Community Exchange News

No.4, 25 October 2006

Community Exchange News is the Newsletter of the Wellington Talent Exchange

Contents:

1. Welcome!!
2. Where Do We Stand?
3. Russell on Parenting - Failed Experiment
4. Advantages of Community Currencies Too Subtle, Especially in 'Good Times'?

Repeated from the last newsletter:

5. Add to Russell's Efforts and Multiply Our Reach

1. Welcome

Welcome to issue 4 of the Wellington Talent Exchange (WTE) newsletter. In this issue I again answer the question "Where do we stand?". I also write a bit about the piece that I sent to all members who are on line about parenting, sharing some thoughts about why it did not produce what I had hoped it would. And, I say a few words about how promoting local currency systems is tricky - how it doesn't lend itself to the normal approach of the advertising and marketing industry.

Russell Bishop
Administrator

2. Where Do We Stand?

The stats on the system show that trading to date has been T6 155. In September we traded to the value of T824. (In August it was T863.) We now have 35 member accounts. Progress was slow over this period with me working full-time some of the time. I am now no longer working at Lollipops Playland. My other work situation is in flux. The next week or so will show how we are going to move forward there.

3. Russell on Parenting - Failed Experiment

A week or two ago you received from the exchange admin a message including some material I had written to share some thoughts on the important issue of parenting. I paid for the sending of this message. The message invited you to respond with comment to what I had written, and/or to offer to pay me for the writing work. I received just one verbal comment, and no other response at all. As I said in the intro to the piece I sent, the message was an experiment in a new way of using the exchange. I was prompted to try this out by the experience of a person in the Cape Town Talent Exchange some years ago. Stuart offered financial coaching with a wider base than the conventional. He helped me and others to look at the issues which affect how we make decisions around work and money, and also to look for balance between the various aspects of our lives. He was able to make a start in this by working with people on the Talent Exchange. I think I am correct in remembering that I was his first client. Within a few weeks of making a start Stuart was able to attract customers paying in national currency. He continued to make his services available for Talents. Encouraged by my recollection of this I thought I may be able make a start as a writer on the WTE. I also hoped that I could provide some value in the system and reduce my considerable negative balance. I have some thoughts about why I didn't get the result I was hoping for. You are better placed though to say why the experiment failed. I hope you will share your thoughts with me.

My thoughts on the failure are as follows:

• The subject may have just been too emotive. How we relate to children, and how our culture trains us to do so, are highly charged subjects.
• The material itself may just not be very well written. I don't see it as the best writing I have done. I would have liked to have reworked it. Time was as always a factor. I decided to put it out and hope that it would be useful and interesting, if not 'gripping' or 'brilliant'.
• The content of what I wrote was maybe a bit too obvious - didn't really in any way give a new angle on the issue.
  It may have been a mistake for me not to indicate how much I would like people to pay. If I had said that an amount of, say, as little as T5.00, was completely acceptable, that may have been useful. It's possible you or others didn't have a clue how much to offer as a payment and so just didn't offer.
• It may have been a mistake to send the piece out to all members. The message from the admin could instead have not included that actual material, and read something like: "Russell has written an interesting piece on parenting. Please let him know if you would like to see it. Russell will send you the piece and charge you a nominal amount of T5.00."
• There may have been a degree of arrogance in my thinking that I could write material which could be useful and interesting on so controversial a subject.

Your thoughts please!! It would be nice if we could find a way to make this mechanism work.

4. Advantages of Community Currencies Too Subtle, Especially in 'Good Times'?

Most enterprises today aim to reach their customers and potential customers by hitting them hard with LOUD and COLOURFUL messages in the media. Over the years people in the marketing and advertising industry have been forced to 'turn up the volume'. Their own efforts have desensitized us to anything that doesn't 'shout' at us. We have also gotten used to receiving messages which make outrageous claims. We are used to dealing with claims that we know go beyond what is likely to be delivered. Those big claims do still influence us to buy. Sometimes the claims are not explicitly made so we don't test them with the cognitive - they pass straight through and unquestioned to the unconscious.

The Wellington Talent Exchange, and local currencies in general, do not lend themselves to being promoted in the 'loud and colourful' way. We maintain, I believe, a higher level of integrity in what we say than what has become acceptable in 'normal' marketing and advertising, and, the benefits of participating in a local exchange are subtle. Lets list some:

• You get credit 'no questions asked'. (You are free to buy even when in negative balance.)
• You get to do business with people who are open to new ways of doing things.
• As a seller you manage the payment process. (There is no threat of not being paid for goods or services sold. This is also helped by the fact that in most local currency systems, including ours, money itself is never in short supply.)
• You get to know about people living near you who can help you with meaningful services and goods. (Travel is reduced.)
• You get to know people who live near you. (Levels of trust and coherence in your community increase.)
• You participate in a process which may contribute to very meaningful change in how we live, towards more justice and care of the environment.

The system facilitates trade between the 'haves' and the 'have nots'. If a poor person does business with a rich person the fact that the poorer person manages payment is especially helpful. For a poor person the risk involved in being in business is at the level of survival, and any delay in payment or refused payment hits very hard. It is also especially helpful to a poor person to be able to get credit for equipment and travel and training.

These seem to be the key benefits to me. They do not lend themselves to being promoted 'loudly'.

Promoting the exchange is especially difficult in times of relative economic prosperity. Local currency systems tend to be 'counter-cyclic': they do especially well during times of economic downturn and shrink when economies are doing well. Things are still quite buoyant in the NZ economy at present, so bringing people into the exchange is going to be just that bit harder than it would be if the economy was struggling. (I hold off discussion about how the performance of economies is conventionally measured and whether that has meaning to all.)

All of this means we need to just keep plugging away until we start to be noticed. Once we get past a certain size then promotion will be easier. For now, we keep plugging.

Repeated from the last newsletter:

5. Add to Russell's Efforts and Multiply Our Reach

I do still want to invite you to consider stepping in beside me to accelerate our growth. We can reach out, initially to the 'low hanging fruit' (those who will naturally want to join us in constructing a system which runs, initially at least, in parallel with the wider system, and shows that people can have more control in their economic lives). We can 'multiply our reach' by talking to our natural allies, and then reach out to all who can benefit by participating with us. Please consider stepping in to help us build.

Wellington Talent Exchange Administration
Email: well@ces.org.za
Web: www.ces.org.za

The SANE Community Exchange System is an initiative of the South African New Economics Network