I can only echo Rooby's thoughts here, although I do also agree that it's a lovely idea in principle.
Freyja, there's no way to say this without being a bit patronising (honest apologies for that) but I think only someone new to the biz would make this suggestion. Basically, once you've been around for a bit, you'll start to see some of the shocking - no,
SHOCKING! like from "Take A Break" magazine - ways in which people mess each other about. Not just in this biz, of course, but any "collective of indies" would either involve sharing a ton of very personal (dangerously personal, in certain unfortunate cases) information with a bunch of strangers OR just working based on trust, which is also a very dangerous way to go!
Now, that said, you mustn't despair. Being an indie escort is usually about working on your own for the precise reason of keeping yourself and your income safe from the vast-seeming amount of nutcases out there - sh*tty agents, scammers, weirdos, idiots, etc. I wish I had ten hours here to write every single horror story I've heard (or experienced myself!) about this industry, but if you keep reading the forum and browse older posts, you'll soon unearth your own mountain of scariness.
BUT! As an indie, I have (carefully) made quite a few friends; lots of fellow escorts are actually just as smart, down-to-earth, fun and 'normal' (i.e. not actual sociopaths) as anyone could hope - but you have to suss each other out slowly and carefully, just as you do with any new person you meet off the internet (clients, agents, fellow escorts, all alike). You can definitely make some amazing friends for support, or even to share flats with or to help each other with marketing and promotion stuff, and so on. But meeting 5-7 of these in the next, say, month is probably a statistical impossibility. There are loads of amazing women here on SAAFE but they're spread out around the country and not everyone wants to meet others IRL. The rest of the Internet is, as far as I can tell, just pretty much full of mad people.
So yes. I think your idea is great and, in fact, I implement or would implement quite a few of your ideas with my industry friends - but I don't have 7 of them, and we probably all wouldn't want exactly the same things even if I did!
But making friends with like-minded fellow escorts is a very good idea so definitely go ahead and do that, and maybe see then what ideas you can come up with together to make life/work easier for both/all of you?
You definitely need at least one security buddy. This job can be a bit tough alone, even though you're free of crazy agents and free to turn down icky clients and set your own working hours and keep all your earnings and all of those benefits; at the end of the day, it's easier if you've got friends for support.
By the way, ?1500 for a website is a lot. Make sure you're getting *exactly* what you want for that cost (bespoke design of excellent quality, a proper CMS, etc etc) before shelling out. If you need a decent website for almost no cost, PM me or
search this forum for other discussions on this topic (and don't worry, I very much understand if you're intending to avoid Moonfruit - there are other options, too!).