Member Exchange (Freebie Shelf) BoD Approval

Can you throw a 100 lb javelin
While some men will pay god money for ladies dirty worn panties
we don t want any of those, either!

Now if someone wants to take them for scrap values, then
can let us know

We don t want folks using us to get rid of things they would need to
pay a fee for disposing of,

Nor would you have to, as most used automotive parts can be legally land-filled.

Although the car axle is kind of a silly exercise, as that clearly would fall under “doesn’t fit on the shelf” and “should be part of the swap meet held [insert time frame here]”:

My family had a “tool” in our shed called a spud bar, that I found out years later was a drive axle from a Model T.

I’d say this is a pretty decent upcycle of a car axle (housing):

Not a fan of Pintrest, but they’ve got some good images of car parts upcycling:

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The problem with car parts are the amounts that have to be thrown away vs. amounts that are taken by others to use. It’s also a problem of weight which some members won’t be able to carry down to dispose. There were feelings that the freebie shelf was easier to toss dirty car parts on than it was for the owners to carry them down to the dumpster.

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Perhaps require members run their old car parts through the parts cleaner. That would show they feel there may be enough value in the part to bother cleaning it… Just a thought. Some larger items do seem to have possibilities… a lot of the stuff that had been left before was dirty and did not seem to be picked up for upcycling as a rule…

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Speaking from past personal experience, most of the used car parts I observed on the shelf were fully depreciated: brake discs worn down to almost nothing with runout you could visually observe, suspension components clearly used well beyond end-of-life, rusted-out brackets, etc. Toss in the fact that they were often inconveniently heavy or ridiculously specialized (i.e. like-new stock mufflers for a 2015+ Subraru Impreza WRX STI - not compatible with lesser Impreza trims), turnover principally happened whenever a volunteer such as myself hauled them down to the dumpster.

But with a new committee eager to revitalize the freebie shelf dedicated to running it better, they can update the rules with BoD approval.

No longer my circus and definitely no longer my monkeys.

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Ok, here is an idea, lets have a weight limit on items?
Say 40-50 lbs?
And things like auto parts need to be free of oil/grease/dirt/
And Erik is right about useful things. I once bought the wrong
windshield wiper blade and didn t catch it til it wouldnt fit. I
finaly found someone that could use it!

I think discussing the minutiae of the rules for the freebie shelf will not advance the goal of returning the freebie shelf. The rules were never the issue and they’re not the issue now. Car parts were not allowed in the first place yet axles, transmissions, shocks, and all other sorts of nonsense still showed up.

It comes down to people willing to manage it and/or designing it in such a way that the rules can’t be broken (or it’s very difficult to do so). For example put the proposed freebie shelf in a place where transporting an axle to it would be completely impractical to do or make it so there’s literally no place to physically leave such an item.

You can make rules until you’re blue in the face with the freebie shelf but expect people to disregard them on a regular basis. A successful plan will involve more than just the rules.

I would really hate to think that the problems came from
it being close to the auto committee area and some folks
using that area unwillingness to follow some simple rules,

I feel that a better designed shelf that is attractive and organized
will go a long way in discouraging bad behavior. Sort of the way
patents encourage small children to pick up their rooms!

BTW, many years ago I used a discarded brake pad from my hubby s
car as a leather working surface

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