Over the last six years I’ve seen many commercial attempts to make sharing or fractional ownership work, particularly for boats and property. Very few are still in business. The time seems right for this, but the commercial schemes, generally for two to six partners, have two fundamental flaws. They try to:
Consider this scenario, a holiday homes’ company is selling quarter shares and has allocated each share every fourth week in rotation. The first potential customers have school-age children and want three weeks together in peak season. The next couple avoid travelling in school holidays but want 2-3 weeks in both May-June and September-October. The next person is interested in a whole month at both the beginning and end of the year. Hard on their heels are a couple who would like occasional dates throughout the year; they want to use the property at short notice if available.
None of these prospective buyers fits the fixed model. But if they sat down together, I think there is sufficient compatibility to enable a deal to be done. I’m exaggerating, but you get the picture.
The second flaw is even bigger. I wouldn’t even contemplate buying a share without meeting the other buyers. I’d want to be convinced that my fellow owners had similar values, that I could trust them and happily work matters out in future should something go wrong.
Is there an alternative? I think there is, but I haven’t seen anyone doing it yet. I think I could offer a process where people register their interest and indicate their key requirements, followed by matching and facilitation to introduce the potential partners, create a syndicate and manage it if required.
If you are selling holiday accommodation, boats, motorhomes or other big ticket items which could be owned and managed by a private syndicate, I’d be interested to speak to you. Maybe together we could make it work.
When I started yours2share, I didn’t realise that I was starting a social enterprise, I just wanted to help people share stuff. As the number of private syndicates that were helped by yours2share increased, I also became aware that if as the number of partners in a private syndicates increases substantially, it becomes a co-operative.
Over time yours2share has created a well established forum for people sharing property, boats and aircraft. It also enables people to share land, gardens and allotments, for food and vegetables as well as animals such as hens, goats, horses, and bees. We’ve also helped people to share cars as informal car clubs: buying a car between three and six people in a street or village. The principles of sharing, the issues that must be agreed to make a sharing arrangment work are basically the same, whether you are sharing a £1 million yacht or a vegetable plot at the end of the garden.
The last year I moved to a small town in south Norfolk, a rural corner of East Anglia and I’ve become immersed in a rural lifestyle and economy. Over the last few weeks, I’ve been using the social networks much more, particularly Twitter, and all of the strands of yours2share and my lives, seem to have come together in the guise of the Plunkett Foundation and various projects in which it is involved.
The Plunkett Foundation promotes and supports co-operatives and social enterprises in rural communities worldwide. One of the Plunkett Foundation’s projects is the lottery funded MakeLocalFoodWork, where it works with a range of other major partners including Co-operativesUK, the trade association for all types of co-operative enterprise throughout the UK, and the Soil Association which works to improve the public’s understanding of the impact of different methods of food production on health and the environment.
The MakeLocalFoodWork project is a collection of projects all designed to ‘reconnect people and land through local food increasing access to fresh, healthy, local food with clear, traceable origins’.
If you want to know more about supporting rural communities, do visit the Plunkett Foundation’s website, and if food issues interest you, have a look at the MakeLocalFoodWork website.
If you just want somewhere to “grow your own” or would like someone to help you to make use of your garden, here are yours2share’s landshare listings and landshare guidance.
Someone on my wavelength! I feel like yelling from the rooftops!
This post on shareable.net about non profit organisations sharing to cut costs is one (of many) areas that I’ve always thought yours2share could easily facilitate: resources and services used by organisations. And yet most people don’t even consider this, unless they know people well in the other organisation or unless the economic drivers are very high. In the former category, I know that health authorities often share resources and in the latter, I’m told that oil companies pool together to buy the most expensive spare parts rather than all carry one each of a part that rarely fails. I’ve written a lengthy comment on the above post, so please read this if you want to find out more of my views.
In the article Janelle Orsi is only talking about not for profit organsiations, but I think profit making organisations can also get together to share. The article above is actually the second of two parts. The first part expands on the types of things that organisations could share.
If anyone wants to share accomodation, space, equipment, services or anything else with another organisation, please contact me and I’ll help work out exactly where to post the ad on yours2share and I’ll also work hard to publicise the request.
I spent much of last week puzzled by a huge increase in visitors to yours2share. I knew yours2share had obviously had a great mention somewhere, but where? ...
Another great mention for yours2share on Channel Four's Superscripmers last Friday. Here is more information about dog sharing and the latest list of dog sha...
