Comoodle Has Come to Camden!
Over the last three years Comoodle has had the greatest success in lending out resources for events and activities that run in the heart of communities in Kirklees. They have supported play days, fêtes, galas and sports projects, and the exciting news is Comoodle has now come to Camden!
What is Comoodle?
Comoodle is an easy way to share Stuff, Skills and Spaces to support great community projects. It has been built over the past few years after winning a global innovation award from Bloomberg Philanthropies. And it is now available to the people of Camden as the programme has been funded by the Camden CAN.
How does it work?
You make available whatever you like via the website, you have full control of the content that is yours and the terms of use. Then requests come to you and you decide if the group requesting the items can have the resources. As a member you can request any item you find on the platform too and if it is not there you can post on the message boards. People can offer all these things free of charge or you can ask for donation or charge set fees if you are a not for profit business or charity.
Due to the generous funding received from Bloomberg they have built a web site that is uber-easy to use, it is secure and compliant with all the latest data regulations.
Why would I use it?
By using Comoodle you can make new connections to other people who have resources to help you, and you can help them by making your assets and skills available too. It saves money as you no longer need to buy when you can borrow and it means you can get projects of the ground much more quickly. It is great for experimenting and prototyping activity to see if it works, as you can borrow things for the short term and see if the activity is popular. You can even find people with skills to solve the problems that keep you awake at night.
Does it work?
So far they have proven this works in West Yorkshire by creating a community of over 850 members. Together they are sharing over 2000 offers of stuff, skills and spaces. To date the programme has help facilitate over 1200 “trades” with an estimated cash savings of nearly £50,000.
When you sign up you will get your own profile where you can tell people about your projects or business and you can add photos, web links too. If you want to ask for expenses, deposits or get people to sign basic agreements that’s all up to you.
To date there have have been no formal complaints and only a few minor issues with late returns or items getting damaged. At the end of the day people are human and forget, or mistakes happen but generally they find that people respect each other and look after things and make new connections.
How will it be rolled out in Camden?
If we want to make this work in Camden we have to start with the offers of resources. No one can borrow or request anything until it’s offered up. So from now till early Oct we want to massively increase the amount of people in the new Camden Comoodle network; to have a great listing of offers of stuff, space and skills and to get some great stories of what people have done to share with others.
So do you have sports equipment others could borrow or even equipment for cooking healthy food? We need spaces for people to get active or learn how to live healthy lives and we need people with skills to share too.
How do I get involved?
The Camden home page is here (www.comoodle.com/camden) just go to the page and sign up. It would be great if on your first visit you added a photo to your profile and added some things you can share.
We are right at the beginning of this in Camden and you could join us to make it fly!
Ready For The Camden Comoodle Challenge?
- Can you create your own Comoodle account and then get others to do the same?
- Can you hunt down some great resources in Camden and get them posted up on Comoodle?
Other Ways to Get Involved Now
- They need some great sharing stories from Camden – do you have any? They would love to feature your work in a Comoodle blog
- Do you run events that have other community projects and leaders at? They would be happy to attend and speak, or have a stall
- Do you have any publications that they can feature in? – they would like to send you an article when we go fully public later in the year
If you need to know more just get in touch with Sheila by email or phone 020 7424 9990.
Now, let’s get sharing!
