A heating oil collective

We got a flyer through the door yesterday, inviting us to join a local - heating, not olive - oil collective. Not to sound too Cold Comfort Farm, but 'there's no gas in the village', so for the last few years we have had a direct debit with an oil provider who tops up the oil tank regularly. I'd been planning to check out oil prices and suppliers again, as part of reveiwing all our direct debits, so was interested to hear about the local scheme.

The collective is run by someone in a nearby village, who takes advantage of representing a large group of individual buyers, now around 150, to shop around and get a discount on the standard price. He's also keen to reduce the impact of having oil tankers making frequent trips to individual buyers; I completely agree with him on that, and is exploring a collective boiler servicing scheme, another excellent idea.

I will be filling in the membership forms shortly; it looks as though there are discounts to be had, and it is the sort of initiative I would like to join in on.

It made me wonder what other collectives might exist, or be worth setting up, for joint buying?