Help needed !

Hello everyone!

I am part of a group called Freecylce (more specifically the Toronto chapter).
Freecycle was created as a way to offer items that you no longer need to people who have use for them. This way somebody gets something for free and it decreases the amount of trash in our landfills.

Well.... people often "offer" up their animals on this group for free which I feel is wrong. I emailed the moderators who started a poll to decide whether or not animals should be allowed on Freecyle . Sadly , allowing animals to be offered is currently winning. I need people to sign up so they can vote against allowing animals to be offered for free .

It is a little burdensome because :

a) you have to fill out a questionnaire to apply
b) you have to wait to have your membership approved by mods (which takes about 24 hours)
c) after you join your inbox will be flooded with emails UNLESS you sign up for the daily digest version which means you will only get one email a day.

Of course you can unsubscribe to the list but i think it might look suscpicous to have a flurry of new members only to have the all them unsubscribe shortly after.

I hope that enough people vote , right now there is about 65 votes to allow animals and 35 against.

Heres the link to join :

http://freecycle.org/display.php?region=Canada

Then scroll down to Ontario to find the TORONTO group (not theres a couple listed Toronto - Annex , Cabbagetown etc.. but you want just Toronto).

It breaks my heart to read these people offering up their family pets like there nothing :( . This might at least make people try to responsibly adopt out their pets instead of giving it to the first person who emails them.

This is why I deleted my membership with freecycle, and another one of my friends did the same on the other side of the gta..

In pointing out the potential perils of trading around animals we were both told if we didn't like it to quit. No one wanted to hear about it. But it wasn't the TO chapter in either case..

If your Freecycle is with Yahoo groups, you can opt in your settings to read the emails online which is what I do. No way do I want a ton of emails from ppl selling stuff in my inbox!!!

If you loose the survey, you can always threaten them with bad publicity.

The whole concept sounds really wrong to me. Freecycle = recycling your pets. I am going to sign up right now and get my opinion on the survey.

Just noticed a cat up for grabs due to allergies here in London! :eek: I will certainly send in my complaint against this practice right away! :mad:

If you read this bottom to top, the order is:

1) the posting for the free cat;
2) my complaint about the posting of animals and
3) some reply from Freecycle admin that makes no sense to me....


Subject: Message not approved: posting of live animals/pets


Comments are not allowed here on freecycle. If you read the here are
the rules and the concerning pet posts you will see that we take it
very seriously here.



> Hi there. I just joined the Freecycle family and really enjoy the
opportunity to be a part of it. However, I am disturbed by the fact
that there are posts allowed in which one my "recycle" a family pet!
This to me is inately wrong and not at all the way I feel that this
site should be used. I thought that this was a forum for preventing
excess items ending up in landfill and to assist those in finding such
things, but CATS AND DOGS?? up for the taking? This to me is not in
the spirit that this free forum was intended and it is somewhat
appalling. Please reconsider the allowing of folks to post living
creatures up for grabs on this site. It just doesn't seem right. There
are other sources of advertising pets for give-away/sale that are more
fitting than on Freecycle.
>
> See the following post from London Freecycle:
>
> From: "lyke_di_mond" <rgifford@>
> Date: Fri Oct 7, 2005 11:08 am
> Subject: OFFER 2 yr old Female Cat East london lyke_di_mond
> Offline
> Send Email
>
> This is a very difficult posting as I really love this cat. My son
has
> developed allergies and even the smallest amount of cat hair can
affect
> his ability to breathe. This cat is a great friend, loyal and loves
to
> garden with me. She is fixed, healthy and loves to be around people.
> I am hoping to find as good of a home as she has now, someone to love
> her as we have.
>
> Old east London...lorne and quebec area
>
>
> Thank you.

Hi Katherine.....sorry to go off topic :o how is sweet Farley?? Pictures please!! :)

The poll is over and pets are allowed to be freecycled. BOO :mad: .

Happycats ! Hi :)

Farley is doing well , he has developed quite the personality. He's a huge tail wagger now , which is nice because i know he's happy. He's also very stubborn , limits his obdience to when treats are available and has suddenly developed an intense liking for kleenex :p I caught him trying to pull one out of the box with his teeth yesterday :D

I will post some pictures of him in the next day or so , thanks for asking :)