Neighborhood Tool and Skills Exchange

#1

Hello, my name is Matthew Chovanec and I live on 35th st. I have been talking with a few neighbors and we were discussing the benefit of having a local exchange where people could borrow things like tools and yard equipment. That could also come in the form of a skills share. I, for example, am looking to borrow somebody’s jigsaw, and I would be happy to offer my knowledge of setting up rain barrels, backyard chickening, or composting. What do you think?

#2

That’s a great idea @mchovanec. We’d probably need some way to track who has what available, and the best method of contacting & scheduling with the owners. Is that something you’d be willing to look into and set up for the neighborhood?

I have a jig saw personally, and the Pink Palace has an electric leaf blower and a number of ladders that would work great for a group painting session.

#3

Great idea. I worry about possible liability-say the ladder breaks or the jigsaw melts down. I’ve wondered about a trash cooperative, which I guess is a different topic.

#4

@alyshalynn yeah that sounds like a great idea. Better than people just randomly checking all of the time. I’d be more than happy to set something up, I will look at what this forum offers and work on a database based on it. By group painting session, do you mean making a mural in the neighborhood?
@amalof that’s a valid concern. I guess there is the question of trust, when I’ve borrowed or lent tools in the past, it was to neighbors I already knew. Heritage is still pretty small, but that’s worth considering. Maybe the two people could work it out themselves, and the forum/neighborhood group would have a little statement saying it wasn’t responsible?

#5

I know that Hyde Park has a similar program that they administer here (you can see their indemnity clause at the bottom of the list there).

I’m gonna call in the experts and ping @hennessy.ricky from FoHP to add some detail there for us if he has any insights on how it operates.

I haven’t had time to do much deep research @mchovanec, but a quick search for Tool Tracking and _Tool Sharin_g led me to this site: http://localtools.org/ which could be useful for our database, but possibly a bit overkill if we only have a small group.

By group painting session, do you mean making a mural in the neighborhood?

By group painting session, I meant more like when a household invites friends over to help paint, and perhaps the aid of extra ladders would help the process got a bit faster. Or really I meant any project which could use extra hands, I’m sure christmas lights or other home updates could use multiple ladders to be efficient.

I’m not opposed to n’hood beautification projects like murals. If you’ve got any you’re excited about I’d be happy to help facilitate that project. I know that tagging & graffiti is on the uptick so perhaps we just want to undertake a clean-up program for those.

#6

As luck would have it, one of my friends runs a website https://www.loanables.com/ that lets people rent out tools and other things they have around the house, and today I got an email saying that they now “support private groups of people (let me know if you’re interested in setting one up for your neighborhood or other group).” That sounds perfect – we could set up a private group for Heritage.

I’m going to contact Loanables and ask if they could set one up for us.

#7

Dear John,

Thank you so much for looking into this. I think it could be a great idea. I look forward to hearing about what they say.

All the best
Matthew

#8

The Friends of Heritage loanables group is now ready! You can join it by going to https://www.loanables.com/groups/join_group?invite_token=de9b5856-0e36-4fc9-a9a4-3f854784ea1f

Once you join (and sign up for loanables.com) you can click the “Your Stuff” link at the top of the site, and then on the Your Stuff page click the “Add an Item” button to add your things. The Add an Item page has a box to let you choose if you only want to share with the Friends of Heritage group or make it public.

Like I said, one of my friends founded this site so I can vouch that it’s trustworthy.

John

#9

@mchovanec Since we’re having a spring social on Sunday April 9, would you like to use that as a chance to talk up the tool exchange? This weekend we could all join the loanables.com Friends Of Heritage group (https://www.loanables.com/groups/join_group?invite_token=de9b5856-0e36-4fc9-a9a4-3f854784ea1f) and then add our tools and such that we can loan out.

Once we have some tools added, we can send an announcement to the Friends of Heritage list promoting it.

#10

oh no! We’ll be out of town for the social, but I have added some of my own stuff to the community list. Loanables works great. Maybe next meeting I can do some promoting.