CALDERDALE LETS MAKES THE NEWS
I just noticed
that one of the exhibits Pauline's 1997 TOES Trip
Report had an article about LETS with
important information I'd
missed. It was a newspaper article about
Calderdale LETS and I don't
have the name of the paper or the date:
Paper: UK ??
Date: ??
PIONEER GROUP IN CALDERDALE
by Michael Peel
GREEN CAMPAIGNERS SET UP REJUVENATION
TEAM
Staff have now
been appointed for a national project in Halifax
which aims to find new ways to rejuvenate
local economies.
The Forum for
the Future, a charity funded by the country's
leading green campaigners, has set up
its regional office at Dean
Clough Business Park at a cost of #220,000.
Working closely
with Calderdale Council, the forum will study the
best ways of creating jobs and prosperity
throughout the UK and
abroad.
The council's
Labour leader Coun. Pam Warhurst said it was
tremendous for Calderdale to be chosen
as the base for the project
which would help bring the area widespread
recognition and benefits.
Project officers
Mr. Les Newby, of Leicester, and Ms. Helen
Hudson, of Rochdale, will begin their
work next month.
According to
the forum's executive director, Mr. Rupert Howes,
modern economic policy is failing to tackle
the needs of areas like
Calderdale which have seen a dramatic
decline in traditional
industries such as textiles and engineering.
"While service
sector jobs have increased, West Yorkshire still
suffers from a persistent level of long-term
unemployment, especially
among young people in inner cities," said
Mr. Howes.
"conventional
development policies cannot possibly reach all
these people and at the same time opportunities
to create wealth and
jobs in the local economy continue to
go begging.
"This project
is designed to help build up local economies in a
sustainable and environmentally responsible
way which employs the
people and resources that the global market
has bypassed."
One of the reasons
the forum has chosen to come to Calderdale has
been success of the pioneering Local Exchange
Trading System LETS
which involves purchases being paid for
by "favours" rather than
money.
Recycling projects,
credit unions, community transport and
agriculture schemes, and cooperative businesses
are some of the other
ways to which more and more people are
turning to create wealth.
"Inevitably,
a lot of this is pretty hit and miss and many
schemes are very short=lived or seriously
under performing," said Mr.
Howes.
"It needs a coherent
strategy for reinforcing all the voluntary
enthusiasm and community enterprise which
underpins so much local
economic activity."
The officers
at Dean Clough will collect and analyse national and
international information about good practice
for economic development
and produce a final report at the end
of three years.
"This will set
out both a fully-fledged model and an operational
tool-kit for the sustainable reinvigoration
of local economies."
Kirklees and
Wakefield Councils, charitable trusts and businesses
are also backing the project which is
headed by one of the country's
best known environmentalists, Mr. Jonathan
Porritt.
JCT: If somebody
has the date and name of the newspaper, I'd
appreciate finding out.
GUINNESS SCREWS UP
I tried to have
LETS mentioned in the 1998 Guinness Book of World
Records as my best bet. And they wrote
back that they would. Then they
printed the same old 1997 story shy 3
elections of the real record.
It's 44, not 41. I guess it might be of
note that they got that 1998
World Record wrong. Maybe they'll mention
betting on LETS next year?
UPCOMING UK TRIP FOR TOES
Pauline and I
have booked our airline tickets arriving Heathrow
on Wednesday May 13 at 6:45am and leaving
June 3 at 2:45pm. That
leaves us two free weeks after the conference
to visit various points
of LETS interest.
As usual, to
pay for all this, we'll be travelling on a credit
card which I'll then spend a month or
two playing Poker in Atlantic
City paying off. Fortunately, since the
cost of motels averages $100
Canadian or #40 per day, every evening
spent with LETS friends is a
major saving.
Pauline would
like to barter her way across the UK. She has about
40 Hours or G#240 saved in her Ottawa
LETS Greendollar account to
spend which will someday soon be transferable.
I have Green credit
too. Back in 1993, the Toronto LETS needed
$3000 for a laser printer
to put out its newsletter. I provided
that cash in exchange for 3000
Greendollars in my Toronto account. But
I never lived in Toronto. I
never spent any of them. And even if service
charges have eaten away
some, there's still plenty of credit I've
given to LETS that is due to
me. But I can broker any deal. If anyone
from the UK wants to use
their Green in Toronto, I'll take UK Green
and pay with Toronto Green.
We can write post-dated checks on our
accounts until the day a public
Internet Bulletin Board exists where any
LETS may register and post
intersystem trades and our checks go through.
Of course, whatever
steps Pauline takes in finding out how one
could visit the UK on a LETS account will
be explained in her Trip
Report. I would think a lot of LETSers
might like to know if it's
possible to see the UK on LETS and how
Travel by LETS could be applied
to their own nations. So, with so many
UK LETS, how does a tourist
find out where accommodations are available
from LETS UK?
If any upcoming
LETS events could use a speaker with a thousand
and one funny stories, I'm available,
preferably as a guest though we
never mind paying our own way. All we
need is information about which
LETS have accommodations available.
Though I keyboard
only in English, I would like to practice my
LETS delivery in French and I've put out
feelers for possible speaking
engagements in France. We'll come at our
expense to speak but prefer
if we can be put up.
It's neat going
off on these missions never knowing what
resources will pop up to make a louder
message. On our New Zealand
trip, I was going as a guest speaker to
the New Zealand National
Greendollar conference. That grew into
a talk to the Democratic Party
which led to more invitations and half
a dozen radio and television
appearances. All talking LETS.
My first UK trip
was nowhere as successful though I'd bet if we'd
met Sabine Kurjo-McNeill at the beginning
rather than the end of the
trip, her get-up-and-go would have had
a major impact. She got me
speaking engagements and informed the
press in one blurr of activity.
Actually, Don Bethune was the same kind
of catalyst in New Zealand.
So there are
just over two weeks from May 18 to June 2 available
for anything of interest.
So we'll be off
on another LETS adventure trying to have LETS
steal the show at TOES98. Sad that the
word LETS is not yet on the
TOES98 agenda but it will be once I'm
booked.
Of course, my
notoriety as a professional gambler and a Guinness
Record Loser and Power-Picketer may originally
detract from the
message but I always post transcripts
to let readers judge for
themselves what I say and do. So far,
the notoriety gets the attention
but LETS gets in the reports.
When the G7 were
in Ottawa back in the early 1980s, I remember
being past the police cordons as the lone
picket before the Cenotaph
with my Abolish Interest Rates placard
when the G7 leaders drove by.
Picketing is always a useful tactic and
I did picket Buckingham Palace
and the Bank of England the last time
I was there so I think I will
picket the G8 this year during my off-hours
from the TOES conference.
Maybe I'll use "LETS accounts for all,"
this time on the back side of
my standard "Abolish Interest Rates" sign.
Maybe Jubilee2000 will wrap
their human chain of debt around the Leaders
and my signs will be
useful for both groups.
Though the Jubilee
2000 people trumpet a wonderful message,
forgiveness of debts, I don't want all
debt forgiven. Only my debt due
to usury. So here I will be trying to
talk a crowd bemoaning the same
banking system as me but demanding total
debt forgiveness while I
argue that some debt is honorable and
only dishonorable debt caused by
usury should be forgiven.
But they are
now a powerful force around the world. If the
world's debtors can be persuaded to lower
their sights from the quest
for forgiveness of all debts to forgiveness
of only unrighteous debts,
they'll see that the best thing to do
is step onto a LETS lifeboat
software where they only keep count of
righteous debts while
discussing the unrighteous debt problems.
Imagine the Jubilee
2000 debt-forgiveness group in one hall and
the "not-these-righteous-debts" LETS group
in the other. And the Debt
Jubileers include many church people so
there's the chance LETS might
get on their databases is better all the
time.
You'd think that
with all the LETSers in the UK, LETS would have
made more of a show at TOES. I hope I
get the chance to change that.