Workshop Notes - Community Currency July 2008

 DISCUSSION : MAIN POINTS  

·          We need  more knowledge about  alternative  currencies, how they work  and what they require  to work well and to spread this awareness.

·          Sharing  skills  and knowledge or things  between neighbours and friends  is  already  a type  of ‘alternative   currency’

·          There must be confidence  in any  community currency and  there is  polarity between  “trust”  and  “accounting” – some  alternative  currency systems  have  more  trust and less accounting,  and  vice versa.

·          There is  also a polarity between  Abundance  and  Scarcity  -  debt-based money  which incurs  interest  charges  tends  to undermine our sense of  sufficiency and  abundance  leading to  sense  of  scarcity and fear  and the  felt need to accumulate.

ACTION  OUTCOME

Investigate possibility of holding  a  workshop  in Motueka  on community  currencies,    with a request to the  Community  Board to contribute to travel for a  speaker. (Alistair Munro to follow-up)