| ||
 Local currency - any thoughts?Jump to page : 1 Now viewing page 1 [25 messages per page] | View previous thread :: View next thread |
| General Forums -> Discussions | Message format |
John Wood |
| ||
Regular Posts: 79  Location: Cromarty | Local currency I have had an aspiration for a long time to set up a Black Isle currency (a 'Black Isle Bawbee' perhaps?). I have done some research on this and I think it is a potentially viable idea. Very successful local currencies have been up and running for many years elsewhere. However there is often little incentive beyond altruism to use them. My idea is to use the currency to offer people a modest discount at participating shops and stalls, to give a further incentive to use the currency and keep value circulating locally. This in turn would I hope help promote local shops and markets. All local currencies are also bought by the growing numbers of people who collect them. Any sold to tourists and collectors of course would result in a profit to TBI. It might also be possible to extend the currency beyond paper into virtual money for spending online, provided it was properly accounted for. Users could keep online accounts as they do with other currencies. These could then facilitate skills sharing, LETS, or other similar projects. The currency could be bought (at par with GB Sterling) from TBI or from participating shopkeepers and stallholders (perhaps as change). We would only however buy them back from traders, not the public, so they would have to spend them locally. This is how the Findhorn Eko works. No commission is charged on buying or selling the currency. I would welcome any ideas, thoughts or comments on this | ||
| |||
| Martin |
| ||
Veteran Posts: 275  | I did some research on local currencies a while back, and my conclusion was that they are of limited use. I’m a bit out of date on the subject now, but when I looked at it, it seemed the early schemes (Totnes, Lewes, etc.) were struggling because, after the initial novelty value, people fairly quickly lost interest and found it was just easier to use conventional money - and the demand from collectors fell off quite quickly. The Bristol £ scheme is more interesting because it incorporates a credit union and offers on-line and mobile phone payment options – but that is a lot of infrastructure for an area the size of the Black Isle. Maybe more fundamentally, the idea is to encourage local trade, but there isn’t all that much produced on the Black Isle – or at least not much that can be sold to end users. So, even if people use the currency in shops, the shopkeepers can’t use them for any of their costs – in which case, it doesn’t really generate the multiplier effect – so what has been achieved? Maybe it would work better as a Highland currency - that would give the possibility of engaging with the Council, and also make it easier to spend the currency on locally produced goods? And it would also make it easier to justify putting effort into infra-structure. | ||
| |||
| John Wood |
| ||
Regular Posts: 79 Location: Cromarty | I am not as sceptical as Martin. The key thing I think is to give people a reason to use them. My thought is that it would act as a discount scheme for local shops and market stalls. Obviously I would hope that shopkeepers and stallholders would also use them in other local shops and stalls. It would have to go a bit wider than the Black Isle but I think it could be a useful thing | ||
| |||
| Jump to page : 1 Now viewing page 1 [25 messages per page] |
| Search this forum Printer friendly version E-mail a link to this thread |
We are part of the rapidly expanding worldwide Transition Towns movement. The Black Isle is a peninsula of about 100 sq miles ENE of Inverness in Scotland, UK.
© 2024 Transition Black Isle Sitemap Cookie Policy Website Design: Plexus © 2010
(Delete all cookies set by this site)
Running MegaBBS ASP Forum Software | © 2002-2024 PD9 Software
