Community Exchange News

No.15, 17 September 2004

Community Exchange News is the Newsletter of the Cape Town group of the SANE Community Exchange System

Contents:

• TSiBA Education joins the CES
• Cape Town Talent Exchange Market Day - 19 September
• Administration: Local Area Co-ordinators
• CTTE Group Statistics: August 2004
• Web Site: New features
• Tip: How to Ensure that your Offerings are Found
• Feedback: Talent Exchange Evenings

The Talent Exchange - where your wealth is your talent

TSiBA Education joins the SANE Community Exchange System

TSiBA Education is launching a 'new-concept', university-level campus in Cape Town next year. It is based on the model of the successful CIDA City Campus in Johannesburg. Aimed at providing for students who really can't afford UCT-style fees, the campus will run almost entirely on Talents, setting an example for other educational institutions to follow.

CIDA is described as a ‘free', open-access, holistic, higher educational facility which is operated and managed by its students, from administration duties to facilities management. In addition every student is required to return to their rural schools and communities, during holidays, to teach what they have learnt.

Guiding Principles:

TSiBA Education has registered with CES as a distinct community (TSiBA Education Talent Exchange - TECE) and will utilise Talents at the current rate of T1 = R1. All TSiBA students will register as members of this community upon arrival at the beginning of the year. The CES web site will be integrated with TSiBA's own online Student Management System. Students will take responsibility for managing their own accounts. CES-related issues (irresponsible use etc.) will be treated as community issues and will be discussed at student community meetings. The TSiBA Administration will be registered as an individual 'entity' in this community, in much the same was as the Administration of any other CES group. Volunteers (mentors, lecturers) etc. will also register in this community in their individual capacity and will be recompensed for their time in Talents (e.g. 1 hour = T100).

Here is how it will work:

Students will be required to pay back half of the value of their degree (R60,000) in Talents. TSiBA Administration will debit students for T1,500 at the beginning of each month (February to November = 10 months x 4 years x T1,500 = T60,000). Students will in effect pay for their degrees by availing their talents to TSiBA. They will work on campus (Practicum/Action), take a role in Student Governance or teaching in their communities (Leadership for Community Development). Later on students will be able to earn Talents in other ways too (e.g. starting up entrepreneurial ventures, offering their skills to companies via internships etc.).

If one hour of time spent doing these activities is worth T50 students will need to work 30 hours/month to earn enough Talents to pay TSiBA Administration each month. This concurs with and supports graduation criteria (i.e. students must work a certain number of Practicum/Action and Leadership for Community Development hours to pass each year).

TSiBA Administration will earn T60,000 at the end of each month (80 pay T1,500). TSiBA Administration will use the Talents it is paid by students to recompense volunteers in turn, hence the students' Talents pay for the provision of their education!

Volunteers:

TSiBA Administration will pay all volunteers who choose to register on the CES by means of Talents. They will be able to spend their Talents inside the TSiBA community (in this way supporting student entrepreneurship) or externally in the Cape Town and other groups where they can buy anything from massages to eggs.

Implications:

TSiBA will keep costs down at the same time as it provides volunteers with tangible benefits; it recreates a meaningful and win-win way of working with volunteers that is novel and inspiring; students can see how their work and talents literally pay for the provision of their degree in terms of lecturers, mentors and volunteers - hence their ownership of the campus is entrenched. The CES will be an easy way to keep track of hard-working and entrepreneurial students, and will spread beyond the middle class and into the townships. If alumni have credits in their CES accounts upon graduation this will be an additional incentive to stay networked into the community.

And so many, many, other benefits!

Cape Town Talent Exchange Market Day

This Sunday, 19 September, will see the next Talent Exchange Market Day. This is the first Market Day for many months. This time it is a 'private enterprise' market, not one organised by the Administration. This will be the pattern for all future Market Days.

The Market takes place at Community House, 41 Salt River Road, Salt River. It will start at 10h00 and end at about 15h00.

This will be a fun day with lots to buy, and lots to eat including foods foods from different countries. There will be various therapeutic treatments, from Bowen Treatment to Shiatsu. Spoil yourself in Talents with a much-needed treatment!

There will be entertainment for children, such as face painting and a magic show. Please bring your kids along and let us take them off your hands for a while. There will also be other entertainment, including belly dancing.

Please support the Talent Exchange by coming to the Market Day as a participant. If you are a newcomer or an existing member, but have never traded, come along and learn how the system works. Bring your items to sell at the market. This is an opportunity to get rid of those unwanted items in your garage or attic by bringing them to the market for sale.

There will be a demonstration of how the Talent Exchange site works, so if you are not familiar with it, here is your chance to learn. There will also be other talks on various subjects.

If you would like to reserve a table or enquire about anything else, please contact Len Stern at the numbers below.

Date : Sunday 19 September
Time : 10h00 - 15h00
Venue : Community House, 41 Salt River Road, Salt River

Contact : Len Stern
Tel : 021 689 4239
Fax : 021 686 8151
Email : markets[at]ces.org.za

Administration: Local Area Co-ordinators

The following is the current list of CTTE Local Area Co-ordinators. If you have a problem accessing your account, don't have regular access to a computer or just hate the internet, then contact your nearest co-ordinator who will help you interface with the Talent Exchange. Co-ordinators will provide you with everything you need to participate, as well as enter your trades for you. We hope to 'recruit' co-ordinators in the sub-areas not listed below. If you would like to assist please write to the Administrator at the address at the bottom of this Newsletter.

CTTE Group statistics: August 2004

August saw continued, steady growth with a total of T41,182.04 traded, just beating the previous month's record. The number of trades was almost double, though the average value per trade was down from T404 to T215. The previous month's high was an anomaly and resulted from a lower number of very high value trades.

With a market day this month we hope to beat all records and get near to the half-million Talents traded mark.

While many members have not traded yet (44.8% of them!), there are encouraging signs that trading is maturing and many members have developed patterns of regular trade

At the end of August 2004:

Trader Statistics:

Totals Total members: 670 Total traders: 370 % of members who have traded: 55.22 % of members who have not traded: 44.78 Sellers Total sellers: 211 Seller/buyer ratio: 0.61 % of members who have sold: 31.49 % of traders who have sold: 57.03 # of sellers who have bought 185 # of sellers who have not bought: 26 Buyers Total buyers: 344 Buyer/seller ratio: 1.63 % of members who have bought: 51.34 % of traders who have bought: 92.97 # of buyers who have sold: 185 # of buyers who have not sold: 159 Trading Statistics Total # of sales: 3430 Total # of purchases: 3428 Total income: 393934.44 Total expenditure: 393934.44 Income/expenditure less levies: 384462.88 Overall balance: 0.00 Talentry Statistics (from 15 May) Total revenue: 9471.56 Transferred to Admin: 6488.60 # of levy payments: 717 Current Talentry balance: 2982.96

Members:

Individuals: 569 Families: 17 Companies: 42 Organisations: 29 Virtuals: 10 Public: 2 Administrators: 1 Total: 670

Trading 2003/2004:

Month-Year Trades Talents Average Levy Total (- levy) Total (+ levy) February 2003 3 295.00 98.33 0.00 295.00 295.00 March 2003 8 394.00 49.25 0.00 689.00 689.00 April 2003 9 1768.00 196.44 0.00 2457.00 2457.00 May 2003 21 2802.02 133.43 0.00 5259.02 5259.02 June 2003 80 6091.82 76.15 0.00 11350.84 11350.84 July 2003 113 10493.65 92.86 0.00 21844.49 21844.49 August 2003 194 19949.01 102.83 0.00 41793.50 41793.50 September 2003 263 26404.88 100.40 0.00 68198.38 68198.38 October 2003 179 35284.47 197.12 0.00 103482.85 103482.85 November 2003 151 18504.75 122.55 0.00 121987.60 121987.60 December 2003 91 10601.50 116.50 0.00 132589.10 132589.10 January 2004 316 26223.62 82.99 0.00 158812.72 158812.72 February 2004 269 27392.60 101.83 0.00 186205.32 186205.32 March 2004 634 37249.23 58.75 0.00 223454.55 223454.55 April 2004 204 15041.29 73.73 0.00 238495.84 238495.84 May 2004 464 39853.81 84.34 1443.84 277627.73 279071.57 June 2004 149 28646.70 184.87 2203.60 305172.63 308820.07 July 2004 98 41020.27 404.09 2839.16 344773.32 351259.92 August 2004 184 41182.04 215.70 2984.96 384462.88 393934.44 Total: 3430 T393934.44 T114.85 T9471.56     Excluding levy: T384462.88 T112.09

Web Site: New features

There have been a few minor modifications to the site during the past month:

On the Offerings Page it is now possible to download a PDF of the Offerings List. This is updated on the 19th of each month, the day before the month's Offerings List is emailed to all members. If you like to have your Offerings List in paper form, all you have to do to keep it up to date is print out the monthly list as an addendum to the PDF.

It is now possible to call up for printing the Offerings List starting from any day from the beginning of the CES in February 2003 till the present date. To find this feature go to the Offerings Page and select a date from the drop-down date list at the bottom of the offering categories. On pressing the [Go] button a new window will open giving the Offerings List from the selected date in a printer-friendly version.

Tip: How to Ensure that your Offerings are Found

The Offerings List is now getting very long. It prints out to over 130 pages and soon it will rival the Yellow Pages! The longer the list gets the more diluted your own offerings become. How can you ensure that your offerings stand out from the crowd and that others can find them.

Firstly, people pay attention to substantial offerings. If the description of your offering is obscure or just a word or two, it is likely to be overlooked. Think how it works when you are looking for something in the Yellow Pages. Do you pay any attention to the tiny one-line adverts that are really just telephone entries? The ones that attract your attention are the big bold ones. Ones assumes that the bigger the advert the bigger the business. After size the adverts that convince us that the advertiser is a good selection are the ones that tell us what we want to know about what we are looking for. Offerings may be any length so rather have more copy than less. And convince us that you are the best choice where there others offering what you are offering.

If you know a little HTML you may use HTML tags to enhance the appearance of your offerings. Lines starting with a star character (*) will be automatically bulleted and text bounded with <b>bold</b> tags will appear bold; text bounded by <i>italics</i> tags will appear as italic. If you don't get it right you can always go back to your offering and edit it. If you don't know how to edit your offerings, go to [My Record] and below your personal record (it might be off the screen) you will find a range of buttons that allow you to perform actions on your own offerings, wants, announcements etc.

Secondly, if you want your offerings to be found by others they must contain words that others might use to search for them. Many people title their offerings by what it is (e.g. massage, painting, building) whereas buyers search on what the person is (e.g. masseur, masseuse, painter, builder). If you have the word 'Painting' in your offering, for example, but not 'Painter', those looking for a painter will miss you. When you are entering your offerings make sure you put in the 'Keywords' field all the words that others might use to find you. There is no need to repeat in this field words that appear in the other fields. When you do a search for an offering it searches the Title, Details and Keyword fields.

Feedback: Talent Exchange Evenings

I have been hounding my friends about joining the "TE" because I have such fun with it. They're interested and look at the site but still don't join. Every time someone visits me who is not on the system I show them around and while they're looking at the 'real' system they spot something they want or could offer. They commit to joining but never do. So I tried a different tack. The next time someone visited and liked it, I simply went to the enrolment screen and start entering their details. Asked for their offering and submitted it! That's when I decided to host an evening. I'm going to be hosting them on a regular basis now. It's a way of entertaining and spending my talents at the same time. It was great to have my friends sitting around drinking wine I'd bought from Craig Strachan when Walton Pantland strolled in with food, placed it on the table and said "I'll bill you". Everyone in my office, my tenant, my neighbours, my BodyTalk clients, my Taijiquan students, a lot of my friends are on the "TE". I'm trying to get to a situation where almost all of my daily dealings are in 'talents'. I feel I have this huge support system to call on. Fantastic system and I love it.
Dawn Pilatowicz