Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Advice re an Owners Excessive Recycling Acquisitions

[Elizabeth Magill (pastorlizm]

It's apparently a thing you can google!!

We advertise on facebook, on give-away groups, and in the local
papers. Got a bunch of folk the first year, and then it quickly grew
so that people send us notes asking when it is this year.

I'm pretty sure it is 9 am to 1 pm. During covid we had tables set up
as gates to make sure everyone is masked. Early-birds arrive by 8:30
am. It is down to 10 or 12 people by noon. Probably 200 people come?
Maybe more? (Compared to about 100 for halloween, where we also invite
the community.)

In case of rain we move the stuff to the common house porch and some
people use their porches, but attendance is MUCH lower in that case. I
think only one year that was necessary.

Signs everywhere say give-away is only in the yards, not on porches,
and households are responsible for marking non-giveaway items.

Over the years we've had one community cart go away, and a couple
people had something from their porch gone, but I'd say 3 items
missing over 12 years is pretty good.

One year someone gave away a full garage full of furniture, but most
of it is small appliances, clothing, books. Lots of kitchen gadgets.

One year we had a yard sale the weekend before, for folk who wanted
money for their stuff, but that really hasn't felt worth the effort.

I can't speak for the amount of stuff that just goes to different coho
households, but our family rule is we must get rid of more than we
take in.

The clean-up crew sets a time for taking stuff (either late that
afternoon or early the next morning) and where you have to bring it to
be taken away. Beyond that everyone is responsible for cleaning up
their own remains. Households that are away get another household to
oversee their "put out" and "bring in".

May 21 this year.

-Liz
(The Rev. Dr.) Elizabeth Mae Magill
Pastor, Ashburnham Community Church
Minister to the Affiliates, Ecclesia Ministries
www.elizabethmaemagill.com
508-450-0431

On Wed, Apr 13, 2022 at 12:18 PM Tara Gallen <tarabytransit [at] gmail.com> 
wrote:
>
> Elizabeth,
>
> Re: " We also have a member who organizes a "give your stuff away day" each
> May which is a great help for many and has become well known in our
> surrounding community. Another member takes the remains of the day to a
> giveaway place, using the community truck."
>
> I'm very interested in this! Can you explain the logistics of it? Is the
> nearby community invited to bring their giveaways too or just "shop" for
> freebies? Is it advertised to the community? How long is it (an hour or two
> or a whole day)? Thanks in advance.
>
> Our future home will be in an area with a less active Buy Nothing group
> than we enjoy today so I'm interested in ways to overcome that.
>
> Tara Gallen
> Our Urban Village Cohousing at Tomo House - Vancouver, BC
> Completing late 2022. Four units still available. oururbanvillage.ca
>
>
> On Tue, Apr 12, 2022 at 8:26 AM Elizabeth Magill <pastorlizm [at] gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > We have room teams for every space in the common house and they are
> > the only group that can accept donations for that room. Doesn't stop
> > stuff from appearing!
> >
> > Generally we say "hey this thing appeared, the room team has decided
> > we don't want it, so we will get rid of it on [date]."
> > In general we try to give folks through the next upcoming weekend.
> >
> > We also have a member who organizes a "give your stuff away day" each
> > May which is a great help for many and has become well known in our
> > surrounding community. Another member takes the remains of the day to
> > a giveaway place, using the community truck.
> >
> > Occasionally a member might decide to put giveaway stuff in the common
> > house for viewing, but mostly we use our porches for that.
> > WHICH means we now are in a discussion as to how long things can stay
> > on the shared porches.
> > (When in common house they stay about a week.)
> >
> > With my own family hoarder I've tried saying that I'll follow whatever
> > advice his counselor gives me, but otherwise, no expansion is allowed.
> > I will say that in my experience people with such tendencies really
> > *want* to stop, but its very [impossibly?] hard.
> >
> > -Liz
> > (The Rev. Dr.) Elizabeth Mae Magill
> > Pastor, Ashburnham Community Church
> > Minister to the Affiliates, Ecclesia Ministries
> > www.elizabethmaemagill.com
> > 508-450-0431
> >
> > On Mon, Apr 11, 2022 at 5:54 PM Sharon Villines via Cohousing-L
> > <cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org> wrote:
> > >
> > > > On Apr 11, 2022, at 9:34 AM, rebecca.selove <rebecca.selove [at] 
> > > > gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> > > >
> > > > We would be interested in knowing how other cohousing villages have
> > handled the problem of a home owner storing an excess of "could be
> > recycled" materials in the  common-house and on common land.
> > >
> >
> > >
> > _________________________________________________________________
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> >
> >
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