Is now the right time?

I'll start with a confession, I'm not as green as I could be; I do the basics by recycling everything, Freecycling whenever possible, cycling rather than using a vehicle, and growing herbs. A very small effort no doubt compared to some of the ‘Ancient Yews' of The Big Green Idea. However, recently I have become interested in community issues and the idea of uniting as a community to share resources and to save energy/time/money, And here, I hope that I can make a difference!

In the case of my own ‘local community' I've always felt there's a bit of a missing link; we seem to be united in the love of the area (such a cool place to live - a bit trendy, a bit bohemian, always on the up) but it's still a case of every man for himself. Perhaps it's a south London thing, you can't trust anyone round here so you'd better keep your distance. And yet, wouldn't it be great to tap into the resources that a community in an urban area can offer? I recently learnt that my local magazine is delivered to 12,000 households, and that just accounts for a one-mile radius around my home. I was surprised to hear that there were so many people in such a small area. If only a fraction of those (let's say 5%) were actively working together to share resources, what an incredible difference that could make!

When my work as an event manager dried up last November, I started thinking about how I could save money. I wondered if there was a way of putting my skills to good use and in turn getting things done for nothing; I have a few strings to my bow - event manager, wedding planner, I could teach French (or at least help with French homework), I used to teach English as a Foreign Language, I do a bit of gardening, I can wash cars etc., etc. If there were 12,000 people in my neighbourhood, i.e., walking distance from my home, surely some of those people could use my skills and I could use some of theirs? I could, for example, really do with a personal trainer; I need help with my Internet Explorer; I need a telephone extension fitted etc., etc. If I could find a way of identifying those people around me who were willing to do me a favour for a favour in return, then surely we could start exchanging skills and getting things done for nothing?

I soon realised that I wasn't the only one who had thought of such an idea and I came across the LETS Link UK scheme. But with the LETS scheme the focus seems to be on joining a group and getting to know everyone, becoming part of an organisation and having to use to a local currency. So the main aim seems to be to become part of the group and only then, in due course, find people with whom you can share. My idea, on the other hand, was to tap into the local community (the aforementioned 12,000) and just see who was out there, and check out the skills without necessarily meeting them all first. My focus, I realised, was driven by the availability of people who I didn't yet know, and it fascinated me to think that there might be perhaps 20 painters and decorators in my area, and that just possibly some of those might be willing to skill swap in the way that I envisaged.

So I wondered, would it be possible to develop a system for large communities and would that system work? Would it appeal to people to be able to dip in and out of bartering, without becoming a committed member of an organisation? A bit like the way I logged on to Freecycle whenever I want to pass on something that I felt was too worthy for the dump?

So after a lot of thinking about how such a concept would work, I put my thoughts into action and started www.localskillswap.com . The idea is that you trade skills with people around you on a time basis, so if I spend 30 minutes walking your dog, then a fair exchange would be 30 minutes of e.g., shirt ironing. It could of course be lots of other things like gardening for cake baking or bicycle repairs for lawn mowing - whatever we were to agree upon.

My first hurdle, you might have guessed, was money. It is extremely costly to develop an interactive website where users can post, view, update and record data on skillswapping. So to test the water, I decided to launch the idea on Facebook, creating an ‘open group' (so anyone could join) and using The Wall (Facebook's virtual noticeboard) as a place where people could post their localskillswap offers. I started the group on 21 January 2009, and memberships were fast and furious to begin with, prompting me to start up two splinter groups to serve Kingston and London SE19, SE20 and SE21 (Crystal Palace area) in addition to the London-wide group. However, after this furious start the rate of increase began to tail off. The handicap, I feel, is that I am in a bit of a catch-22 situation. My concept is suited to locations where a close-knit community may be lacking but where technology (i.e., the website, once fully functional) can serve to unite people who wouldn't otherwise reach each other, in order to share resources. On the other hand, to start with I need to find people who are like-minded but who I don't know, which is quite difficult, so I am interested in introducing the idea to existing communities to kind of test drive the concept and see if it will work as well as I hope.

It's early days but I'm full of enthusiasm for this project and hope to make a real difference to many communities! If any Big Green Idea readers (anywhere in the country) are interested in working with me in launching more localskillswap groups (on Facebook for the time being) to see how they work, I would love to hear from you. This will help me evaluate the concept and determine how to develop this further for potential localskillswappers. If anyone thinks this might work within their community once the website is fully launched, or if anyone wishes to discuss this concept in general, I would be grateful for feedback and will look forward to hearing from you.

Katrina Gillard
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