By -Theo Kitchener contact@thesharehood.orgwww.thesharehood.org

The Sharehood started about one year ago, in Northcote, Melbourne, when I distributed a letter inviting my neighbours to help create a local community that would enable us to share household goods, skillshare with each other, and get to know one another. Thirteen households responded initially and six of these came to our first meeting where we discussed how we’d like things to work. I went away and setup
a basic version of the website. Out of 240 initial letters, around 25-30 households are now involved to varying degrees.

We have had several different social events – picnics, afternoons at the local pub, really really free markets, a big community garage sale in our local guerrilla community garden and a BBQ. There has been a greywater working bee, and several lovely people share their kitchen waste with our house compost bin.

Some of the sharing happening in our hood includes people borrowing vacuum cleaners, ladders, lawn mowers, tools, babysitting for each other, borrowing cars, using each others printers, giving away excess food, even a cake that made the rounds through five houses before being fully devoured. Anyone can start a Sharehood wherever they are in the world. You join yourself up at the site, www.thesharehood.org , and in the process fill in some details about the people living in your home, as well as listing the types of things that you would like to share or offer. Once you’ve joined you’ll be able to look at the listings and profiles of others who have joined within 400m of your home. There is also an events calendar that anyone can post to, a forum where you can discuss whatever you like and a community photo gallery. When you first join, you may find that you don’t have any neighbours on the site. In order to encourage your neighbours to join, you can edit and letterbox our draft letter available on the website, or you can just go door-knocking with the idea.