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Smallish Freecycle Rant
For those of you who've listened to me complain about my local Freecycle. This morning I wake up to this in my email -
You will no doubt notice that both our main group and the discussion group names have changed. Both groups remain totally intact, and our business of keeping useable items out of landfills and building a more reuse/recycle conscious community continues without pause.
We are no longer affiliated with The Freecycle™ Network. Due to a number of major changes in the focus and philosophy of The Freecycle™ Network, it seemed that a return to local ownership and control would best suit the needs of this membership.
The founder of The Freecycle™ Network, Deron Beal, will without a doubt be starting a replacement group of his own in this area, in an attempt to regain control over and receive credit for your recycling and re-use efforts.
Mr. Beal's focus of late has been on attaining the registration of his trademark, achieving 501c3 non-profit status, ensuring that every Freecycle™ group has granted him full ownership of all groups, and seeking corporate financial sponsors for his efforts. These activities do not seem to be what the members of this group have expressed interest in, thus our dissociation from The Freecycle™ Network.
When you are approached to leave this group and join Mr. Beal's new group, I would ask you to make your own decision about where to place your future efforts. This group will be here for you regardless of that decision, regardless of what other groups you choose to join in addition to this group, and so will I.
"Local Former Freecycle Group Owner/Moderator"
Now, I'll be the first to admit I've been a little concerened by the direction Mr. Beal has taken over the last few months, but I think I'm more concerned that overnight I'm no longer part of the true Freecycle network. Moreso, I was never consulted about it. No vote was taken that I'm aware of. It was never brough up on the discussion loop where such things are discussed. Considering the local coffee group for this loop (they meet every couple of months and have 6-10 people that show) didn't manage to have it's last meeting, I'm almost certain it wasn't discussed in person. Maybe the moderators discussed. I'm not sure. But no matter what Mr. Beal is doing, I feel it's more than a little presumptuous of the moderator to change our name and cut our group's tie to Freecycle without consulting us as a group. And now I'm not sure if I want to remain in this group. I'm torn. Annoyed as can be, but I also have 5 boxes sitting in my garage that need homes and I keep meaning to post them. Meanwhile, Freecycle.org still lists the old name as the group for my county. I'm guessing Mr. Beal didn't know we were jumping ship either. *sighs*
You will no doubt notice that both our main group and the discussion group names have changed. Both groups remain totally intact, and our business of keeping useable items out of landfills and building a more reuse/recycle conscious community continues without pause.
We are no longer affiliated with The Freecycle™ Network. Due to a number of major changes in the focus and philosophy of The Freecycle™ Network, it seemed that a return to local ownership and control would best suit the needs of this membership.
The founder of The Freecycle™ Network, Deron Beal, will without a doubt be starting a replacement group of his own in this area, in an attempt to regain control over and receive credit for your recycling and re-use efforts.
Mr. Beal's focus of late has been on attaining the registration of his trademark, achieving 501c3 non-profit status, ensuring that every Freecycle™ group has granted him full ownership of all groups, and seeking corporate financial sponsors for his efforts. These activities do not seem to be what the members of this group have expressed interest in, thus our dissociation from The Freecycle™ Network.
When you are approached to leave this group and join Mr. Beal's new group, I would ask you to make your own decision about where to place your future efforts. This group will be here for you regardless of that decision, regardless of what other groups you choose to join in addition to this group, and so will I.
"Local Former Freecycle Group Owner/Moderator"
Now, I'll be the first to admit I've been a little concerened by the direction Mr. Beal has taken over the last few months, but I think I'm more concerned that overnight I'm no longer part of the true Freecycle network. Moreso, I was never consulted about it. No vote was taken that I'm aware of. It was never brough up on the discussion loop where such things are discussed. Considering the local coffee group for this loop (they meet every couple of months and have 6-10 people that show) didn't manage to have it's last meeting, I'm almost certain it wasn't discussed in person. Maybe the moderators discussed. I'm not sure. But no matter what Mr. Beal is doing, I feel it's more than a little presumptuous of the moderator to change our name and cut our group's tie to Freecycle without consulting us as a group. And now I'm not sure if I want to remain in this group. I'm torn. Annoyed as can be, but I also have 5 boxes sitting in my garage that need homes and I keep meaning to post them. Meanwhile, Freecycle.org still lists the old name as the group for my county. I'm guessing Mr. Beal didn't know we were jumping ship either. *sighs*
It is interesting how different groups are run.
In fairness, I would like to point out that The Freecycle Network is watching groups closely via the co-ownership the moderators are now required to give them. If the situation had been discussed with the group, TFN would have immediately thrown the moderators out, making the whole situation moot.
Until very recently, Deron Beal, who started TFN, did not want the responsibility of managing lots of groups. It was made very clear that TFN was a bunch of loosely affiliated Yahoo groups, with each group started and operated by local people. "No Freecycle group in your area? Start one!" said the web page in those days. The Freecycle Network was simply an umbrella organization to provide a central web page to link to all the groups, and set up a Yahoo group (called the "modsquad") for the group owners to network with one another.
Until recently, Beal aggressively refused to have anything to do with money. He was trying to trademark the "Freecycle" name because, he frequently said, he wanted to make sure nobody could ever use "Freecycle" to place ads and make money off of.
But last winter Beal realized that he could make money from it himself. I really don't think he had been aiming toward that all along ... I think he really was sincere about protecting TFN from being tainted by commercial interests until he figured out -- or someone suggested to him -- that he could profit from it.
So he arranged a $130,000-a-year corporate sponsorship from Waste Management and used it to quit his job and pay himself a salary as Executive Director of the Freecycle Network. Now he's doing paid speaking engagements, and has developed a Freecycle search tool which will have ads on it, Google-style, based on the search term. The Board of Directors of this "nonprofit" -- which the IRS has so far declined to grant registration to, and is therefore registered only in the state of Arizona -- consists of only three people: Deron Beal, his wife, and his wife's best friend.
Meanwhile thousands of moderators donate hours everyday to keep the groups operating so TFN can become a money-making vehicle for its founder. This goes against everything Beal has always claimed Freecycle is about.
It is significant that almost the entire upper management of TFN -- those on the inside, in a position to know what is really going on -- has quit in disgust and taken their own local groups with them. Some were fired pro-actively simply for speaking out and asking that more people be added to the Board and that Freecycle go back to its original ethic of not making money. Scores of groups all over the country have left, and more are leaving every day.
There are other betrayals and falsehoods that I can detail, but I won't go into them. I just wanted to give you a better idea of why your moderator(s) left TFN -- and why they had to do it without asking you all first.