Number of loans recorded since April 2019
Number of items available to borrow
Normally Open
Tuesday 8-10 am & Thursday’s 3-5 pm
Closed from Wed Dec 25th – Jan 6th
EXCEPT a special Friday opening on Dec 27th from 3-5pm
REOPENING Tuesday Jan 7th.
REMEMBER – Returns are due in the FIRST HOUR and pick ups in the SECOND.
We are now a Co operative - Members share the benefit as well as the burden to deliver the operation - a fair and sustainable model but we are not yet on track to continue after Easter 2025. More leaders are required to take on bite size pieces of the work Celine & Sasha covered for years. Funding for co ordination ran out at the end of 2023 so Sasha has continued unpaid since then and is stepping back after the summer school holidays end in early 2025.
The purpose of our Library of Stuff is to radically reduce consumption within our community. It’s a THINK GLOBAL, ACT LOCAL initiative. The planet is buckling under the weight of human demands for more and more resources to be extracted, transported, manufactured, used then disposed of at alarming rates.
Watch
The Story of Stuff movie (20mins)
The Story of Solutions movie (10 mins)
Buy Now movie on Netflix (124 mins)
Read
A Roadmap to Circular Consumption
For individuals and households who can pick up and return items from our Mullum location, membership is now a 6 month committment of $1 per week and a little over an hour of your time each week.
The $26 monetary fee is paid on joining (and thereafter on renewal each six months and the time contribution can be paid in a variety of ways – generally speaking members should expect to do at least one 2.5 hour shift working on site. We require a mix of leaders and workers to make the majic happen! Leaders usually split their hours between planning/organising/doing off site and working a shift on site. Even our webdesigner is encouraged to do the occassional 2.5 hour on site shift because the best way to understand the operation, all the stuff we have, who’s using it and what the community benefit really is is to see the sharing in action first hand. On Tuesday’s and Thursday’s there are critical roles for fortnightly ‘Shift Workers’. Without these crew you wouldn’t be able to rely on the doors being open to welcome you! On Friday’s we run a Make & Mend – Odd Jobs & Banter as a collaborative event with our sister project, Salvage Culture. This takes place in the Salvage Culture Workshop at the Community College accross the road. This involves sewing machines, gaffa tape, glue and staple guns as primary tools.
The Library of Stuff Co op offers support and sponsorships to local community groups and other non profit organisations. This service is intended to assist these groups by helping them avoid costly commercial hire fees or potentially feeling under pressure to use throw away items instead like cups, plates, cutlery etc.
Whether you have a general question, want to join the co op or ask for support for your community group or non profit organisation the way to get in touch is to use the contact form below. Future members are encouraged to register to attend one of our Friday or Saturday activities to meet some members and get a feel for how we roll. Again, see below for upcoming activitites.
Most share Libraries in Australia are still operating with a few core volunteers doing the lionshare of the work so other members can pay a small annual fee and borrow freely without offering any time contribution. We had hoped after launching Household Memberships in April 2019 that as our membership numbers grew so would the number of people offereing to help but that didn’t happen. Effectively we succumbed to the global default which is people wanting more for less. If you are more excited about what you can offer the Library of Stuff Co op and how your contribution will help the operation grow than what you will get out of it then you will be a great fit for our award winning operation!
Contact Us Here
Register to attend Friday or Saturday activities
CHECK OUT THE UPCOMING ACTIVITIES AVAILABLE FOR MEMBERS AND VISITORS TO ATTEND
In addition to these events there are critical roles that we are looking to fill. We need a mix of leaders and workers to make the magic happen! In particular we need a co ordinator for our Gardening Gear. This involves organising the Gardening Gear Share, Care & Repair ‘bee on the 4th Saturday of the month. We also need a co ordinator for the Games Room. Their monthly ‘bee is scheduled for the 3rd Saturday of each month. Check out the position description for these roles below.
We also need:
- A Roster Creator and Promoter – who creates the organisations events online using eventbrite and does basic promotion via Insta & Fb. We imagine this should be done quarterly. Potentially following the Community College’s school term frequency. Each ‘terms’ activities should be created and all ‘on sale’ a month before the term begins to help members lock in their activities. Ideally eventbrite and mailchimp are integrated and a quarterly mailchimp LoS update is sent with content invited from Co ordinators to accompany the Activities on offer.
- A Site Manager – they take care of the keg register and manage petty cash. They liase with Mullum Cares treasurer, council and our landlord, the Neighbourhood Centre. They know who to call if the solar/battery plays up or if we have a break in. They know the insurance policies back to front and ensure the security measures in place to meet our insurers expectations are adhered to.
- A Capacity Manager – this person knows what roles are covered and which are vacant. When new members join they send them a welcome email letting them know where the need is greatest within the operation and send them onboarding info.
Check out the Position Description for our Care,Share & Repair Co ordinators
Splitting up the jobs required to look after all the assets in the Library and ensure current and potential members know how to make the most of them has been a major task. And it’s still a work in progress. What’s clear is that dividing up the assets into major groups and looking for leaders to take on managing these groups of assets is easy to plan but not so easy to find passionate locals with the ability to commit to the roles. We have had a some very committed members begin to take on these roles then need to back out.
While looking for co ordinators (and then they must appoint an understudy so we wont fall into crisis if they need to step out) we are also preparing for a plan B. In the event that we don’t fill all critical roles we hope to ‘farm out’ the categories we haven’t the numbers to sustain. If you have any recommendations please get in touch.
Click through to read the Position Description of our Category Care, Share & Repair Coordinators.
MEMBERS CAN BOOK IN TO ASSIST ON TUESDAYS & THURSDAYS HERE
Members are encouraged to register to assist at open times to fast track their understanding how the lending works and exactly what items are available to borrow. It’s an undertaking looking through the 50+ pages of items on the inventory page! This is not open to non-members.
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