THE LETSLINK UK NATIONAL LETS CONFERENCE 1998
Friday 16th October,
Guildhall Square, Portsmouth, Hampshire, England
Complementary Currencies:
new choices
for the millennium
with:
Professor Bernard Lietaer, designer of the European Single Currency
keynote speech on the need for reform of the present system, introducing
complementary currencies around the world and their importance for the
future, the subject of his forthcoming book The Future of Money
James Robertson on a multi-level currency system for sustainability
Jan Wyllie on globalisation, the Year 2000, economic meltdown and the
potential role for local currencies
Liz Shephard National Coordinator, LETSLINK UK on complementary currencies
best practice, and a strategic vision for development
Minister for Regional Development tbc
Linda Gilroy MP on the Parliamentary Campaign for LETS
David Lloyd, health policy adviser
Professor Edgar Cahn on Time Dollars in the USA tbc
Martin Simon of Fair Shares, the UK's new pilot variant of Service Credits
or Time Dollars
This exciting one-day conference will present a portfolio of current best
practice world-wide
and future options in local and complementary currencies, as a set of new
tools for
policymakers, local authorities, practitioners and partners in community
and local economic
development, third sector, voluntary and community organisations.
It aims to:
introduce the most successful local currency options from around the world
incorporate some of the key economic and social policy issues
explore the different aims, strategies and effects of local and
'application-specific' currencies at various levels
explore their potential for complementary development in the future.
The conference will present innovative developments and ways forward for
LETS;
developments in local authority and UK Government support; the policy
context and
issues (regionalisation, social exclusion, health, welfare and work); the
Parliamentary Bill
on LETS and Benefits and EDM update; and draw from local and community
currency
developments around the world to identify new ways in which established
models and
proposals could complement one another.
The day begins by looking at the impacts of globalisation and how a
sea-change in the
world economy is now emerging (described in the FT as 'countdown to
meltdown') with
the combined impacts of three major events: the South East Asian and
Russian currency
crises, the single European currency,and 'the crunch' for
microchip-dependent systems
world-wide as the Year 2000 approaches.
Professor Bernard Lietaer, James Robertson and Liz Shephard - three
leading complementary currency innovators - will present their analyses of
the economic and social impacts of currencies in monetary systems and their
recommendations on community-based, local, regional and 'application
specific' currencies as complementary tools for sustainable economic
development and regeneration.
Bernard Lietaer will give his view of the global possibilities offered by
existing local currency options in practice, and his own formula for a
redesigned monetary system.
Linda Gilroy MP will explain how policy changes are being pursued at UK
government level with her LETS and Benefits Bill and the Parliamentary
Campaign.
A range of other speakers will share their experiences with different kinds
of
local currency schemes.
An hour has been set aside at the end of the day for collaborative action
planning around the issues of the day.
The LETSLINK UK LETS Conference
16th & 17th October 1998
This biennial event is organised this year in two parts:
Day One: Complementary Currencies - New Choices
for the Millennium : Saturday 17th October
Guildhall Square, Portsmouth, Hants
a presentation of best practice from the world-wide range of local,
community and complementary currencies, with recommendations for
practitioners and policy-makers
Day Two: Creating New Waves: Saturday 17th October
Portsea Community Centre, Portsmouth
a day of presentations, workshops and networking for LETS Schemes,
subscribers to the national LETSLINK UK Network, and others who share the
co-operative spirit for local communities
The LETSLINK UK LETS Conference, 1998
DAY ONE
Complementary Currencies: New Choices for the Millennium
Norrish Central Library, Guildhall Square
Key Speakers
- Professor Bernard Lietaer, designer of the European Single Currency
- Linda Gilroy MP on the Parliamentary campaign for LETS
- James Robertson on multi-level currencies for a sustainable economy
- Liz Shephard, National Coordinator, LETSLINK UK on new local currency
strategies and models for the UK
- Jan Wyllie on globalisation, its impacts and potential roles for LETS
- David Lloyd, health policy advisor
- Martin Simon of Fair Shares
Professor Edgar Cahn, inventor of Time Dollars tbc
Professor Bernard Lietaer
Designer of the European Single Currency, is now a Research Fellow at the
Center for Sustainable Resources of the University of California at
Berkeley. His forthcoming book, The Future of Money, advocates the
widespread adoption of local currencies.
Linda Gilroy MP
The Parliamentary champion whose LETS Bill and Early Day Motion 1538 seek
to
amend the benefits legislation to enable equal participation in LETS for
people
on low incomes. She worked for Age Concern Scotland before becoming Labour
Co-operative MP for Plymouth Sutton.
James Robertson
Editor of Turning Point 2000 and former Director of the Inter-Bank Research
Organisation, he contributed to enquiries on government, the civil service,
parliament and London's future as a financial centre. Leading new economist
whose books include Future Work, Future Wealth, Beyond the Dependency
Culture and Transforming Economic Life (1998).
Professor Edgar Cahn
Inventor of Time Dollars and originator of the US network of legal advice
centres,
he is Professor of Law at the District of Columbia Law School and runs the
Time Dollars Institute, Washington DC which has enabled over 200 schemes to
become established in the USA.
Liz Shephard
UK LETS Development Co-ordinator and founder of LETSLINK UK, the national
LETS Development Agency. A new economist, innovator and Schumacher Award
winner as formulator of the co-operative, community-based UK Model LETS
adopted throughout the 1990s.
Jan Wyllie
Former diplomat and advisor to the Canadian Environment Ministry,
journalist, editor and founder of Trend Monitor International, a
long-established intelligence research company which has just completed two
major reports, on the Year 2000 ('Y2K') software problem and the global
economy - the findings of which will be unveiled at this conference.
Martin Simon
Founder of the UK's nine pilot service credit (Time Dollars) schemes 'Fair
Shares', in Gloucester and the Forest of Dean, with 3-year funding from the
Barnwood House Trust and other funders. Martin was formerly community
development and voluntary sector liaison officer for Gloucestershire County
Council.
Robin Murray
The GLC's advocate for local currencies in the '70s. Over the last few
years he has led fascinating projects in the Canadian 'Hours' local
currency movement, and now runs the London Pride Partnership.
David Weston
A local currency scholar and activist who pioneered the first local
exchange trading schemes in the Vancouver area of British Columbia, Canada
in the 1970s and early 1980s, the Community Exchange and Green Dollar
Exchanges. His little-known work presaged the hundreds of community-based
LETS schemes now established throughout Britain and Europe.
Bob Paterson
Director of Portsmouth Housing Association until 1997, founder of Homeless
International and founder-Chairman of People for Action 2000, the national
umbrella organisation for Housing Associations. Now Visiting Research
Fellow at Salford University on the Development of Community-Based
Financial Institutions. A Community Banking pioneer, setting up a national
pilot Community Bank in Portsmouth.
David Boyle
Journalist and former editor of Town and Country Planning magazine, he
studied Time Dollars with Edgar Cahn and LETS in New Zealand, and has just
written a new book about his travels in the USA researching local
currencies. David is editor of New Economics magazine and a trustee of
LETSLINK UK.
Invited: The Prince of Burma; Yehudi Menuhin
For a Conference Booking Form see end of email, or SAE to National
Conference, LETSLINK UK, 2 Kent Street, Portsmouth PO1 3BS
tel: 01705 730 639 fax: 01705 730 629
email: [log in to unmask]
The easy-access venues are centrally placed on the South Coast, with good
rail links from all parts of the country; 11/4 hours by train from London
Waterloo, and with fast direct access from the Continent via hovercraft and
ferries.
LETSLINK National Conference DAY ONE:
Complementary Currencies: New Choices for the Millennium
- Friday 16th October, Menuhin Room and top floor, Portsmouth Civic
Library, Guildhall Square, Portsmouth City Centre.
Guildhall Square is by the city's central station and its park, theatre,
cafes, restaurants and shopping centre. In the evening join us for a
celebration dinner (LETS Dine Together) in the Guildhall, then take a
stroll along the beach, even
dip into the waves!
LETSLINK National Conference DAY TWO:
Creating New Waves: LETSLINK UK LETS Conference - Saturday 17th October,
Portsea Community Centre, St James Street, Portsea, Central Portsmouth.
The year's most sought-after opportunity to meet LETS scheme organisers and
members, practitioners and likeminded spirits from around the country for
the networking event of LETS. A range of workshop topics both practical and
inspirational. The venue in Portsea is near the harbour station with the
historic ships and is at the heart of the community regeneration area.
THE NEED IS NOW
All over the world, a great tidal wave is now breaking in the global
economy.
Already, its recessionary effects on the US and European economies are
unfolding more rapidly, and with much greater impact, than most experts
had imagined possible.
The consequences are liable to be felt in every local community throughout
the world.
And yet, such a 'meltdown' could provide the historic turning point towards
a truly
sustainable economy.
One in which local economies ultimately emerge as thriving centres of
renewed activity, self-reliant and interdependent in ways that are far less
vulnerable to the ups and downs of global markets.
The need to prepare for changing fortunes is now urgent.
This conference is the place to start.
The scene will first be set by a presentation of the most up to date
research on the global economy commissioned by Teddy Goldsmith, which
suggests that the world must now face up to the difficult transition stage
from an economics based on throughput and consumption, towards a new
sustainable kind of wealth creation geared to meet genuine human needs.
THE TURNING TIDE
In helping communities to create their own wealth and maximise
self-reliance,
complementary currencies can provide essential tools for dealing with
adverse
economic conditions.
They offer an important part of the solution, and many can also be
organised by people for themselves.
Over 1,500 local community-based exchange systems with their own currencies
have emerged around the world during the last decade.
WHO SHOULD ATTEND
Practitioners from a wide range of fields, especially including all those
involved
in helping to create more prosperous and inclusive local economies, more
caring and efficient social services, new approaches in public health, and
a better-supported and resourced voluntary sector.
LETS is also an important Local Agenda 21 policy and those involved in
sustainability and environmental issues should come too.
This includes LETS groups from around the country, local authorities,
community and voluntary organisations, co-operators, community businesses,
credit unions, training and enterprise councils and organisations,
educationalists, small businesses,
chambers of commerce, housing associations and tenants groups, health care
trusts and health workers, charities, churches, user groups, and ordinary
people both over-employed and unemployed.
WHAT LETS CAN DO
Day Two of the conference will focus on what communities and those already
involved in LETS can do as the role and potential of complementary
currencies begins to extend beyond individual self-help and
community-building and into the realm of cooperative action in the face of
economic necessity.
Presentations and workshops are scheduled on what the community in LETS and
around it is doing, and could do in the near future, about local purchasing
and developing the local economy, co-operative development and small
business support, food production and distribution on a sustainable local
basis, community credit and local banking, health and empowerment, low
income, housing, and new community organisation resource exchanges (CORES)
for organisational support.
THE ORGANISERS
LETSLINK UK, the world's first national LETS Development Agency, whose work
since 1990 created the blueprint for over 1,000 LETS schemes now
established across Western Europe.
Over 1,500 local exchange and currency schemes have emerged around the
world over the last decade.
THE PROGRAMME
DAY ONE: FRIDAY 16th October
'Complementary Currencies: New Choices for the Millennium'
Menuhin Room and Top Floor, Norrish Central Library, Guildhall Square
9.45 am Registration and Coffee
Plenary Menuhin Room
10.10 am Welcome to Conference
Chair: Pat Conaty, Aston Reinvestment Trust and UK Social Investment Forum
Into the Millennium: the Need is Now
The high tide of globalisation now sweeping away industries has already
beached
local economies and cultures. But as tidal waves overwhelm tiger economies
and
currencies, are mainstream economic assumptions now on the turn?
10.20 am In the Eye of the Millennium: a triple storm is about to hit
the global economy - Russia, China and Japan in free fall; the Euro;
then Y2K. Could local currencies become lifeboats very soon?
Jan Wyllie, Trend Monitor International
10:45 am Multi-level Currencies: for economic stability we now need a
new subsidiarity: one of local, regional, national and international
currencies. James Robertson
11.10 am Coffee
The Turning Tide: Choice in Currencies
11.30 am The Future of Money: from Global to Local Currencies
Keynote address - Professor Bernard Lietaer, designer of the European
Single Currency, author, currently Research Fellow at the Centre for
Sustainable Resources, University of California at Berkeley
12.15 am Panel: Questions and responses
1.00 pm Lunch in the Guildhall
2.10 pm LETS and Benefits - The Parliamentary Campaign
Linda Gilroy MP and Liz Shephard
2.50 pm Complementary Currencies, New Choices:
A synthesis of experience world-wide brings new opportunities for creative
local currency developments, including LETS Notes:
Liz Shephard
3.20 pm Break
3.40 pm From Ithaca to Maritime Hours: On-the-ground experience with
local currencies in North America
Robin Murray, David Boyle, David Weston
4.30 pm Time Dollars in the UK, the first UK projects:
Time Dollars and LETS compared
Martin Simon of Fair Shares; Professor Edgar Cahn
4.45 pm Into the Millennium: The Choice is Now:
This Open Space style interactive plenary is for strategy-building,
bringing together the day's insights and mapping out the links we
can make and steps we can take together to meet the challenges
of the next few years.
5.30-45 pm Close
LETS Dine Together - Dinner in the Guildhall
Up to 10 pm Evening Groups:
For those who want to discuss any topic after dinner,
various rooms are available on the Library top floor until 10 pm.
On the booking form please propose or indicate your own choice
of workshop or focus group topics and we will do our best to
accommodate you in the rooms available.
PROGRAMME DAY TWO: SATURDAY 17th October
'Creating New Waves'
A day of presentations, workshops and networking for LETS schemes
Portsea Community Centre, St. James Street, off Queen Street, Portsmouth
10.00 am Registration, Coffee and Announcements
Lets and the community economy:
Buy Local Schemes - Julie Lewis
New Community Banking - Bob Paterson
Credit Unions and LETS - National Federation of Credit Unions
Cooperatives and LETS - Southampton Area CDA
Community Development & Organisations:
Inner City LETS - Liverpool City Council LETS Team
Local Agenda 21 and LETS in Rural Areas - Dave Rickard,
Adam Hunt
Community Organisations Resource Exchanges - Heather Maddison
Food on LETS:
LETS EAT - John Rhodes
Local Food Schemes - Liam Egerton
Bath Farmers Market & Local Organic Buyers and Growers
- Rob Weston
Health and Empowerment:
LETS, Low Income and Health - David Lloyd, Rose Snow and others
Multicultural, Womens, Disability and Mental Health LETS
LETS Tackle Your Questions - Liz Shephard
Workshops: Starting your LETS - advice for new groups
Developing your scheme - Anne Rickard
Businesses and LETS - Steve Knight, Dave Williams
Researching LETS - Peter North, Teresa Aldridge, Colin Williams
Free Space for Stalls, Displays, Crafts, Software, Exhibitions, LETS
Projects and Networks eg Housing / Education / Arts / Mediation / Holiday
LETS
BOOKING FORM
Please complete one form per person, enclose a cheque for the full amount
made payable to LETSLINK UK, and return to:
LETSLINK UK, Quinnell Centre, 2 Kent Street, Portsea, Portsmouth, Hampshire
PO1 3BS, UK.
In the event of the Conference being over-subscribed, Network members will
have precedence.
For late bookings please telephone (01705) 730 639 or fax (01705) 730 629.
Name ______________________________ Occupation __________________
Organisation/LETS Group _______________________
Position _______________________ No. of
members______
Please state if from local authority, voluntary sector, charity, academic,
business
or other _____________________________
Please book me for: [ ] Friday 16th October: Complementary Currencies
and/or [ ] Saturday 17th October: Creating New Waves.
I am [ ] a LETSLINK UK Network subscriber / [ ] not a subscriber
My address and postcode
Tel __________________ Fax ____________________ Email_____________________
I would attend workshops on these topics (any, e.g. LETS Notes, encouraging
trade, gaining members, health care, cooperatives, local food projects,
regional development, arts & crafts networks, overseas initiatives, group
mediation.... etc)
_______________________________________________________
I would attend an evening group in the library on (please state any topics)
________________________________________________________
I could lead/facilitate/contribute to a group on
________________________________________________________
I intend to bring (please tick): [ ] group literature
[ ] a banner [ ] a video [ ] LETS produce/crafts/stall
[ ] OHP slides [ ] other
Please state if you have any special needs.
We regret no creche will be available.
CONFERENCE FEES
Fees include refreshments but not meals or accommodation, which must also
be
booked and paid in advance.
A small number of bursaries may be possible; please write with copy UB40
etc.
Friday 16th October, 1998: 'COMPLEMENTARY CURRENCIES'
Full rate: Local authorities, statutory agencies, TECs and businesses - ?60
[ ]
Standard rate: non-LETSLINK member individuals/bodies - ?45 [ ]
Discount rate: unwaged LETS, nonprofit and community groups - ?25 [ ]
Lunch on Friday (all vegetarian, please state if vegan) ?4.50 [ ]
Tea after 5pm Friday: please tick [ ] sandwiches ?1.60 / [ ] cakes
?1.30
LETS Dine Together: Full Evening Meal at the Guildhall - ?8.25 [ ]
Subtotal for FRIDAY ?_____
Saturday 17th October, 1998: 'CREATING NEW WAVES'
Full rate: Local authorities, statutory agencies, TECs, businesses - ?45 [
]
Discount rate: local nonprofits and voluntary groups - ?20 [ ]
Lunch on Saturday (all vegetarian, please state if vegan) - ?4.50 [ ]
Subtotal: fees and meals for SATURDAY ?_____
TOTAL fees and meals for BOTH DAYS ?_____
Accommodation
Guest Houses/Hotels/Bed & Breakfast: please book direct with the
proprietors.
SAE to LETSLINK UK or FAX (01705) 730 629 for list of best value places
(enclosed with mailing).
A limited number of spaces have been reserved for people on low incomes on
Friday night.
These will be allocated on a first come, first served basis, and *must be
pre-booked
by telephone first* on 01705 730 639.
- LETS members Bed & Breakfasts: (costs neg/varied, to be paid direct to
the hosts: for LLUK Network subscriber groups)
- Youth Hostel B&B: (open 5 pm-11 pm), ?11.75 per night (paid via LLUK)
- Back-packers Lodge, basic self-catering: ?9 per night (paid via LLUK)
I enclose a total for fees, meals and accommodation for ?______
(please make payable to LETSLINK UK)
Travel
Please let us know if you are able to provide any lifts to or from the
Conference
and we will help match people up to save travel costs
SEE YOU THERE!
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:
Thanks are due to the National Lottery Charities Board for their support
of LETSLINK UK; and to Portsmouth City Council and Stockport Metropolitan
Borough Council for their support for this Conference
LETSLINK UK, The UK LETS Development Agency, 2 Kent Street,
Portsea, PORTSMOUTH, Hants PO1 3BS.
Tel: 01705 730 639
Fax: 01705 730 629
Email: [log in to unmask]
Web: www.letslinkuk.demon.co.uk
Registered in England, Company Ltd by Guarantee No 3343871
Registered address: 2 Kent St, Portsmouth PO1 3BS
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