There was a great deal of puzzlement about a stall offering free socks in the town centre on a busy Saturday morning.

One passing shopper came over to find out more about our campaign to free the mysterious 'Socks' from his captor. More commonly, people just couldn't seem to believe that the socks were for free:

Free? What's the catch? You don't get anything for free... do you?

But of course you do. Or, at least, someone does....

Loads of stuff happens for free all the time. Capitalism has only survived this long because of the free labour which is provided by anyone whose work helps someone else to get richer. Marx had something to say about this. Land and resources stolen from the people - our own Eagles Meadow included - are used by businesses to generate profit, and trashed in the process. We nurture our children for free because we love them, but all that free care and attention is what brings the next generation of workers into being - a free gift to capitalism. Much of the free stuff we do as parents, carers, partners, friends, 'good neighbours' and so on is largely invisible to the economy, although without it the economy as it is couldn't function at all.

Freeconomy Wrexham is just doing a bit to raise the profile of free giving and encourage people to spread their free gifts around rather than trashing them, which is what happens when good stuff ends up at the tip, for example. We handed out socks and leaflets for about 3 hours, by which time even multiple layers of our free socks couldn't keep our feet and hands from freezing, so we called it a day.

LEAFLET TEXT

FREECONOMY WREXHAM... Bring and Take... Free for All...

What's it all about?

Freeconomy Wrexham is:
for everyone; environmentally friendly; sharing; giving; fun!; re-using stuff; completely free; sustainable.

Turn over to find out more...

Freeconomy Wrexham is about gift and sharing, showing that it is possible to make things work without payment or financial profit. In a world where everything seems to have a price - often more than we can afford - it can be difficult to imagine a completely free event. But all the goods on our stalls and at our events are there for the taking. Everyone is invited to come and help themselves.

Bring and Take is made possible by everyone who gives their time and energy to help out, who donates goods to be given away, who loans a venue for free or lets us use a van or bakes a cake, and - most importantly - everyone who takes away all the things that are donated!

Re-use for the planet. Before you throw anything away, think about whether someone else could use it. Natural resources, time and skills were needed to make that item. If it's binned, all those things are lost. By sharing and re-using, we can keep wealth in our communities, help each other, create goodwill and happiness, and do a little bit to save the planet.