Green collective

Skiduck

Does anyone have a green collective where they live?

ie; a group of people sharing home grown produce, harvesting rainwater for the neighbourhood that sort of stuff.

If so, what kind of things do you do?

martinpike

I'd love to, but judging by the gas guzzlers sitting on my neighbours drives, the environment is the last thing on their minds!

My car sits in my driveway, largely unused. I reckon they think I've got a driving ban or something when they see this illuminous yellow figure cycling out of the road.

carolbee

how would you find out if there is one, we have a local shop that is quite green with lots of posters in, never seen anything there.

would love to see one here where I live, to share seedlings, plants etc, we do this informally between friends and relations a bit already

Skiduck

Hi, I don't know whether there is an actual organisation for a green collective, it's more of an ideology.
The reason for the initial post was to see if and what people did in this manner.

If there isn't anything in place, why not start something, any green initiative can't be bad.

wishingonastar_3

we kind of do this a little, more so as a family. granddad grows veggies & rhubarb and strawberries, i grow herbs, dad grows flowers, sil grows various bits and we swap between us. would be nice to do it on a larger scale though.

Skiduck

wishingonastar wrote:

we kind of do this a little, more so as a family. granddad grows veggies & rhubarb and strawberries, i grow herbs, dad grows flowers, sil grows various bits and we swap between us. would be nice to do it on a larger scale though.

yep, good old british bartering system.

se999

I think the LETS scheme might fit your ideas to some extent, people barter goods (which can include excess veg etc) & services locally. More info here:

http://www.letslinkuk.net/

There are links to info about the local groups.

BungleGirl

Hi,

I love this idea! I am a project worker and (with funding) have set up a not-for-profit vegetable bag scheme where people order and pay for a £2.50 bag of veg (will be changing to salad next week) and we then order in bulk from local farmers and suppliers. We have about 20 very active volunteers and order veg/salad for about 100 members of the community each week, we have six collection points that people place orders at and collect their bags from. This kind of cooperative could work pretty much anywhere on a small scale and doesn't necessarily require funding or a paid worker.

I love the idea of collecting rainwater for the neighbourhood - what a fantastic idea!

We are going to get an allotment that one of the volunteers is going to start growing veggies on and he is going to make it open to anyone that wants to learn about growing your own veg so it will be a kind of community allotment and if it goes well then we may expand on that idea and find some land to grow larger quantities on to use in the bag scheme - that is a long way off, we are just going to start by working out how to grwo, what to grow and seeing what the interest from the community is.

Good luck to anyone who tries to start something within their community if you want ideas on where to look for small pots of funding then let me know and I will add some links to funding websites.

BTW Although I work on a community project I am not promoting my own project and receive no benefit from any funding links they are open to anyone and are direct with the funding organisations e.g. various lottery funds etc.

rackstar

Does anyone know about a LETS group in Southampton? I have been trying to find one, but all the stuff on the web is out of date.

Ken68

How do you go on, when a LETS member doesn't pay his debts.
I can think of a few round my way that don't have any skills (or honesty).

sandieb

I belong to a co-operative which runs an organic cafe.

To quote from the back of our menu:

"We opened in May 2001 and offer fairly traded/organic food and drinks, crafts and an Internet facility.

We aim to provide a friendly, sociable service, yet still run a sustainable business where all co-operative members share equally in the profits. We have a flexible involvement policy to include all members of our community who believe, like us, that we should work towards a fairer, safer and sustainable society."

So I guess we qualify as a "Green Collective"

An Organic Gardening Group use the cafe for their meetings as do other green/ethical/fair trade groups from time to time.