Community Exchange NewsCommunity Exchange News is the Newsletter of the Cape Town Talent Exchange
| Community Exchange News |
| No.28, 15 November 2006 |
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Community Exchange News is the Newsletter of the Cape Town Talent Exchange |
Contents:
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Back issues
If you would like to read back issues of Community Exchange News, they are all on the web site at www.ces.org.za/cen. You will also find the Newsletters of other exchanges on the CES network in the same place.
The Talent Exchange — where your wealth is your talent
1. Sub-areas: Local area offices opening
For over a year SANE has been conducting workshops in three Cape Town townships, Delft, Harare (Khayelitsha) and Masiphmelele (near Fish Hoek), to introduce the CES. All three of these areas, especially Delft, have seen rapid expansion in the number of people registering with the exchange in recent months. Now CES local offices are being opened in these three areas.
The offices will perform a number of functions. Firstly they will serve as local 'branches' of the CES 'bank'. Members without access to computers (the majority in these areas) will trade using paper trading slips and sheets. These will be brought to the offices for entry into the system. Members will be able to request their balances, statements and other information relating to their accounts, much as regular bank clients obtain from High Street bank branches.
Secondly the offices will serve as places where local members can find information about offerings in the local area and in general. They will be able to place adverts and view those of others. Members will also be able to advertise their wants and view those of others. Again the emphasis will be on serving members in the local area.
Thirdly the offices will serve as brokers or agents to connect those with offerings and those with needs. They will not only connect members locally but also serve as a bridge between the local community and members of the exchange in other areas.
Fourthly, the offices will double up as local Talent Exchange shops through which local and other members can sell their goods and advertise their services.
We are hoping that these offices will stand out as symbols of hope in the local communities, bringing much needed economic renewal and revival to these areas.
2. News: CTTE Administrator attends international Complementary Currencies conference
The Administrator of the Cape Town Talent Exchange, Tim Jenkin, recently attended an international conference on complementary currencies. The conference, titled "Monetary Regionalisation: Local currency systems as catalysts for endogenous regional development" was held at the Bauhaus University in Weimar, Germany, from 28th-29th September. Attending the conference were experts on complementary currencies from all over the world. The conference was an excellent opportunity to find out what is being done in other parts of the world and to connect up with key figures in complementary currency circles.
In many ways the CES is setting an example for others around the world. In the wealthier parts of the world proponents of alternative currencies are still battling with ideology, as the reasons for introducing complementary currencies are not so apparent as they are here in South Africa. Strangely in technologically-advanced Europe more attention is given to paper-based systems and the use of regional paper currencies, while here in technologically-backward Africa we are showing the way using entirely electronic currencies!
The conference served as a venue for the setting up of a new Facilitation Committee for the Social Money Workshop, which was launched in 2000 as one of 15 working groups in the WSSE (Workgroup on a Solidarity-based SocioEconomy – www.socioeco.org). The activities of the Workshop included the initiation and operation of the Social Money Tri-Lingual Discussion Group facilitating international communication between actors in Social Money organisations and projects, and the collection and dissemination of case studies through the WSSE web site at money.socioeco.org
Tim Jenkin will be participating in the Facilitation Committee and the CES will serve as a case study for the Workshop. Participation in this Workshop will bring us the benefits of knowing what is happening in other parts of the world and lead to the creation of an international committee to facilitate the networking of complementary currency systems globally.
3. Markets: Let's form Market Committees!
In the past few months the CTTE has held a number of very successful markets. These have taken the trading figures well over the T100,000 mark for those months. The success of these markets rested on excellent organisation.
As local CES exchanges do not have shops in every High Street like the conventional economy, markets are a very important outlet for CES traders. The 'inconvenience factor' of trading by email and telephone holds back greater acceptance of the CES as a new way of trading. If there are regular, well-organised markets, traders will find it easier to earn and spend their Talents.
A good market requires considerable organisation: the venue has to be booked, trader bookings have to be processed, the venue has to be prepared, entertainers have to be invited, food and drink has to be organised, and the venue has to be cleaned up afterwards - amongst many other things.
It is difficult for one person to do everything, and preferably there should be more than one market per month. Ideally each sub-area should hold its own market so that markets are closer to where people live. This is the spirit of community building!
To get regular markets off the ground each exchange needs a group of people who are prepared to get involved in organising them. Such markets should be run as 'private enterprise' undertakings rather than as something organised by the Administration. However, small-scale markets are not 'profitable' in the sense that they can generate sufficient revenue for the organisers. As this is the case the Administrations should pays organisers T100/hour to organise markets. This is on top of any revenue that the market itself might generate (e.g. stall fees).
If you would like to get involved in organising markets and other events in your exchange, please write to markets@ces.org.za and let us know what you can do.
4. New exchanges: Ten more exchanges join the CES network
Since our last newsletter ten more exchanges have joined the CES network. These are:
The New Zealand Community Exchange is an exchange in New Zealand that will cover areas not covered by other exchanges that are part of the CES. The Polokwane exchange is located in Polokwane, Limpopo Province. The Plett Local Exchange Trading System (LETS) is in Plettenberg Bay. The BarterMore Community Mutual Credit System is based in Naples, Vienna, South Dakota in the United States. It will cover a number of areas in the United States. The Pollytix Exchange of New Jersey is based in Red Bank, New Jersey, United States. Salisbury LETS, North East LETS and the Southern Inner Suburbs LETS are all in Adelaide, Australia. The Murihiku Alternative Trading & Exchange System is in New Zealand and the Escondido Exchange is in Escondido, California, United States.
While most of these new exchanges are just setting up we welcome them to the CES network and hope they will be joined by many more, so that the network becomes truly global allowing those who are part of it to trade anywhere in the world.
5. Statistics: Growth of the CES
There are now (11 November 2006) 7,062 registered users of the Community Exchange System (including the international exchanges). There are 52 separate exchanges in eight different countries. The Cape Town Talent Exchange is the largest with 2,020 users. The following table shows the growth of the Cape Town Talent Exchange:
Year Users Trades Ave/Day Talents Ave (T) 2002 10 2003 365 1112 3 132589.10 119.23 2004 576 4780 13 596726.24 117.97 2005 562 5073 14 892362.68 164.05 2006 517 5364 17 880664.54 157.19 Total 2020 16329 12 2502342.56 145.26 * As at 11 November 2006
6. Statistics: Trading Figures
Unlike previous issues of CEN, we are not giving the full statistics of the CTTE here. The main reason is that this issue of CEN is going to all South African exchanges and so it would be inappropriate to give the statistics of one exchange only. In any case the tables are getting rather large and the latest statistics are available on the web site. The statistics on the web site are in real time, so you always get the latest figures when you look, whereas figures given here are always out of date. To view the statistics, log into your account and click on the [This Group] button at the top right. There you will find all the statistics you want!
However, the trades of the CTTE for September and October 2006 were as follows. The difference between the months is accounted for by the fact that there was no market in Cape Town in October.
Period Trades Ave/day Average (T) Levy (T) Total (- levy) Total (T) September 759 25 128.31 3756.44 97383.64 101140.08 October 298 10 228.05 2080.94 67958.50 70039.44 All* 16329 12 145.26 130424.24 2371918.32 2502342.56 * As at 11 November 2006
Milestones
The CTTE passed the 2,000 registrations mark in October and the T2.5 million Talents mark in November.
Few major changes have been made to the user interface of the CES web site in recent months, indicating that it has reached a maturity and does not require any significant changes in the way that it works. However, there have been many significant changes on the administration side, and work continues to make the site more stable and easier to use. The interface could do with a facelift, so if you have any suggestions about that please let us know!
My traders
It is now possible to view a list of all the traders that you have traded with. Log in to your account and then click on the [My Record] button. At the bottom right you will see a new button 'View my traders: [View]'. Click on this and you will see a list of all the traders that you have sold to or bought from. If you have been on the system for a while you will be surprised at the list of your traders!
The names of your traders in the 'Traders' column will appear green. This means they are clickable. Click on a name and it will show your individual trades with the particular trader. The figures in the 'Balance' column merely show whether you have bought more from or sold more to the trader. A negative balance does not mean that you are obliged to the trader in any way. Similarly a positive balance does not mean the trader is obliged to you in any way. The CES is not a barter system, so a negative or positive balance with a particular trader is meaningless unless you have mainly positive or negative balances with your traders. What is important is that your overall balance should be as close to zero as possible. This means you have received as much from the system as you have given.
Who entered my trades?
If you discover an error in your monthly statement it is good to know how that error got there. Usually it is because the seller or the co-ordinator who entered the transactions typed in the incorrect account number by mistake. In order to get the error corrected it is important to know who to contact. It is now possible to determine who entered the trades listed in your statement of account.
Access your account and call up your statement of account. When it appears, hover your mouse pointer over the trade(s) in question. After a slight delay a small notice box will appear showing who entered the trade. Use this information to look up the seller or co-ordinator so that you can get the error corrected.
Debit and credit limits
Work is proceeding on the debit and credit limit feature. Some traders
continue to abuse the system by going ever deeper into debit, without
attempting to rectify the situation. Many traders have no offerings yet
continue to purchase goods and services offered by others. This is
tantamount to theft, and causes 'inflation' in the CTTE by 'creating'
the credits that sellers accumulate but find difficult to spend. To
prevent such abuse it is now possible to set individual debit
and credit limits. If a trader is over his or her limits, this shows up when you call up the trader's balance of account. It also appears in their monthly statement of account.
If you see that a particular buyer is over their debit limit you should refuse to sell to that buyer until they have improved their standing. Recalcitrant traders will be constantly reminded that they need to 'pay' for what they have received by giving something back to the collective.
'Hoarding', or sitting with a huge positive balance, is in many ways as bad as a huge negative balance. It means that such traders are not giving others the opportunity to earn some of those Talents. The credit limit feature will remind those heavily 'in the black' to get out there and spend.
There are a number of ways to find out what is on offer by other traders of you exchange. The best way, in order to be first in line to take advantage of new offerings, is to log in every day and check out the latest offerings. You can check out the latest offerings in your own exchange or in all exchanges by going to the offerings page and clicking on 'Latest Offerings (this exchange)' or 'Latest Offerings (all exchanges)'. If you do not have your own computer or do not know how to use the internet you will be disadvantaged by not seeing the latest offerings, but you can find out about recent offerings by contacting your local area co-ordinator, by phoning the CES Head Office at 021 762 5933 or emailing to talentshop@ces.org.za.
Another way to find out what is on offer is to go to the offerings page and select the category of offerings that interests you. This way you will have to manually search through the offerings in much the same way as you would search for goods and services in the Yellow Pages. If there is not much on offer in your exchange then select another exchange from the 'Exchanges' drop-down list.
The best way of finding offerings is by doing a search. There are a number of ways of searching for offerings. The easiest is to use the search box on the green bar at the top of every page on the web site. Simply type in a search word and press the [Go] button. If your search turns up nothing try using similar search words, or even parts of search words. For example, you might be looking for a baby sitter, but typing in 'baby sitter' does not turn up anything satisfactory. Try searching for 'babysitter' (one word), 'babysitting', 'baby sitting', 'childminding', 'childminder', even 'child' or 'baby'. You never know how people have described their offerings and if they have not used keywords to expand the possible search words relating to their offer, it could be quite difficult to find what you are looking for.
The offerings page has an extended search, allowing you to search other exchanges or even all exchanges in all countries. You will be amazed at what a global search turns up. In most cases there is no point in doing a global search, but for some requirements it doesn't matter where you find someone who can satisfy your offering. Examples are editing, programming, digital design, web sites, etc.
Most people would reply that money is that which we use to buy things; that which we use to pay others for what they give or do for us. From a seller perspective it is what we receive for services that we perform for others or for goods that we sell.
Economists usually define money by the overt functions that they perceive it to have. Here is a typical definition of money, this one from Wikipedia:
In economics there are various definitions for money, though it is now commonly considered to be any good or token that fulfils the money functions: to be a medium of exchange, store of value, and unit of account.
The problem of defining money is in the question "What is money?", for that question has a built-in assumption that we are talking about a thing, like asking "What is food?". To dispute that money is a thing seems crazy because we can all count the coins and notes in our wallets and purses, and surely cash is money!
Sure cash is money if we decide to define money in that narrow way. This is the same as saying that honey is food and assuming that we now know everything about food. In the same way that food is a much grander concept than honey, so money is a much grander concept than cash.
So what is the essence of this concept 'money'?
Let's continue with our food analogy to help explain. The concept of 'food' cannot be fully understood with definitions such as "food is the edible stuff that we get from supermarkets" or "food is that which provides us with the energy we need to keep on living" or "food is any substance, comprised primarily of carbohydrates, fats, and/or proteins, that is consumed by living organisms for nutrition or pleasure". This does not explain why bees build hives to store honey, why gazelles are so swift and agile, why cheetahs can run so fast, why some whales have baleen instead of teeth, why spiders and snakes have poison, why some trees have thorns and why fruits are sweet and juicy. If we do not understand the chemistry of food and digestion we will never understand why some foods are not good for us and why too much of certain kinds of food causes problems. We also need to understand that food looks different from the perspectives of the eater and the eaten, and that the forms of food have evolved over the aeons as the eater and eaten have evolved in a symbiotic relationship with each other.
To fully understand the concept of food we cannot define it by its functions or limit our study of it to the study of a class of substances that provide living organisms with energy to keep them alive. Food is a complete system. More than that food is the very essence of life and explains how and why organisms relate to each other, and about the very shape of life on earth itself.
Similarly, to fully understand the concept of money we shouldn't limit our definition and study of it to its functions - indeed there might be some disagreement about those functions. Like food, money is also a system, but much more than a mere financial system consisting of institutions and clients. Money is a social construct that has evolved as a crucial component of human society and has to be defined in the social context.
Money has been an aspect of human society since the beginning of history. You could even say that 'money' is nature's exchange mechanism (e.g. the nectar in flowers is the plant's 'payment' to the bee for carrying its pollen). In primitive hunter-gatherer societies there was no requirement for money as we know it, but there was nonetheless exchange. People did things for each other and the 'currency' was simply the mental record of what was owed to those who had done favours or given something. Those who took advantage of others and gave nothing in return for favours received were socially reprimanded or ostracised.
When humans settled in communities and started to grow their own crops and herd animals, there inevitably developed a division of labour. By limiting their range of activities, individuals and communities needed to exchange what they had for what they didn't have, and hence arose the need for some form of money. Where it was possible, people bartered their goods and services but barter was never a very good way of exchanging things because it always required a coincidence of wants.
There was no single origin of money. Perhaps the first forms of 'money' were again the mental or symbolic recording of 'credit' given by one party and the clearing of that 'debt' at a later time by the delivery of something else by the 'debtor'. The 'debt' might have been cleared indirectly by the 'debtor' doing or giving something to a third party to whom the original 'creditor' owed something.
Simultaneously or later the use of commonly accepted commodities became 'money' (e.g. cattle, grains, salt, firewood, shells etc.). Later the most commonly accepted commodities were precious metals, because they were more portable and divisible, and were acceptable just about everywhere.
What is of interest here is not so much the actual exchange mechanisms employed in a particular place at a particular time but the 'money systems' that arose out of the use of these forms of money. These 'money systems' were essentially a set of rules and conventions that had an impact on the way people related to each other. From these early beginnings it is easy to see that money is really about how humans relate to one another in the realm of producing their means of life and in exchanging the services and products of their labour. 'Money' allowed humans with different skills to share their different products and collaborate in social projects. It allowed them to share the social product according to the simple principle of contribution. Money was both a product of human ingenuity and a determinant of human behaviour. This was true of money then and is equally true today.
When precious metals got coined and money took on a special form distinct from other commodities a dramatic change occurred in human society. Those who coined the precious metals found a way of obtaining something for nothing, or more for less. The coins could be issued with a 'face value' of more than they were worth (in terms of labour input) and thus those who issued them could live off the labours of others. Not only that, by preventing anyone else in the community from issuing coins the issuer had tremendous power over those who received and were dependent on the issue. The discovery of 'money power' enabled the rise of ruling and exploiting classes. Others discovered that if they found a way to 'make money' they could obtain a claim on the social product greater than that which they had contributed to it.
As human society evolved and became more complex so too did the forms of money. Commodity monies turned into symbolic monies that merely represented the commodities, and with the development of literacy, numeracy and printing, money could be represented in writing in the form of receipts, bills of exchange, promissory notes and other paper instruments. The 'cheapening' of the actual creation of money gave the issuers of money even greater powers of exploitation. Along with the cheapening of money the creation of money shifted from monarchs and emperors to a new financial class. An enormous, parasitic, 'money class' arose that contributed little or nothing to the social product, yet had the greatest claim on it.
From the above it is reasonable to conclude that the way our money works to a large degree determines how our society works. This is a very bold statement that many would challenge by saying that the way our money works is to a large degree determined by the way our society works. While obviously it works in both directions, the way our money currently works is the product of a long, turbulent history. We are born into this world and have to learn the rules of the money game; we don't reinvent them with each generation. These rules are enshrined in the law and thus govern our economic behaviour and much else.
Most people find it difficult to accept that society works the way its money system works because they cannot conceive that money can be anything other than what it is conventionally understood to be. Because money is taken as an immutable given, most social commentators, and especially economists, explain human behaviour and social phenomena in terms of 'human nature' rather than as the products of the economic milieu in which we find ourselves. Human economic behaviour is said to be totally predictable because of these 'hard wired' factors, and entire economic theories are based on this presupposition.
To make our point let's look at the way money currently works and what effect it has upon us.
The first thing that can be said about money as we know it is that we all think of it as 'stuff' that exists. This is not surprising because for thousands of years money really did exist so the notion that money is 'stuff' is burned into the collective consciousness and has become embedded in the language and grammar we use around it. Today money is not 'created' in the sense that the creation process produces anything substantial or tangible. The 'creation' of money results in nothing more than some numbers changing on some computers. Even the notes and coins we use are mere portable tokens of money that started out in digital format. Despite the fact that money today is nothing more than digital information, a record of transactions, our entire money system operates as it has for thousands or years - as if money exists. Absurd as it might seem, we still believe that money has to be 'created', distributed and exist in a finite quantity. Undoubtedly, those who 'create' this money wish to perpetuate the myth that before we can do anything we have to have a supply of money, and that money has to be created and distributed so that they can continue lending it to us at interest!
Out of the belief that money exists flow the questions: "who creates our money?", "how is it created?", "how does it get to those who use it?" and "how much should be created?".
Who creates our money has profound consequences for society. Traditionally the money-creating prerogative lay with monarchs and emperors and they used the power this gave them to wage wars and keep their subjects in thrall. Today the money-creating power resides with the private banking sector, which includes the Reserve Bank. It 'creates' money by issuing credit (creating debt) and charging interest for it. Our money is thus not provided as a public service for the common good, but for private, profit-making purposes. This impacts on society in a multitude of ways, chief of which is that the major decisions about where and how money is spent (i.e. where society puts its efforts) are decided by an unelected and unaccountable minority of powerful individuals. Thus the very direction of our economies is determined by private, minority interests. If money was democratically created then it would be democratically allocated and society's efforts would be mobilised for the public good. In short, there would be more houses, schools and hospitals and fewer 5-star hotels, casinos and arms factories.
Money created as debt also has profound consequences for society because all debt has interest attached to it. As the money to pay the interest is never created we live in a world of musical chairs: more money is required to pay back what is borrowed than exists, meaning that some of the borrowers have to fail and there is a constant need for the money supply to grow faster than what is required to pay back the principle. This need is the force behind the growth imperative of our economies. If our economies do not grow they stagnate and the borrowers cannot pay the interest on their loans. The money lenders then expropriate the collateral, impoverishing the borrowers and transferring even more material wealth to themselves. This is the force behind the constant monopolisation, corporatisation and globalisation of society. More than that, usury transfers wealth from the wealth creators to the parasitic 'money class' that produces nothing but consumes most of what society produces. The structure of our society is thus the embodiment of the way our money system works.
The banking system, as the sole supplier of new money, pumps it into the circuit of buyers and sellers (the real economy) through the narrow pipe of self-defined eligibility. Only those deemed 'creditworthy' can get new money (borrow money) and these are institutions and individuals that already have money or assets that can stand as collateral. Thus money comes in at the top where there is already money, ensuring that society's major investment decisions are taken by a select stratum of wealthy individuals and that access to the most desirable products of society are blocked to the majority. So long as we believe that money is 'stuff' then we have to believe that it needs to be 'distributed', that we need a 'distributor' and that there have to be rules about how it is 'distributed'. And so long as we accept 'thing' money the distribution of that money will remain highly skewed.
The question "how much money should be created?" also only makes sense if money is thought of as 'stuff', for if we treated money as information - which it really is - it would be absurd to ask such a question. But as we do think of money as something that needs to exist in a finite quantity, there are elaborate mechanisms in place to regulate the amount of it. The most important requirement is to keep it scarce, for without the scarcity factor 'thing' money would have little value and it would be difficult to lend it.
The amount of money in circulation has nothing to do with what is required for everyone to engage in free and fair trade with each other; it is entirely determined by the banking system, which includes the Reserve Bank, according to the sole criterion of what is the most profitable amount. Too much money reduces the demand for money and so interest rates have to be low, while too little makes it too expensive and deters the borrowers. The 'correct' amount for everyone to engage equally in the economy would definitely be too much for the money lenders, for no one would then be keen to borrow their money.
Answering the four questions above has given us some idea of how 'thing' money shapes our world, but perhaps the most important thing about 'thing' money is that it can be treated as a tradable commodity. This means that it can be bought and sold in the market for a profit just like any other commodity. And having the properties of a 'thing' it can also be stolen, lost, destroyed, counterfeited, borrowed, lent and obtained in a multitude of fraudulent ways. Because obtaining it is not necessarily associated with the delivery of value to anyone, many people spend their lives finding ways of 'making money' rather than delivering value. As it is usually far easier to get money through dishonest means than by honest work, money-as-we-know-it thus encourages dishonesty and corruption. And because 'things' are not information, the money system is opaque and hides the sordid detail from public scrutiny.
There is much else that could be said about 'thing' money and how it shapes our world and governs our behaviour, but lets consider briefly what effects a 'non-thing' money would have upon human society.
Money as information
When we begin to realise that money doesn't have to work the way it does, that money can perform the 'money functions' without being 'stuff', we can begin to understand that the way we relate to each other in the economic arena can be very different.
The Community Exchange System is an attempt to reinvent money and it does this by taking the concept of 'money as information' to its logical conclusion. Where money is not a thing nothing passes from a buyer to a seller when a purchase is made. All that happens is that the details of the transaction and the value of what was received by the buyer are recorded. The value is recorded as a positive number (credit) for the seller and a negative number (debit) for the buyer.
The buyer owes nothing to the seller but the debit represents the buyer's obligation to the community. The buyer is thus not indebted to multiple sellers as in the conventional economy but has one single 'debt' and that 'debt' is always to the community. Immediately it can be seen that from a psychological point of view a trader in the CES economy does not have that feeling of being 'hounded' by multiple debtors. It is in fact absurd that we should have multiple debts because we actually owe nothing to those from whom we have received something. We 'pay' for what we have received by doing or selling things to others. Money is a social instrument that specifically allows us to settle our scores without having to engage in barter.
The single most important consequence of treating money as information is that the money system is rid of borrowing, lending and usury. As there is no need for a third party (banks) to provide money for buyers and sellers, there are no systematic opportunities for parasites to suck wealth out of the economy. Society would be rid of the 'money class' and the 'tax' that we all pay to sustain them through inflated prices that contain the costs of interest. Only those who supply real value to the economy can get credited and thus have a claim on the social product.
The consequences of getting rid of borrowing, lending and usury would be so profound that human society would become almost unrecognisable to those of us who have grown up with the debt-based money system. The chief factor behind the need for our economies to grow and the requirement that some must fail for others to succeed would be removed. Instead of growth at all costs and cut-throat competition we would have a more relaxed, caring and co-operative economy. This seems to be the only way to save our planet from the destructive ravages of the economy that is a child of the debt-based money system.
With the competitive urge removed our economies would make a u-turn and focus on the local instead of the global. The drive towards monopolisation and corporatisation would stop as money would not need to constantly seek new markets.
With the 'thing' factor removed, it would no longer be possible to steal money and money itself would not be a tradable commodity. The multitude of ways that people have found to make money out of money would disappear, thus eliminating further the opportunities for living off the social product without contributing to it. Money crime, embezzlement and fraud would become almost impossible. Dishonesty, hostility and aggressiveness would give way to honesty, friendliness and humility as the need to cheat and get ahead of ones fellows is removed.
This is not wishful thinking, it is already happening in our trading community and the consequences of changing our money would become even more apparent if the 'other' money system wasn't there to counteract the trends that are already under way.
Let us grow our exchange and demonstrate that by changing our money we really can change our world!
Audio-visual
Anyone interested in finding out what is wrong with our current money system and why we need a new money system should download the following:
If you would like to advertise or place a notice here please submit your ad to ads@ces.org.za
The Talent Shop Is no one contacting you about the goods you have for sale? Bring them to the Talent Shop where they will be sold in no time. You can continue advertising your goods on the site, but give the address of the Talent Shops where they can be collected. This will save you the bother of having to deal with your buyers. You will also not have to worry about entering your trades, as this will be done for you by the shop.
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Talent Exchange User Guide
All the answers are available right from your account on the CES web site. Download the Talent Exchange User Guide. To do so, access your account on the CES web site at www.ces.org.za or go directly to http://www.ces.org.za/resources/manual.htm and download one of the printable versions of the User Guide. You can also view the HTML version on the screen. If you would like to purchase a paper version (for Talents) look under 'CES Services' in the Offerings List to see who you can get it from. Your local area co-ordinator should also be able to provide you with a copy. |