As a NATION, THE IRISH understand the art of giving and receiving favours. During the boom it may have remained a factor of political and business life but it fell out of fashion with the ordinary people. However, now that credit is tight, barter is back. It echoes the old idea of the meitheal, when your neighbours helped harvest your crops in return for your labour when it was their turn to bring in the harvest.
“We’re a community swap,” says Clonakilty Favour Exchange founder Bev Cotton. “What we’re doing communities have been doing for centuries.” Barter is more than just exchanging favours, says Cotton. “It’s a great community builder. If nothing else, people get to know each other better.”
LIFTS FOR CHILDCARE
Childcare worker Sara Kubiak is one of the newest and younger members of Ireland’s best-known barter charter, the Clonakilty Favour Exchange. The difference between the favour exchange and traditional barter is that time is used as a unit of currency. You don’t return the favour directly. The time you put in is the time you take out.
Kubiak has offered her services as a childminder to the exchange. She has taken out favours, mainly lifts to Cork city on the days she is working. The journey takes 60 minutes. “I no longer have to take the bus, a saving of €18 return,” she says. “Nor do I have to negotiate staying over in Cork with friends.”
Since joining in June, Subiak is now trying to convince her mother and her boyfriend, a software developer, to sign up. In her spare time, she helps out at the local favour exchange library where a donation of two books, DVDs or CDs entitles you to make use of their collection. “It’s extremely social and a great way to meet new people,” she explains.
PERSONAL SHOPPING FOR A FACIAL
Stylist and personal shopper Cathy O’Connor bartered personal shopping for a facial. Aoife O’Dalaigh, a beautician friend of hers, wanted O’Connor to take her shopping, so O’Connor suggested she give her a facial in return. “I love the idea of bartering,” she says. “For me a facial is not an essential, it’s a treat. Orla would never ordinarily pay for shopping services. We went to an outlet mall in the States and she still talks about the great things she bought.” When bartering, it is important to know the value of what you’re offering, cautions O’Connor.
“To successfully exchange favours you have to explain what your services are worth and appreciate what the other person’s services or goods are worth. The whole idea is that money doesn’t change hands but the value of the money has to be mentioned.”
“Barter is great for the non-essentials,” says O’Connor. “But I wouldn’t like to be bartering for my groceries or to pay my ESB bill.”
MAKE-UP TUTORIALS FOR PILATES
Danielle Murphy is a make-up artist. “It is a high-maintenance job,” she admits. “How I look is really important. It can be expensive to maintain, as I don’t have a regular wage.”
While making-up a corporate client, she discovered that she was a pilates instructor who wanted to learn how to do her own make-up. Murphy, who suffers from a bad back, asked how she might feel about exchanging make-up tutorials for pilates lessons. Pilates helps relieve her back pain. She got five classes in return for a make-up lesson.
Murphy also engages in barter to get her hair done and offered make-up lessons in return for getting her business cards designed and printed. “I negotiate the offer in advance,” she explains. “That way everyone is clear on what is being proposed. “All my barters have happened organically,” Murphy continues. “It is something that is struck up in conversation. It isn’t something that I would ever be able to hard sell. It only happens with people I like and trust.”
CHOPPING TREES FOR FIREWOOD
Joe Boyce is one of a trio of Donegal tree men who will chop trees locally in return for taking half the firewood. His barter experience started when his father, a landscape gardener, was asked by a client to remove an old and unstable tree. He enlisted his son Joe, to help, and Drew Gibbons, a friend who had worked in forestry and owned the correct climbing gear to get up the tree.
“That tree gave us wood for the winter,” says Boyce. All three men have wood-burning stoves installed at home to cut down on gas and oil bills.The free wood really helps keep costs down. The trio has just cut down four trees for another woman in Donegal. The timber from these will be seasoned for a year before being burnt as fuel during winter 2014. “The whole thing is quite organic,” Boyce says. “It works both ways. The trees are taken away for free. You get half the timber to keep. These one-off favours work out for everyone.”
