Every year for the last 4 years Umbrella Sussex have quietly hosted Free Shops a couple of times a year, and especially on Black Friday (AKA Buy Nothing Day).
What’s a Free Shop?
People bring stuff they no longer need, and take stuff they can use. What sets it apart from say, a clothes swop, is that it’s not a swop, there are no limits on what people can take, and no charge. It’s all about trust, and it works; people take what they need and give what they don’t need. The only rules are “give freely” and, ideally, stay and have a cuppa and a browse – part of the point is that folks stay and mingle, especially with people they wouldn’t normally meet out “in the world”.
It’s a lot of work, so why do it? Well – it’s playing around with the idea that, as a community, we have most of what we need, we just need to find better ways of sharing it out. As a small and poorly resourced community we can’t fix all our problems, but we can address some of them, and Umbrella Sussex’s focus is on stuff: getting it, using it, accessing it.
Free Shops let people recirculate stuff they no longer need – maybe kids’ clothes the kids grew out of, or something as organic as plant cuttings. People might keep the stuff for ever, or just use it for a while and pass it on again.
The next Free Shop in Saturday 8 November, 11.00-15.00 at the Stade. The venue is step free, and there is a kids’ zone and “free cafe” as well. More information on the Umbrella Sussex Website
Umbrella Sussex also run a Library of Things and a make-and-mend project (sharing stuff and fixing stuff). Both can be visited Fridays 11.00-17.00 at Maslow Studios, 5 Harold Place, Hastings.