have certain things which are available to borrow for people who might not have their own (lawnmowers and other garden equipment, assorted DIY tools, etc).
The problem is that such offers tend to get lost pretty quickly in the fast moving chat - someone will ask to borrow a lawnmower, multiple people will reply and say that they have one to lend and that it's available in future to people who need to borrow one, but then that post is half a mile back in the history of the chat in just a few days and a few weeks later someone is asking the same question.
Does anyone know of any sort of service which lets you set up a sort of closed group neighbourhood swap-shop type thing for such a situation? Or, failing an actual dedicated service, some sort of clever way to do it in Google Sheets or something similar (I've got a bunch of spare Google cloud storage and could happily host something like that).
Many thanks in advance.
I live in London on a small road with a pretty tight-knit community. There's both a WhatsApp group chat and a Facebook group, which are somewhat overlapping in membership but not entirely.
People, on both those groups, often post that they have unwanted items of furniture etc. to give away, that they are offering a particular service (perhaps at discount rates to neighbours) (haircuts, babysitting, handyman skills etc.), or that they have certain things which are available to borrow for people who might not have their own (lawnmowers and other garden equipment, assorted DIY tools, etc).
The problem is that such offers tend to get lost pretty quickly in the fast moving chat - someone will ask to borrow a lawnmower, multiple people will reply and say that they have one to lend and that it's available in future to people who need to borrow one, but then that post is half a mile back in the history of the chat in just a few days and a few weeks later someone is asking the same question.
Does anyone know of any sort of service which lets you set up a sort of closed group neighbourhood swap-shop type thing for such a situation? Or, failing an actual dedicated service, some sort of clever way to do it in Google Sheets or something similar (I've got a bunch of spare Google cloud storage and could happily host something like that).
Many thanks in advance.
Since you have the time, could you just do a weekly classifieds by email?
posted by aniola at 3:27 PM on June 19, 2020
posted by aniola at 3:27 PM on June 19, 2020
Response by poster: Since you have the time, could you just do a weekly classifieds by email?
Apologies, maybe a misinterpretation of my post - What I have available is plenty of Google Drive space. I certainly don't have the time to write a weekly newsletter type thing.
posted by Dext at 3:46 PM on June 19, 2020
Apologies, maybe a misinterpretation of my post - What I have available is plenty of Google Drive space. I certainly don't have the time to write a weekly newsletter type thing.
posted by Dext at 3:46 PM on June 19, 2020
My immediate neighbourhood just has a Facebook group. In recent months, it's been used to sell furniture, find a tenant for an apartment, give away outgrown toys and clothes, take up a collection to pay an animal control company to evict a skunk family, distribute home-made masks, and occasionally share news of common interest – although there's not a lot of chitchat.
It's a closed group and it's always been congenial. That wouldn't work for you?
posted by zadcat at 4:00 PM on June 19, 2020
It's a closed group and it's always been congenial. That wouldn't work for you?
posted by zadcat at 4:00 PM on June 19, 2020
Best answer: my friends and i put together a google sheet that lists who has various baby items that are up for borrowing. you could do one for items and one for service listings
posted by brilliantine at 4:07 PM on June 19, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by brilliantine at 4:07 PM on June 19, 2020 [1 favorite]
Best answer: Yeah, if it's a small group a shared Google Doc or similar is fine. People can use it like a bulletin board. Just organize some major sections 'For Loaning', 'For Sale', etc. and let everybody manage what they put up.
posted by zengargoyle at 4:36 PM on June 19, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by zengargoyle at 4:36 PM on June 19, 2020 [1 favorite]
Best answer: I've seen some templates for sheets for things that are sort of like this that you might be able to adapt (for instance) but they all kind of assume that there will be one person or group of trained people "in charge" of the system to keep it from getting full of errors.
I suppose if you don't actually "track" anything and instead just populate the system with information it might work though without getting too messy!
(I run the Buy Nothing group in my neighbourhood and it is a nightmare, so I would advise against that.)
posted by euphoria066 at 4:59 PM on June 19, 2020 [1 favorite]
I suppose if you don't actually "track" anything and instead just populate the system with information it might work though without getting too messy!
(I run the Buy Nothing group in my neighbourhood and it is a nightmare, so I would advise against that.)
posted by euphoria066 at 4:59 PM on June 19, 2020 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: Thanks everyone - I think I'll have a look at working out some sort of Google Sheets thingummy.
Trying to avoid Facebook as I don't think everyone on the Whatsapp group is on Facebook (and I'm hardly there myself these days).
Thanks to euphoria066 for the templates - while I don't have time to be sending out a weekly digest I can probably manage a bit of oversight on a spreadsheet to keep it free of rubbish.
posted by Dext at 6:21 PM on June 19, 2020
Trying to avoid Facebook as I don't think everyone on the Whatsapp group is on Facebook (and I'm hardly there myself these days).
Thanks to euphoria066 for the templates - while I don't have time to be sending out a weekly digest I can probably manage a bit of oversight on a spreadsheet to keep it free of rubbish.
posted by Dext at 6:21 PM on June 19, 2020
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posted by aniola at 3:26 PM on June 19, 2020