Women's Clothes Swap

I asked myself what would be a good way to establish a database for a Transition Towns group in my area and came up with the idea of a Women's Clothes Swap. Women are generally good networkers, my suburb is a Second Hand Clothing Eldorado, I had been to an event like this before in Golden Bay and I was desperate for new clothes. So it all made sense. I hung up a few flyers in the area and sent out emails to about 70 people asking them to pass it on to anyone who might be interested. The local Greens also came on board and distributed it through their database. I also got some publicity through the local community newspaper and advertised the event in the newsletter of the local schools..
I hired a big hall, got two friends to help me decorate the hall and was blown away when 60-70 women showed up with bags full of clothing and some finger food to share. We put all the clothes out on three long tables (small, medium and large). People mingled for a bit, I then did a talk about my intention to create a tighter community, Transition Towns, etc and then we all got stuck into trying on some clothes. It was a wonderful atmosphere with lots of laughter and people connecting with each other.
When we had all found some clothes we liked the event came to a natural end and the women who were still around by then happily helped tidy up the hall. It was done in no time.
The gold coin donations covered my costs and since the women all left their contact details for me I very soon got stuck into starting an email newsletter. One month later I have now got 100 people on my database that is constantly growing.
I meant to send out a monthly newsletter but that has proven to be totally unrealistic since things are happening so fast and there is so much interesting stuff out there that I would like to let my community know about.
One woman offered to start a walking/running/cycling group as well as a dog walking register. Another woman is happy to start a book club.
I have since organised a Beach Day simply by sending out an email to my database. We all met at the beach with our families and built sandcastles together. The next thing will be a Book Swap with the hope of drawing in people of the older generation.