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Regular
Posts: 85
| Over 25 people had an interesting evening at the Findon hall last night.
Martin Sherring from TBI talked about
Why we might like to Trade without money-- after first outlining our current system with its reliance on Debt for growth.
He outlined the alternatives as
Barter
Timebanks
LETS--which can use time or money
Local currencies which are convertable to sterling eg the Bristol pound.
Bruce Morrison talked about the Timebank which has been going for 2yrs and now renamed Culbokie Neighbours The strapline is " giving time, receiving time" and has now 40 members and has helped with with things like gardening, looking after chickens or bees and clearing gutters as well as sharing expertise.
Dave Lynch who started the pioneering Local community shop in Dingwall, the Greenhouse told us about the Local currency, The Tingle used to pay shop volunteers. He went on to tell us of his new venture in Inverness in the former Toymaster premises. this "Village" is offering varying amounts of space, for variable amounts of time to traders. It has only been open 1 month--I hope to see it for myself tomorrow.
The sharing of space allows sharing of overheads.
After refreshments and showing of 2 short film clips --1 on Ithica hours, an alternative currency in the US and 1 about a cashstrapped farmer, unable to borrow from the Banks who then printed his own money! in order to expand ( I liked the cabbage instead of a photo of the head of state)
Phew
Penny pressed us on to more and the discussion was very fruitful.
Someone mentioned a local area loyalty card--there may be one working in Wick!
I have probably missed things and there will be more in the newsletter out soon.
Please add what you did or didn`t like | |
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Regular
Posts: 63
| Here is a summary of the discussion we had. I've organised it under a number of headings to make it more accessible:
How to promote more trade locally?
• Could village shop have a loyalty card to encourage more local purchases?
• Could there be a local voucher system so that people were encouraged to shop at a wide range of local shops.
• Should there be an expanded directory of local businesses (TBI already produces a directory of local food producers)
How to support local business and avoid the mainstream financial industry?
• Web sites to promote peer-to-peer funding for businesses already exist. These sites help people with spare cash to invest in businesses needing cash. This could be done in a limited geographic area like the Black Isle to encourage local investment in local businesses.
Issues with local currencies
• What is the purpose of setting it up? If there is a clear purpose it is much more likely to be successful – for example a farmer issuing currency to raise cash or a social enterprise ‘paying’ volunteers in a local currency that can be ‘spent’ within the enterprise.
• In the long run it appears that our money system is unsustainable as it requires continued growth on a finite planet. One long term purpose is to find a better way…..
• There needs to be trust in the currency if it is to be successful. People must believe it is worth something. Fraud must be made very difficult by using good quality printing paper and serial numbers etc.
• Local currencies can be difficult for businesses – businesses find it difficult to use the local currency to buy supplies, partly because their suppliers are often based outwith the area and partly because most local currencies don’t support payment by cheque or electronic transfer. So the businesses accumulate the local currency and then have to change it back to national currency at a discount. The businesses also have the extra admin of maintaining separate accounting records for the local currency transactions. The benefit for businesses is that they are seen to be engaging with the local trade agenda – but in some schemes, traders have complained that the customers who were keen on local trade already came to them before the local currency was introduced, and the ones who aren’t keen don’t use the local currency anyway. In Totnes, for instance, the use of the Totnes £ reduced after the novelty value wore off.
• It may be that more sophisticated systems like the Bristol pound, which allows payments on-line or by text, answer some of these difficulties, in which case hopefully the necessary admin systems will be made available more widely. Managing a complex currency like this is a major undertaking though.
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Regular
Posts: 85
| Just wondering if any members have already experience of LETS and if so how you got on with it.
Did you use it? like it ?
I like the idea that if you help me in my garden for a few hrs you may get your dog walked by another member and I will make bread / baking etc for a third person.
So its not really swapping, more community skills share and all without money. | |
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Member
Posts: 49
| Recent emails about this among directors have prompted me to look out some links to sites about LETS software which I looked up when Maggie raised the issue some months ago. I will try to attach a Word document with the links, but I seem to remember there may be a problem with this.
There is - it doesn't work [fixed 24/03/15], so I've copied the links in below
LOCAL EXCHANGE SOFTWARE
Individual applications
http://www.loissoftware.co.uk/loisweb/index.asp?topic=./lets/lets
http://www.lets-software.net/features/
http://sourceforge.net/projects/weblets/
http://www.cyclos.org/
Surveys of different applications
http://www.letslinkuk.net/software/
http://www.cxss.org.uk/drupal51/Local_Exchange
http://www.letsf.org.uk/resources/links/lets-software/
http://www.esrad.org.uk/ccs_software
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Trading without Money