1) TARIQ SHABBEER: UK Government funding
2) PETER NORTH: UK Govt supports LETS
- thoughts
3) TARIQ SHABBEER: Met with John Turmel
and Pauline
4) TARIQ SHABBEER: LETS networking in
action!
Tariq Shabbeer, Community Economics Development
Officer for Bradford
City Council UK, wrote:
Date: Thu Jun 4 09:43:44 1998
From: tariq.shabbeer@bradford.gov.uk (Tariq
Shabbeer)
Subject: RE: For econ-lets peoples interest
from the Credit union net.
To: econ-lets@mailbase.ac.uk
British Government Support of LETS !
"From:
gsharpe@northern-college.shu.ac.uk
"Sent:
Thursday, June 4, 1998 2:55 pm
"To: credit-union@sheffield.ac.uk
"Subject:
Community-based Regeneration Initiatives
"I have received today from the Department
of the Environment,
"Transport and the Regions a copy of a
paper called
"Community-based Regeneration Initiatives:
a working paper.
"On Internet at www.regeneration.detr.gov.uk/cbri/index.htm
"Glynis
All, Peace Be Upon You !
Yes. Isn't this great news and brilliant
support from the Government
at long last. This paper clearly shows
that the best practice for
Community based regeneration initiatives
are:
"Credit Unions, LETS, Microcredit systems,
community loan funds,
"Community Enterprise, Development Trusts,
Managed Workspace, and
"Community Shops and Pubs are all described.
Its the best thing I have seen in a long
time - it even recommends the
New Economics Foundation's brilliant Community
Works booklet.
Surely a solution for sustainability are
in this rainbow of Community
Economic Development tools.
Tariq Shabbeer, Bradford, UK.
JCT: In my upcoming
UK Trip report on Bradford, I transcribe that
same Government report favoring LETS and
note it also recommends
support for local "stores and pubs." Sounds
like a LETS Recycle Store
and/or Pub covers two or three objectives
with the same funding
application. Perhaps existing community
shops and pubs could also be
persuaded to install a LETS for their
customers?
2) PETER NORTH: UK Govt supports LETS - thoughts
Peter North commented:
Date: Thu Jun 4 11:44:19 1998
From: northp@sbu.ac.uk
Subject: UK Govt supports LETS - thoughts
To: econ-lets@mailbase.ac.uk
*I've just looked at the UK Govts Department
of the Environment,
*Transport and the Regions working paper.
Its certainly very
*positive, saying all the right things
about working from the bottom
*up and supporting communities doing things
for themselves rather than
*(at best) consulting while doing it to
communities.
*A few thoughts struck me:
*How can we make sure that any Government
funding truely does support
*communities working for themselves?
JCT: That's already
covered. Since LETS by its nature supports
communities working for themselves, any
government support of that
effect is useful. How can any LETS funding
not support the function?
*This takes time, the community may want
to go slower/quicker than
*government.
JCT: Optimum
is quickest. I can't ever imagine wanting to go
slower.
*It might be easier for government just
to spend money quickly on
*inappropriate development of LETS to
be seen to be doing something.
JCT: I cannot
imagine what an inappropriate development of LETS
could be?
*The level of understanding of the paper
is very superficial.
JCT: They understand
results and if it doesn't take much
understanding for the average poker to
grasp how the chips work, it
shouldn't take more than superficial understanding
of how LETS chips
would work. LETS is not complex stuff.
*They've obviously just heard of CED and
LETS and are excited.
JCT: Wonderful.
Maybe their understanding is much more than
superficial if they're excited about something
useful for a change. I
hope they really run with it.
*They seem to have no concept of barriers
they are likely to overcome
*in setting up LETS in low income areas,
how slow trading can often be
*at first.
JCT: These are
barriers to low-powered LETSystems. High-powered
LETS transcend barriers felt by the many
small LETS. I have no concept
of barriers if you start big enough. When
Argentinian Provinces
started up their own LETS provincial bonds
currency, there were no
barriers and no slow trading. Sure, you
can have all the barriers you
want if you chose to start small and slow.
They don't exist once
you've hit LETS critical mass.
*How do we avoid unrealistic expectations
from government?
JCT: There are
no unrealistic expectations when most haven't even
seen half its true potential yet.
*How do we make sure that Government does
not put inappropriate
*requirements for the delivery of outcomes
from LETS development it
*supports? Too many jobs created too quickly?
Unrealistic numbers of
*businesses recruited? Unrealistic turnovers?
JCT: We can't
make sure they don't make unrealistic demands but
I'd bet they will underestimate, not overestimate
LETS potential so
why worry until they do? It doesn't matter.
Once started, LETS do good
and are hard to shut off. Besides, if
they screw up their expectations
the first time around, they'll do it better
the second time around.
*How do we get government to 'get out of
the way' of development of
*LETS that can go on independent of direct
government financial
*support?
JCT: The
fight for removing benefits is successfully being waged
almost everywhere including the UK. Though
of secondary nature, that
seems to be the Big LETS issue of immediate
concern rather than
attaining critical mass.
*For example, removing benefit penalties?
Helping development by
*trading in local?
JCT: Of course,
Government Trading would result in almost
immediate saturation critical mass. LETS
connection to Bell Telephone
or Power Company would also result in
almost instantaneous critical
mass.
*How do we make sure that funded development
is sustainable, and that
*workers aren't employed who will understandably
be more concerned
*that their short term contract is renewed.
JCT: Again, these
are people looking for sterling pay without
realizing the whole purpose of LETS is
for them to build networks to
not use sterling. If their LETS reaches
critical mass, they won't need
another grant in sterling.
*How do we get LETS systems and schemes
to be sustainable after
*government funding ceases?
JCT: LETS are
inherently sustainable once administration expenses
are optimized and critical mass is reached.
.
*Lets not uncritically welcome government
interest in LETS
JCT: Let's uncritically
welcome government interest in LETS. It's
a machine. There's nothing they can do
to corrupt its engineering
design no matter how well they ride it.
*- it needs to be channeled in the right
direction or -
JCT: What would
be a wrong direction? It's their money, let them
channel it in any direction. It all boils
down to their helping in the
war to replace sterling with LETS currency.
Greater market share.
*as been the case so often with community
development in the past -
*all we will see is the professionalisation
of development with the
*growth of a dependency on government
funding,
JCT: The whole
purpose of LETS is to reduce dependency on
sterling funding. LETS should be able
to reduce its dependence if it
offers a way for people an end their dependency
on sterling.
Though low-powered LETS need their sterling
grants mainly for high
administration costs, high-powered LETS
don't are virtually free and
can be kept in a manual ledger.
*and the incorporation of more radical
sides to LETS.
JCT: What radical
sides to LETS are you worried about here? What
is the radical side of token theory?
I can't understand
all the worries about who is going to promote
LETS. That bulletin was promulgated while
I was Tariq Shabbeer's
office and I felt more like doing cartwheels
than casting about for
sinister motives. I've even added this
good news of official UK
government promotion of LETS in my UK
Trip report.
*Peter North, School of Urban Development
and Policy
*South Bank University, London
JCT: I suppose
you're trained to look for the downsides as well
as the upsides but as an engineer, I only
need my blueprints to be
reassured of optimum engineering design.
I have never seen a downside
to promotion of interest-free currency
over interest-bearing money. I
wish you could be so reassured.
3) TARIQ SHABBEER: Met with John Turmel and Pauline
*Date: Tue Jun 9 05:15:24 1998
*Subject: RE: Met up with John Turmel
and Pauline.
*Hello fellow LETSers,
*Just a quick note to say that I met John
Turmel and Pauline last
week.
*They had come to Birmingham as one of
the 50,000 people protesting at
*the G8 summit. They visited many LETSsystems
up and down the country,
*and gave a talk here in Bradford Council.
JCT: JCT: Reports
on TOES 98, Jubilee 2000 and UK LETS Trip soon.
*John is a very passionate, larger than
life, speaker and filled us
*with great enthusiasm and ideas for new
ventures to get LETS
*practically going.
JCT: After thousands
of rehearsals, some have likened me to a
preacher at a Bible-thumping revival meeting.
That sure applies when
I'm thumping my Bible about Christ, the
Interest Fighter. But in a sea
of drowning debtors, it's hard not to
be passionate when you're
bearing the good news of high-powered
LETS life-boats.
The poetry, props
and graphs make it a coherent whirlwind 75
minute presentation offering a glimpse
of the imminent revival of
peace and prosperity with Global LETS.
I guess you could call them
LETS revival meetings. Bradford was the
last after a long line of LETS
revival meetings. Fortunately, a Halifax
man taped the same show a few
days earlier in Mytholmroyd and is distributing
it on CD for #10.
Contact Rothwell Shackleton at 1 Holly
Ivy Cottage, Saville Park,
Halifax, Yorkshire, hx1 3en 01422 365146
for Turmel's TOES 98 LETS CD.
*Namely, 4 things :
*1). Look into introducing some form of
token system to run along with
*cheques, like in Ithaca. John left me
a great video showing how
*virtually all businesses in Ithaca take
Green Dollars.
JCT: Of course,
the video of Ithaca's 40-velocity Local
Employment-Trading Hour notes was a hit
for people burdened with all
the administration costs of 1-velocity
systems.
*2). Create some form of Community Shop
/ Store.
JCT: The LETS
recycle consignment store and pub seems to
naturally fulfill several government-desirable
functions.
*3). Get elderly people involved - Pensioners;
JCT: Pensioners
should be offered LETS credit to obtain the full
value of their estates. I think a minimum
number of Hours credit from
a municipal grant to all pensioners' accounts
would be both affordable
and appropriate. Letting the stores and
pensioners hold the negatives
then allows young workers to now save
up their positives and trade
more freely.
Tariq is too
modest to mention his interview on how LETS is
helping a LETS pensioner Shirley Quinn
in a two page spread that just
came out on May 21, 1998 in a national
women's magazine "Take a
Break." I transcribe it in my upcoming
report.
*4). Greater support and encouragement
of local and national
*government in spending to reduce interest
re-payments.
JCT: Expansion
of those main points with exhibits and poetry to
Her Majesty was the script for this year's
TOES 98 LETS mission. But
Tariq didn't mention the most telling
moment at the Bradford meeting
after I'd mentioned that at my first Calderdale
meeting, a Calderdale
city worker asked a Calderdale Councillor
if she could receive 10% of
her pay from the city's account in "Favours."
Tariq noted he'd already
offered to take 10% of his salary in "Brads"
but no one took it
seriously, yet. With a Manchester civil
servant and LETS member also
expressing an interest in being paid in
Green, one mayor may soon see
the advantage of using their city's interest-free
LETS account rather
than the city's interest-bearing sterling
accounts. Such offers seem
to be the quickest way to get them started.
*I had a great time showing John around
Bradford and introducing local
*LETS people to him. We are looking forward
to the report and photos
*and to seeing Pauline again later in
the summer.
JCT: I hope you're
the first authority in the UK to find someway
of making your municipal LETS fly. I'd
point out I've spoken to pro-
LETS councillors from Halifax and Hebdenroyd
who were also faced with
civic employees demanding to be paid in
Local Currency. The advantage
of using LETS and not sterling cannot
remain unappreciated for very
long.
4) TARIQ SHABBEER: LETS networking in action!
Date: Tue Jun 9 07:42:13 1998
From: tariq.shabbeer@bradford.gov.uk (Tariq
Shabbeer)
Subject: RE: LETS networking in action
!
To: econ-lets@mailbase.ac.uk ("'econ-lets@mailbase.ac.uk'")
*If anyone else out there wants to send
me a video, I can do the same.
*From:
Tariq Shabbeer
*Sent:
Tuesday, June 9, 1998 12:30 pm
*To: 'Peter.Goodwin@onyx.octacon.co.uk'
*Subject:
FW: Met up with John Turmel and Pauline.
*Dear Peter, Peace Be Upon You
!!!!
*Great to hear of a LETS in Teeside.
JCT: What did
you hear about the LETS in Teeside?
*John's video really shows practical trading
of notes in Ithaca.
*It is a collection of short 5-10 min
reports of Ithaca's Time Dollar
*Scheme - mostly taken from American TV
stations news channels.
*I found it very stimulating - it is as
accepted as normal currency
*there!
JCT: And its
high velocity has made it the local currency to
beat.
*You are most welcome to borrow the video
at any time, but better
*still, if you send me a video tape, I
can record it for you and send
*it back so that you have a copy to use
when ever.
*We have also produced a song for LETS
and are busy making our own
*video - Leicester LETS has one too.
JCT: You should
get the video in UK's PAL format called
LETS: Another Economy produced by Robin
Johannsen at 33 St. Andrews
Square, Surbiton, kt6 4eg, UK, Tel: 1081-339-0919.
Of course I like it
because he uses some of my poetry in it
but there's a ton of good
information on LETS in the UK with Liz
Shephard and Harry Turner in a
very pleasing format. There's a transcript
of it somewhere in the
mailbase archives.
*John Turmel is an amazing character -
he has been a professional
*gambler for 24 years, but makes up for
his sinning by going all out
*for LETS development.
JCT: I've always
said I wouldn't feel so guilty of breaking daddy
at the tables if junior had his own interest-free
credit line.
*He is a harmless radical really - very
extroverted.
JCT: I've always
thought I was the most dangerous radical in the
world. To the banking establishment, that
is. And it's tough to whip
up enthusiasm if you're an introvert