StreetBank - Share things with your neighbours

Snowboards, labradors and a wooden garden shed

It may be getting cooler but we streeties are made of tough stuff - this week there is a strong outdoor theme running through the additions on Streetbank. There’s a snowboard to give away, barefoot running shoes for borrowing and even a loveable labrador on loan for walking. There’s a 6 x 4ft wooden garden shed on offer too – perfect if you’re looking for that little bit of extra shelter in your garden this winter.

Cheers,

Sam and the Streetbank team.

www.streetbank.com

Basketball & Sharing Spaces

We heard a story this week about a group of inner city kids from Washington DC who went on a day trip. As they were sitting in the minibus, driving through an affluent suburb area they were in awe - ‘Wow!’ they said, ‘Every house has its own basketball court!’ they paused... ‘Hey, how come nobody’s playing on them?’ At that the penny dropped and they realised that some spaces are simply best when they’re shared.

Do you have a space that could be used creatively? Maybe you have a garden that would love some attention, or own a room that could be used for art classes or cookery school - what about offering it up on Streetbank? Streetbank’s full of talented, community minded people who are willing to share their skills with their neighbours – it’s a world of opportunity right on your doorstep.

Cheers,

Sam and the Streetbank team.

www.streetbank.com

Bay leaves, baby chilli plants and bicycle maintenance...

One of the great things we’ve seen happening through Streetbank is people sharing all sorts of things from their gardens. Bay leaves, baby chilli plants and even virginia creepers have been added over the last week or so. But if you’ve got no culinary or gardening tendencies you might be more intrigued by this weeks offers of sign language lessons, bicycle maintenance or a pair of size six plum coloured killer heals. To see what your neighbourhood streeties are offering check below.

Cheers,

Sam and the Streetbank team

www.streetbank.com

Travel Cots, Tropical Fish and Muffin Tins...

It’s been a great week for extraordinary items on Streetbank – from Free Tropical Fish to Travel Cots, Muffin Tins to Accordion Lessons –the summer months may be fading but there might just be something to brighten up your life on Streetbank.

See what your Streeties are offering below or make someone else's day by adding something fun yourself.

Cheers,

Sam and the Streetbank team.

www.streetbank.com

Fixing Streetbank

Dear Streeties,

A few weeks ago we sent an urgent message to you all about junking - a huge thank you to all of you who rescued our emails from your junk folders. This has made a big difference and consequently Streetbank is on the mend.

Please let us know if you think we’re still getting junked and in the meantime here are a few tricks to help solve this:

Have a look in your junk folder. Are there emails from Streetbank in there? If yes, please mark them as 'Not Spam' straight away and make sure they’re moved to your inbox. (In Yahoo, Hotmail and Gmail there are buttons to do this at the top of the page.)
If you’re using Outlook please also right click on any message from us, scroll to ‘Junk Email’ and then select 'Add Sender’s domain to Safe Senders list'. Please make sure there aren’t any messages from us left in your Junk folder as this will make the email police think we are something bad.
Add alice@streetbank.com, administrator@streetbank.com, and no-reply@streetbank.com to your contacts.
Finally when you do get an email from us, click through and have a look at the site. There’s often something fun going on there so we’ll keep a clear link on each of the emails we send to you.

Thank you for your help.

Cheers,

Sam and the streetbank team.

www.streetbank.com

G'day Streeties...

On Thursday this week we are taking part in ‘Free Money Day’ - giving money to our neighbours and encouraging them to do the same. If you think this sounds crazy check out our blog or go to http://www.freemoneyday.org/.

We also want to give a warm welcome our new joiners from Melbourne, Australia – big thanks to Adrian who included a Streetbank flyer in a mailing he was doing to over 9000 households in the area.

If you run a newsletter or know someone who does, why not give Streetbank a mention? You can download blurb from the Streetbank grow page https://www.streetbank.xyz/flyer.

See below for this week’s skills and items to share in your neighbourhood.

Cheers

Sam and the Streetbank team.

www.streetbank.com

Help a neighbour in just a minute

The Community Notices (www.streetbank.com/requests) are a great way to strike up conversation with other members of your community. Streeties are helping each other out, offering names of great local decorators, accountants and plumbers, requests for gazebos, pleas for gardening gurus and raising issues of concern in local areas. We mention this to encourage you to carry on posting notices and even to do it more because if you think about it, conversation is the start of community.

Just a little reminder - don't forget to help out UCL student, Camila by taking the 'Trust Test' at:

https://edu.surveygizmo.com/s3/594855/16755e39e3f1

Have a look below to see if anything new has been added in your area.

Cheers,

Sam and the Streetbank team.

www.streetbank.com

It's a reverse riot!

It has been a strange few days. The rioting in the first half of the week has been followed by a time of reflection in the second half. It seems the importance of community is being valued more highly than ever. We want to thank you for being part of Streetbank and being part of a “reverse riot”! - giving your things freely to foster community spirit in your neighbourhood. Interestingly you’ve been more generous than ever with an increase of more than 100% in the number of thinks and skills being offered.

Thanks again

Sam and the Streetbank Team

www.streetbank.com

All change please...

Streetbank has a new homepage. So what have we changed? In short a lot. We’ve created a mini profile so you can add items and a photo more easily, we’ve made it easier to see what your neighbours have been adding and beefed up the neighbourhood notices. To check out the changes simply login as normal at www.streetbank.com

Let us know what you think by writing to alice@streetbank.com

Cheers,

Sam and the Streetbank team.

Hey Big Lenders...

Lately, amongst the Streetie community we’ve noticed a rising number of extremely ‘Big Lenders’... we’re talking about Streeties who are offering over 20 things on their profile to give away, lend out or help with within their communities. There’s even one Streetie who’s offering over 500 items – is he crazy? We think not...

Streetbank is dependent on having interesting and up to date items on offer in every community it’s working in. So here’s the challenge; do you think you could find 20 things over the next week which you’d be willing give away or share with your community? Remember it’s helpful to be specific so people can actually see what you’re offering.

Here are a few recently added creative ideas, to get you started... Evening Dresses and Electric Lawnmowers to borrow, Organic Compost and a Cricket Helmet to give away and 5 Strapping Men willing to help out with tidying gardens, painting and lifting heavy items...

Cheers,

Sam and the Streetbank team.

www.streetbank.com

A lovely bit of chitter chatter

As this summer has unfolded we’ve seen a flurry of activity on Streetbank Community Notice boards across the nation. With requests for gazebos, invites to community markets and pleas for gardening guru’s to tend allotments it seems that many of you are keen to seize the day, get outside and enjoy the sunshine (albeit a intermittent...).

The Community Notices (www.streetbank.com/requests) are a great way to strike up conversation with other members of your community. Streeties are helping each other out, offering names of great local decorators, accountants and plumbers as well as alerting each other to all sorts of activities and issues of concern in local areas. We mention this to encourage you to carry on posting notices andeven to do it more because if you think about it, conversation is the start of community.

Have a look below to see if anything new has been added in your area.

Cheers,

Sam and the Streetbank team.

www.streetbank.com

A Season for Change...

With the longest day of the year on Tuesday and Wimbledon in full swing we can confidently say that summer has arrived... despite the drizzle.

As the seasons have changed so, has the Streetbank Newsletter! We’ve smartened it up and made it easier for you to see exactly what’s going on in your neighbourhood – we’d love to know what you think. If you have found this message in your junk folder please let us know – we’ve been working hard to reduce junking but suspect we haven’t solved it completely.

This week fresh eggs, a set of golf clubs, a marquee and 3 adult space hoppers have been added to Streetbank... check below to see what’s new near you.

Cheers,

Sam and the Streetbank team.

www.streetbank.com

Feel Good, Do Good, Live Good

We’ve been amazed at how big-hearted you Streeties have been this week. On offer to give away we’ve seen super-stylish plantation coffee tables, outdoor gas barbeques and an ENTIRE PA system! Now that’s what we call generous...

If you’ve recently offered to give something away on streetbank and it’s made you feel good, why stop there? Get involved with ‘A Good Week’ this year between 20^th-26^th June and discover all sorts of ways you can make yourself (and others around you) feel good; it’s the perfect excuse to tell your friends about streetbank too! Check out www.agoodweek.com.

You’ll find details below of all the new things your neighbours are sharing and saying.

Cheers,

Sam and the Streetbank team

www.streetbank.com

Big Lunches, Baby Chilli Plants and a Bokashi Compost Bin.

Last Sunday, over a million people across the UK, got together for food, fun, games and conversation with their neighbours at thousands of Big Lunches. If you held one, well done! We hope it went well (despite the weather...)!

Next year the Big Lunch will fall on the same weekend as the Queens Diamond Jubilee, so why not start planning how you can make the most of these events in your community, now!? Try using your Streetbank Notice Board (click on Notices on the homepage) to get your neighbours talking and see what items and skills you can rustle up from your Streeties to help make your event happen.

For those of you with green fingers you’ll be pleased to hear that our favourite items offered this week included a Baby Chilli Plant, Pea Seedlings and a Bokashi Compost Bin – almost everything you need to start your own veggie patch. Scroll down to see if anything new has been added in your area.

Cheers,

Sam and the Streetbank team.

Blowing away the cobwebs...

From Prom Dresses to Acting Lessons, Flower Arranging to Organic Chicken Manure, it’s another week of inspired additions at Streetbank.

These new things keep Streetbank fresh but are there older items that you no longer have for sharing? Have you given away that Mission Impossible DVD? Is there anything else you could offer in its place..? To take an old item down, go onto your profile page, click on the item icon and select ‘delete’... a spring clean done with just one finger!

Cheers,

Sam and the Streetbank Team.

You're Full of Bright Ideas...

Would you like to help shape Streetbank? We are looking for some Streeties who’ve had a few experiences of using Streetbank to find out how things went, what was good (what wasn’t so good) and what you think would make things even better. If that’s you and if you’ve got a spare 10 minutes this week then please email alice@streetbank.com; we’d love to speak to you.

For budding sport lovers among you, you’ll be pleased to hear that our favourite thing offered on Streetbank this week wasTriathlon Coaching... Check below to see what your fellow Streetie’s are saying and adding.

Cheers,

Sam and The Streetbank Team

www.streetbank.com

Honey Bees and Helping

This week we’ve been especially enjoying all the offers of help added to Streetbank. Try checking below - it may be that you are in the same area as someone offering ukulele lessons, help with the removal of bee swarms(!) and even someone willing to come to the rescue in a last minute cooking crisis...

We’re noticing, that most of the activity on Streetbank takes place in areas with lots of other Streeties. There is a critical mass, a tipping point at which Streetbank starts making a difference in a neighbourhood. So, to address this, we’re in the process of putting together a pack of how to get Streetbank going in your area. We’ll let you know when it’s done in a couple of weeks time but if you have ideas about how to spread Streetbank and get it to that tipping point you can let us know at alice@streetbank.com - thanks for your help!

Many thanks,

Sam and the Streetbank Team

www.streetbank.com

Why do we all own a lawnmower?

Things are hotting up! This week Streetbank was featured on the BBC World Service, One Planet Show. You can still listen to Sam’s interview with Mike Williams at http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p00gdb3r/One_Planet_Why_do_we_all_own_a_lawnmower.

The Streetbank bit is in the first four minutes but the wider programme is a good overview of “collaborative consumption” – the idea that sharing things is the future! Have you got any exciting stories about sharing with your neighbours? If so, drop us a line at alice@streetbank.com.

Anyway, that’s enough from us... scroll down and see if any new treasures have been added in your area!!

Cheers, Sam and the Streetbank Team

www.streetbank.com

New Beginnings!

So the sun shone and the streets partied this weekend as the people of Britain came together to celebrate Will & Kate’s big day. We’ve heard of streets lined with flags and bunting, trestle tables to seat hundreds and steel bands to dance the afternoon away.

With spring now in full swing we feel it’s a good time to look forward to new beginnings, new friendships which have blossomed through the celebrations at the weekend and we at Streetbank have a new beginning of our very own... in the form of our newest team member, Alice! Alice has joined to help us look after the Streetbank community, so feel free to write in with your questions, requests, ideas or just to say hi (she’d love that!) at alice@streetbank.com.

We would also love your help - we would love to build on the community spirit in your neighbourhood by inviting more people to join Streetbank. If you have made friends with your neighbours over the weekend and now have their email addresses, or were involved in organising a street party and had to email lots of locals, we would be really grateful if you could send the message below (or something similar). It should help to keep the community spirit bubbling in your area.

Big thanks,

Sam and the Streetbank team

“I would love your help. I’m a member of a useful website called streetbank.com which shows you what your neighbours will give away or lend. It struck me as good way to build on the sense of community that was released in our neighbourhood by the Royal Wedding Party and would be really grateful if you could join. As well as building community, it gives you access to a whole load of stuff, is good for the environment and saves you money. It is free to join,though to become a member you have to show that you are a little bit community spirited by offering one thing you would be willing to lend or give away. It can be low value items like DVDs, a guidebook or it can be higher value like an old TV you want to get rid of.

I’ve joined and it would be great if you could too! If you like it, feel free to tell other local friends about it.

It is at www.streetbank.com”

Strawberry plants, lawnmowers and vegetable seeds

It is looking like last week’s ten day forecast was a little optimistic – Friday’s weather in London and across the UK is likely to be fairly showery. We don’t think that will put Will and Kate off, we hope it won’t put you off if you are planning on joining a street party. In fact some rainy weather might make the day even more memorable and bring us even closer together as we huddle together under umbrellas.

Whatever the weather, summer is on its way and this seems to be reflected in the things being added to Streetbank – strawberry plants, lawnmowers, loppers and vegetable seeds. Thanks, as ever, for all your generosity.

Our Streetie of the Week is Tessa who is helping someone who has been homeless find some furniture through Streetbank – if you are in her area, see her notice and you have something spare do drop her a line.

Cheers,

Sam and the Streetbank Team

Roll out the Bunting

The weather forecast here in London is sunshine for the next ten days – promising a glorious Easter and hopefully a magical Royal Wedding. These two events will be bringing communities together across the UK. We think neighbours will be more open, less puzzled by a cheery smile, more disarmed by a comment about the unseasonally warm weather or an exclamation of “Happy Easter!” So if you are passing a neighbour in the street why not take the opportunity to say “hello” or if you haven’t met them before introduce yourself – we think this is the season when you’ll get the warmest response. Let us know how you get on by logging on to the “Roll out the Bunting” blog on the home page.

Separately, a number of people have written to us suggesting we allow people to make requests - to ask their neighbours for items that aren’t listed on the site but which their neighbours might have. We do allow people to make requests – in fact we really encourage it! You can make a request by logging in and clicking on the notices tab. In fact you can make a request for anything you like – a gazebo, bunting, trestle tables etc! – or announce an event and you can choose to send this request to everyone within 250 yards, 500 yards, 1000 yards or a mile.

We hope you have a very good break at this special time.

Cheers,

Sam and the Streetbank Team

Real Bread Maker Week - The Rise of the Machines

A week or two ago we were called by Sarah who is involved in organising “Real Bread Maker Week – The Rise of the Machines” a title so compelling that we are delighted to publicise it! Apparently 36% of bread machines hardly ever get used, so from 9^th – 15^th May, the Real Bread Campaign is calling on people to dig them out and bake Real Bread in the most unusual places they can.

We are being invited to rummage round our kitchen cupboard, dust off that idling electric baker, and plug it in somewhere we usually wouldn’t. Anyone posting a picture of themselves in action in an unusual location on the Campaign’s Facebook page by 13^th May stands the chance of winning a great prize. It is about having fun, whist taking back control of the food we eat. And they make it clear that it isn’t about selling more gadgets – there are estimated to be 10 million lurking out there already and the Real Bread Campaign is helpfully encouraging people to take the opportunity to pick up or pass on unwanted bread machines in person or online.

We thoroughly approve of all this – if you would like to read more check out www.realbreadcampaign.org

Finally, Streetbank had a good write up in the May edition of “Wired”, the ideas magazine which described us as a hyperlocal bank for borrowing and sharing skills with the aim of bringing communities together. Thanks to Rachel B for including us in her article!

Cheers,

Sam and the Streetbank team

Spring Clean

We've been watching what has been added to Streetbank over the last couple of weeks and have been wondering whether one or two streetbees have been having a Spring Clean. We've seen exercise bikes, 30 by 30 terracotta tiles and a pair of size 7 Clarks Buggles Sandals added amongst much else. Now that Spring has firmly taken hold now might be a good moment to work through an overflowing cupboard or shelf. If so, please don't throw it, Streetbank it! What is no longer of value to you may well be of value to someone else.

On a similar Spring Clean note, if an item that you listed on Streetbank has since been collected or is no longer available please make sure you delete it from Streetbank. To do this go to the profile tab, click the item and click delete.

Finally, our favourite additions this week are "how to tie a bow tie", "researching your family tree" and "hebrew writing, reading and speaking"".

Many thanks,

Sam

The Creative Community - Juggling, Singing and Curtain Making

We’ve been looking into how people use Streetbank. We’ve been surprised – we found that the most popular requests are for items that are being given away (47%), then for offers of help (32%) and then borrowable items (21%). We are not surprised so much by the number of requests for items that are given away – it is great to get something for free as you don’t have to worry about damaging it or return it. But, we are surprised by how popular skills are. In fact this week, most of the requests were for offers of help. These included requests for lessons in juggling, circus skills, poi spinning (the streamer things you see people dancing with in parks), crocheting, singing and help with curtain making. But Streetbees are still lending regularly - in fact our favourite event this week was the Streebee who has offered to lend their south facing garden for vegetable growing. I’m pleased to say this offer has been quickly snapped up.

Cheers,

Sam and the Streetbank team

Half Price Tickets - Sustainable Living Show

A few days ago we received a call from a Streetbee, Philippa, whose day job is to organise "UK AWARE" a major sustainable living event being held at Kensington Olympia this Friday and Saturday (25-26^th March). Philippa is working flat out but had time to share the vision and invite us to come along. As a streetbee you get half price tickets (a snip at £3.50) to the exhibition by visiting www.ukaware.comand using "STREETBANK" in the promotional code box when booking your ticket. It will bring together a bunch of really interesting organisations offering cars, computers, fashion, food, eco-tourism and energy saving advice as well as seminars and workshops on all aspects of a low impact lifestyle. Hopefully see you there!

Last week the number of messages sent through Streetbank increased significantly. We’ve been wondering why. We think it may be because we have made the message system more reliable - fewer messages are getting junked. We think it also might be because of the message we gave out last week which bears mentioning again! The message is – please don’t be shy to ask fellow streetbees for something they are offering. We have seen that many people don't ask for something until they have given something to someone else. So by asking you will give them permission to use Streetbank. In a strange way asking becomes an act of helping.

Cheers,

Sam and The Streetbank Team

Apologies, Scalectrics and Carpet Shampoo

Apologies - last week some people received several duplicate newsletters and others received no newsletter at all. If you are in either group we are sorry and grateful for your patience.

If you are interested in what happened we're doing some complicated things behind the scenes which will make Streetbank faster and ensure that very few messages forwarded to your email get junked. The complicated things went wrong... While we are on the subject of junked emails, if you have sent a message recently and received no response please don't give up on humanity! - it is more likely to be that the message was junked - or possibly junked on the way back to you by your email system. We hate the idea that Streetbank could dim people's views of their neighbours - our hope is that Streetbank highlights how generous most people are.

In fact, just last week a carpet shampoo machine was requested, a scalectrics set was given away and IT assistance was provided through Streetbank among many other things. When we look at the patterns of making requests and responding to requests one thing we notice is that requests are often made by people who have very recently helped someone else. We think this is because if you have helped someone you feel you have more permission to ask for help from someone else. We think the message here is:

1/ don’t be shy to ask as you may well be giving your neighbour a bit of courage to ask for help from someone else

2/ there is a good chance that if someone requests something of you the person asking will have just helped someone else (though they’ll no doubt be far too polite to say!)

Have a great week

Sam and the Streetbank Team

Sustainable Living Offer and Getting Faster and Better

We received a call from Philippa, earlier in the week, whose day job is to organise "UK AWARE" a sustainable living event held at Kensington Olympia on Friday 25th and Saturday 26th March. Philippa is working flat out but had time to share the vision and invite us to come along. As a streetbee you get half price tickets (a snip at £3.50) to the exhibition by visiting www.ukaware.com and using "STREETBANK" in the promotional code box when booking your ticket. It will bring together a bunch of really interesting organisations offering cars, computers, fashion, food, eco-tourism and energy saving advice as well as seminars and workshops on all aspects of a low impact lifestyle. Hopefully see you there!

Behind the scenes Nic has been working to move Streetbank to a new much bigger server (the old one was full and causing us a few problems) and a new email system which should reduce the number of messages getting caught in junk mail. You may have noticed the odd teething problem - we really appreciate your patience - but it is making for a faster, better, more reliable system.

Thanks to all of you who have helped get Streetbank in your local newsletters - it is making a big difference and is hugely appreciated!

Cheers

Sam and the Streetbank Team

Chocolate Fountain, Cameras and not being a Bank!

This week we have been really grateful to Rosemary who has featured Streetbank in her residents association newsletter. She described Streetbank as “really local recycling” and had given away an old camera and received from other neighbours some wood and a chocolate fountain. If you send or receive a local newsletter/parish magazine and can get Streetbank featured it is a great way to get Streetbank flying in your area. If you can help, drop Sam a line at sam@streetbank.com and he will be pleased to send some suggested text.

Meanwhile, we are now well on the path to charity status so that we can get funding, give Streebank more attention and make it even better. Interestingly, this has been held up by the Financial Services Authority who are concerned that we have “bank” in our name and might be offering financial services!

Have a great week.

Sam, Ryan, Nic and Cath

Big new milestone - 10,000th offer!

This week we reached another milestone as the 10,000th offer was made over streetbank. You might be interested to hear that it was a DVD of Slumdog Millionaire, which won Best Picture in 2009, and which seemed to us appropriate given that it is “Oscar Season”. We're also now up to 6,500 and growing every day. This means that the average Streetbank member offers their neighbours 1.53 things - if you haven’t added a new thing for a while or you’ve given away something but not updated Streetbank this is a little nudge!

One quick final thing – we are having a debate as to how we should refer to everyone on streetbank – streetbank member (does what it says on the tin but in our view is a bit bland) streetbanker (pithy but not popular with everyone) or streetbee (nice link to collaboration but possibly twee) or something completely different. Let us know at catherine@streetbank.comand we’ll decide to stick with one, once and for all.

Cheers,

Sam, Ryan, Nic and Cath

Collaborative Consumption

Earlier this week Sam attended a conference on “collaborative consumption” – the idea that we can live better lives if we share our things and our time. It looked at some of the most interesting new examples of this – whipcar.com which allows you to rent your car to your neighbour, crashpadder.com which allows you to rent a room in your house to a visitor and taskrabbit.com where you can be paid to run an errand for your neighbour. The big of question of the day was around trust. How does it develop? Two points emerged – that once people had tried trusting once, they were much more inclined to trust again.. and again and again. The second is the importance of leaving feedback. Many of the websites have developed sophisticated ebay feedback systems. We haven’t yet but plan to develop this area a bit. In the meantime, if you have interacted with anyone on Streetbank it makes a big difference if you leave feedback on their page afterwards – the streetbank system is very basic but your endorsement helps to build a picture of who other members are.

Cheers,

Sam, Ryan, Nic and Cath

Seed Potatoes, an Eletric Keyboard and the Royal Wedding

We get a little buzz every time we see a message sent to a Streetbank neighbour simply entitled "Thank you!". It makes us know that the neighbourly interaction has worked and created a bit of joy in the process. In fact, you tell us that there is double the pleasure in being helped by a neighbour who doesn't stand to gain in any concrete way (though perhaps in other ways) and this is doubled again when you drop them a line to say "thank you". With the risk of over doing things, thank you for thanking. It makes the world or at least Streetbank go round!

Highlights of things shared this week include seed potatoes, an 8 octave electric keyboard, an old Toshiba laptop whose mousepad doesn't work and some old crime thrillers that have been read and need a new home.

Finally, we are feeling excited about the Royal Wedding and the opportunity this gives those of us in the UK to have a big get street get together. Are you planning on organising something? If so, now is the moment to start planning and please feel free to promote the event through Streetbank "Notices" tab or by clicking here

Cheers

The Streetbank Team

Collaborative Consumption

If you woke up this morning feeling glum about the depressing economic growth (contraction) figures of yesterday it is worth checking out Rachel Botsman’s thought provoking/provocative TED talk here. She argues that we are moving to a new economic model – away from “hyper consumption” to “collaborative consumption” where we will no longer choose to own but instead to hire or share. She provides numerous examples including zipcar, bagborroworsteal... and we could swear she mentioned Streetbank. This is all driven by tough economic conditions, environmental concerns, a renewed belief in the importance of community and emerging technology – as she puts it “wiring the world to share”. You can hear her speak on 2 February at the RSA or the 9 February at the British Library.

Some of you have commented that you don’t always get a response to a message you have sent through the system. We suspect this is not laziness on the part of the recipient – the streetbank community is highly reliable! – but many messages are getting junked. If everyone could make an effort to add streetbank ot their address list or safe sender list (it is slightly different depending on your email system) we will be grateful.

Cheers,

Sam, Ryan, Nic and Cath

P.S. Two Streetbank experiences from Sam - on Elizabeth's advice he darned his well loved jumpers using the amazing substance Woolfiller and he returned the pantomime standard tutu to Graham - ideal for the stag!

Bookbinding, needlework and charity status

We never stop being amazed at the sheer variety of things and skills that are added to Streetbank. This week included a Mamas and Papas White Cot, Bookbinding and Terry Wogan’s Autobiography.

You will remember that last week as part of Sam new year’s resolution to get more practical he asked for help sewing on buttons and darning the elbows of his jumper. Help has come from two different places. Lucy kindly gave Sam a lesson in button sewing – more of a fiddle than he realised but gratifying to do, satisfying to learn something new and the outcome meant that two stalwart items of his wardrobe were given a new lease of life. Lizzie messaged him to introduce him to an amazing substance from Holland called Woolfiller which doesn’t require to any stitching at all. It is on order and Sam is looking forward to returning his favourite stripey grey jumper very soon!

On a more administrative note we’re looking for a solicitor who can help us get charity status. If you are willing to help us get through this process do let Sam know at sam@streetbank.com.

Cheers,

Sam, Ryan, Nic and Cath

A Tooting Gathering and a Holey Jumper

We're pleased to announce that this week our 6,000th member joined! and in the next couple of weeks we will pass another significant milestone 10,000 useful things or skills on the site.

Hats off to Caroline who is organising a gathering for all Streetbank members in Tooting, South West London on Thursday at 7pm at the Wheatsheaf pub - if you are based in that direction look out for Caroline's notice and do head along!

Over Christmas Sam read a fascinating book called "The Case for Working with your Hands or Why Office Work is Bad for You" by an American academic turned motor bike mechanic, Mattew Crawford. Apart from being a brilliant charades clue it makes a good case and has inspired Sam's new years resolution to do some more practical things with his time. And that has provoked him to put out a notice on Streetbank for someone who can teach him how to patch up some favourite jumpers and how to sew on buttons. He'll let you know how he gets on.

Cheers

Sam, Ryan, Nic and Cath