Community Exchange News

No.17, 18 November 2004

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

Contents:

1. General: New CES Logo Wanted
2. New Group: Twee Riviere Talent Exchange
3. Groups: Garden Route Gets Going
4. Markets: Food Market Day - 21 November
5. Markets: Harfield Village Carnival - 27 November
6. Help: CES User Guide Available
7. CTTE Group Statistics: September 2004
8. Web Site: New features
9. Tip: How to Get Help
10. Theory: The Matter with 'Old' Money
11. Administration: Local Area Co-ordinators

The Talent Exchange - where your wealth is your talent

General: New CES Logo Required

WHY? People love logos, but it's not just that. We need to be seen. CES has grown big enough to have a specific face apart from the SANE logo. And admin is offering a generous incentive of T5000 because CES needs a face to succeed:

• We need a professional and attractive logo to represent CES in any communication with people (letter, fax, email), including government
• At a glance people need to be able to see that the CES is present and happening at any given event, market or shop (e.g. community shops; chain stores will have to beg)
• Growth of any system is linked to the ease with which people can use it - eventually the use of 'talent debit cards' would be ideal - our logo needs to be on such a card, and up there on shop windows along with Visa and MasterCard logos

WHAT?

• Absolutely ready to go, professionally finished, designs
• Something inspiring and attractive
• Symbolic of community exchange. The design may or may not contain lettering such as "T" but preferably will be more dependent on graphic aspects. This is so that it will reach across language barriers but also because some groups outside Cape Town are discussing using another name for exchange units, i.e. not 'Talent'. We need something to link us all as one, but with room for individual expression of communities, e.g. one design but with a 'T' or 'CT' in one corner or under the design to define a particular group (a suggestion)
• If coloured, must be interchangeable between colour and black & white (i.e. still recognisable in a fax)
• It must still be recognisable even if reduced to a very small size

HOW?

• Draw upon all your cosmic and earthly energies
• Send design (digitally created, scanned or even on paper) to logos/at/ces.org.za by end of Dec 2004
• All logos will be displayed on the CES web site
• Voting can commence electronically (online or email, to be announced) from end Dec 2004 to end Jan 2005

  Winner receives: T5000
  Artist deadline: end Dec 2004
  Voter deadline: end Jan 2005

New Group: Twee Riviere Joins the Talent Exchange

A new group has joined the Talent Exchange. This time it is a remote farming community in the Twee Riviere area of the Eastern Cape. At the beginning this group will consist of a number of farmers who will trade with each other. They have traded informally for years but by joining the Talent Exchange their exchanges will now be formalised and they will be able keep a record of who does/gives what to whom. Watch this group as there will be some good accommodation offers out that way.

Groups: Garden Route Gets Going

The Garden Route Group was created almost a year ago and stood dormant for many months. Now the group has resuscitated itself and is forging ahead strongly. In the past month a lot of new members have been added and quite a lot of trades have taken place. Watch this group too, especially for accommodation offers. What is nicer than spending a few days in that part of the world?

Markets: November Market is a Food Market Day

The next Talent Exchange Market Day will be on Sunday 21 November 2004. This will be a food market day organised by Permacore, the most active organisation on the CTTE. The market will run from 10am-3pm at the Living Art Farm, Main Road, Noordhoek.

Some of the items on offer will be: fruit & vegetables, nuts, eggs, pies (cooked - uncooked), quiches, jams, sauces, relishes, juices, frozen foods, herbs, honey, meat, snack items. We are hoping too that there will be cheeses, milk and yoghurt products. Other stalls will offer a range of non-food items. If you want to sell items on the day, please call Beau at 021 789 2494 or write to market/at/ces.org.za

Markets: Harfield Village Carnival

Talent Exchangers have been invited to participate in the Harfield Village Carnival on Saturday 27 November. The Carnival will take place in a section of 2nd Avenue, Kenilworth, between Durham Road and Cornwall/Devon Roads. It will start at 10 a.m. and go on for the whole day. The Talent Exchange has been allocated a space but no tables will be provided.

If you would like to participate in this event then you will have to bring your own table. All Talent Exchangers will be together in the same space, so we need to ensure that we stand out from the crowd by advertising that we are different!

As most of the crowd will be Rand enabled, members may sell their wares for Rands if they wish but our emphasis should be to promote the Talent Exchange and encourage the public to join.

If you would like to participate in this event, please write to market/at/ces.org.za.

Help: CES User Guide Available

The long awaited CES User Guide is now available for downloading from the CES web site. You will find links to it from the Home Page of your account, after you log in. You can also link to it directly from here. It is available in three versions: HTML, Adobe Acrobat PDF and Microsoft Word. The latter two are for printing while the HTML version is best for viewing on the screen.

The User Guide is the definitive guide to the CES web site and will help you understand how the functions and facilities available from your account work. If you are puzzled how to reverse a trade, correct mistakes in your entries and anything else, then download the User Guide and find out how it is done.

CTTE Group statistics: October 2004

September saw a massive 38% increase in trading over the previous month but October saw and even more massive 46.8% increase over September! Another important milestone was reached during the month when trading passed the T500,000 mark.

Much of this increase was due to the successful Market Day on 24 October at Novalis, but generally trading has picked up considerably as more members join the system

The month also saw a 13.7% growth in membership with the greatest number of people joining in one month ever.

November promises to be another bumper month and hopefully we will pass the T100,000 in one month mark.

At the end of October 2004:

Trader Statistics:

Totals Total members: 823 Total traders: 458 % of members who have traded: 55.65 % of members who have not traded: 44.35 Sellers Total sellers: 260 Seller/buyer ratio: 0.6 % of members who have sold: 31.59 % of traders who have sold: 56.77 # of sellers who have bought 235 # of sellers who have not bought: 25 Buyers Total buyers: 433 Buyer/seller ratio: 1.67 % of members who have bought: 52.61 % of traders who have bought: 94.54 # of buyers who have sold: 235 # of buyers who have not sold: 198 Trading Statistics Total # of sales: 4591 Total # of purchases: 4587 Total income: 538459.71 Total expenditure: 538459.71 Income/expenditure less levies: 518819.65 Overall balance: 0.00 Talentry Statistics (from 15 May) Total revenue: 19640.06 Transferred to Admin: 13739.44 # of levy payments: 1876 Current Talentry balance: 5900.62

Members:

Individuals: 705 Families: 24 Companies: 50 Organisations: 30 Virtuals: 11 Public: 2 Administrators: 1 Total: 823

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 September 2004 522 56503.18 104.30 4116.94 438907.59 452496.09 October 2004 639 82937.84 125.06 6051.56 518819.65 538459.71 Total: 4591 T538459.71 T117.29 T19640.06     Excluding levy: T518819.65 T113.01

Web Site: New features

There have been a few modifications to the site during the past month. Most of these do not affect the way anything works, but they provide more information about the status of the group.

This Group

Click on the [This Group] button and you will see seven buttons that provide you with a wealth of information about the real time position of your group. The statistical information above (Group Statistics) is available live from this page, as well as tables showing the growth of the group, when members last accessed their accounts, member balances and the list of local area co-ordinators (as shown below). There is also a link to the CES Discussion Forum.

Offerings

You may now list offerings from any date of your choice. Previously this option only produced a printer friendly version which did not allow you to click for the member's personal details. Now you can see the list in the standard format, which allows you to go to a member's personal profile page. This is particularly useful if you are looking at the offerings of other groups.

Tip: How to Get Help

With the launch of our User Guide, the theme this month is how to get help on using your account on the CES web site. While the manual explains everything, it is not always the most convenient way of getting help. You have to print it out or switch to the HTML version, and often you just want a quick answer without any effort. Remember there is always the [Help] button available. Most account holders have not even noticed it is there. The help button is constantly there, at the right hand end of the horizontal menu. Clicking on the Help button will always give you contextual help on the page you are viewing. So next time you are stuck, don't write to the Administrator, look it up in the Help or download the User Guide!

If you really get stuck, phone your nearest local area co-ordinator. There is a complete list of co-ordinators below. They are there to help you. Make use of them!

Theory: Disadvantages of Conventional Money

Last month we looked at the advantages of complementary currencies, such as Talents. This month we look at the disadvantages or negative aspects of conventional money.

Conventional money is not all disadvantageous, of course. While it is still legal tender and the mainstream money it has some tremendous advantages over complementary currencies: it is acceptable everywhere, everyone accepts it (they are obliged to by its legal tender status!), it is convertible into other currencies and so on. However, it has some tremendous disadvantages, though most of us wouldn't see these as disadvantages as we have never thought about it. Here are some of them:

• It is permanently scarce
  It has to be to keep its value and there only needs to be enough of it buy back the goods and services available. This has nothing to do with the monetary requirement of people. Those who have none are not seen by the market and so are marginalised.
• It is expensive
  Every unit of conventional money is based on a unit of debt. This debt has to be paid back with interest, and the interest on the interest is compounding. The money to pay back the interest is never created by the money system so can only be obtained through more debt, or by some debtors failing. Interest is built into the prices of everything we buy, resulting in higher consumer prices.
• It promotes dishonesty and corruption
  You can get it without delivering anything of value (speculation, interest, gambling etc.) so people concentrate on 'making money' rather than producing/delivering anything of real value. It is usually far easier to get money through dishonest means than by honest work. When you have no money you have no choice but to try and get it dishonestly
• It leaks away from where it is created
  Conventional money knows no bounds and loyalty. It always leaks away to the 'money centres' (financial centres, big businesses, etc.)
• It destroys local economies
  Goods produced cheaper elsewhere replace locally produced goods. This also results in the irrational transportation of goods all over the world, consuming precious fossil fuels and creating pollution.
• It fosters competitiveness
  The shortage of money means we all have to fight for what little there is. The need to repay interest means that we have to eat others to prevent ourselves going under.
• It causes cancerous growth
  Banks continuously need to create more money than is required to pay back their loans so that people can pay back the interest on those loans. This results in the growth imperative of our economics. There must be a continual expansion of bank credit money or else the economy goes into depression. Irrational growth leads to the environmental problems we now all face.
• It redistributes wealth from the poor to the wealthy
  Usury is the tool used by the wealthy to suck wealth from the poor and middle classes to the moneyed class. This is why the rich get richer...
• It creates poverty
  While it makes some super rich, it makes most people poor. Poverty is caused by a lack of money (not by a lack of jobs). The need to keep money scarce and usury ensure that money constantly moves to those who already have money.
• It causes social and cultural degradation
  The elimination of local opportunities to exchange and relate to one another focuses attention on ways of getting money outside the community. Communities fall apart as they become indebted to entities outside their communities.
• And so many more ...!

Administration: Local Area Co-ordinators

The following is the current list of CTTE Local Area Co-ordinators or 'branches' of the Cape Town Talent Exchange. If you have a problem accessing your account, do not 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.