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by Tom Barker
Pop down to the market and pick up a hi-fi, or a coat, or a video recorder, or even a bike, or a lawnmower, or a set of tools, or even a set of four solar water heating panels! and take that microwave we never use.There is one heck of a market stall at Connah's Quay in Deeside, Clwyd. All of the above things have been available there, all free, and often a single days trading will have a value totalling thousands of pounds. Did I say "free?" Why, yes! Free! When you arrive at the community sharing stall of Vic Button and Frank Bowman, the first thing you see is a sign saying "Give and Take" in large letters, or perhaps, "shoplifters will not be prosecuted". It might seem a bit strange, this idea of giving and taking whatever you like, but it'll soon grow on you as you begin to understand why.
The Give and Take stall is the brain child of a group called "Well Health"; the human-scale response to Wealth.
Freedom isn't such a bad thing but there's precious little of it about nowadays, to the extent, in fact, that it's dished out by those who have the power and the land. As the rational economy becomes more and more the domain of transitional companies and international banks, and local authority economies become nationally organised, ordinary people have become trapped.
Those who are not on the streets in cardboard boxes are struggling to make ends meet, or keep afloat meeting payments and mortgages, HP, and leases, and buying consumer goods, holidays and fashions as fast as they can. Alongside this, the ecological assassination that goes hand in hand with economic growth just gets worse and worse, while the wealth of the country is in the hands of international financiers and in landfill sites.
Some of the 'waste' that ends up in landfill is food, newspaper, scrap metal, plastic, rags; mostly things that could be recycled or reused. Some of it consists of useful, working items that are no longer needed; things that would be useful to others, and would belong to others were the structure of society and the economy different. Well Health's 'Give and Take' stall, based on the idea of sharing the earth's wealth rather than exploiting it for our own benefit, is where people in Deeside can take their unwanted goods and surplus.
Frank and Vic set up the stall by scouring their own wardrobes, lofts and garages for good quality things they no longer needed, and then started a collection point at a local skip, where they have been handed items like hamster cages, music centres, electronic games, jigsaws, books, clothes all neatly ironed (for the skip!) fridges, beds, settees, cookers, televisions, fruit trees, tomato plants, bicycles, and even a deep sea divers suit!
The list is far more extensive, but so, too, is the landfilling from that and the other 30 or so skip compounds in the area. Alyn and Deeside Council have made available a space for the stall and some room in a shed to use as a store. Goods are simply laid out on tables for people to take, and people come along and maybe take something, or bring something for the stall, and sometimes leave a donation.
Donations made so far total UKP 2,100, and a 'Give and Take' bank account has been opened to keep it. The money is waiting for the opportunity to buy land, space or buildings from which to operate full-time, with the goal of sharing not only goods and surpluses but also the goods given to us, free, by the land; our food, warmth, shelter and water. No money changes hands in natures economy.
The Give and Take philosophy also makes this money, like the goods, 'inclusive', and available to anyone else who wants to start a similar scheme in their area. The money can only be used to buy land or space, in order to grow and perpetuate the Give and Take ideas on ever more land.
Vic says that the number of people who abuse the stall is low, more use it correctly, and he has found that leaving things unsorted on the tables encourages better use. People come during the day with boxes full of things, so you can never tell when some exciting object will turn up.
The Well Health group now wants the support of people nationally, to spread the idea further, to give vans and warehouses, shops and forecourts with which to pursue the sharing ideals they have started in Deeside, and to make possible a life not dependent on high wages and high levels of spending.
Contact: Well Health, 10 Corporation St, Flint, Clywd CH6 5PG
tel: 01352 7618557
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