Off Grid :: Alternative Currencies
ALTERNATIVE CURRENCIES
The 'Post Economix' Exchange at the Sunrise Off-Grid Gathering will be hosting a series of workshops, talks, and presentations focusing on the future of 'exchange' plus acting as the 'bank' for our own currency, the SOL (Symbol of Life).
Over the four days of the festival, you can explore and discover a whole range of alternatives to the 'credit crunched' current economic system - everything from creating your own local Transition currency to living without money!
Presentations and talks will be given by some of the UK's leading 'new economists' and there will also be a number of participatory 'Time For Community' workshops with Avalon Fair Shares.A 'Symbol Of Life'
As part of the Post Economix theme, you will also be able to take part in Sunrise Off-Grid's exciting and unique economic experiment: Inspired by the Totnes and Lewes Pounds, Sunrise Off-Grid is the first festival in the world to use its own 'Transition' currency: the Sunrise SOL. Launched in 2009, the SOLs were a great success at the last Off-Grid and are getting a reprint for this years gathering.
The SOL notes will be issued from the 'Post Economix' arena, and will be accepted as a valid currency by all the stalls and traders at the Off-grid Festival from 19th to 22nd August 2010. As with the Totnes and Lewes Pounds, the SOL will be a legitimate 'private' currency which - whilst having no official value outside the festival - we will, by mutual consent, treat as roughly equivalent to £1.
There will only be a limited supply of 2,000 notes, which can be acquired in issues of 5 notes in exchange for £5 sterling at the Post Economix's stall in the Transition Tin Village. You can also request SOLs as part of your change from any of the Off-Grid stalls and traders.
As the aim of the SOL is to promote the concept of supporting the local economy - in this case the Off-Grid stalls and traders - we would encourage you to spend all your SOLs at the festival. To ensure the flow of the currency, the notes will NOT be refundable. Therefore we advise you to spend all your SOL notes by Sunday evening, (unless you wish to take some home as a souvenir). From 6 pm on Sunday, the stall holders and traders will not give SOLs out in change - unless you specifically asked for them.
"You hold in your hand a powerful tool for economic regeneration ... Pass it round, spend it, envision the potential it embodies ..." from the original Totnes Pound.
SPEAKERS
Stephanie Rearick : TimeBanking - justice, sustainability, education, health and community-building work
Stephanie Rearick is founder and Director of the 1600+ member Dane Co.TimeBank in Madison, Wisconsin - one of the fastest-growing Timebanks in the USA - and serves as Co-Chair on the TimeBanks USA Board of Directors. She spent six years with the international environmental organisation Greenpeace and served as director of their Madison office. She is also co-owner of Mother Fool's Coffeehouse, which she and her husband have run since 1995. Rearick is also a musician and recording artist.
This workshop will serve as an overview of the TimeBanking model of equal, strength-based service exchange; the core values of TimeBanking (assets, reciprocity, community, redefining work, and respect); examples of how TimeBanking is being applied around the world for justice, sustainability, education, health and community-building work; and resources for starting a TimeBank in your community.
Participants will learn some basics about projects currently using TimeBanking to tackle social and economic problems and will engage in activities to examine assets, needs and desires for their own community. We will then work through how TimeBanking can serve as a tool to help build the kind of community they dream of.
Goal: To create an experiential environment and get participants to begin to think about what's important to them in their communities and to see how TimeBanking can be used as an organising tool to tackle social and economic issues in their neighbourhoods.
SUPPORTED BY AVALON FAIR SHARES
