Written by Carolyn Hair – writer of Culture Darling.

What do Bristol, Brussels, Glasgow, and Ljubljana have in common? They’re all in the running for European Green Capital 2015 awarded to a city on its environmental performance and capacity to inspire. Congratulations to all the cities, but only one has its own local currency and only one has you… (We’re secretly confident.)

So just what would winning mean for Bristol? Darren Hall, Manager of Bristol’s Green Capital Bid, told me that it would put green issues into the mainstream: “Inward investment and green jobs is a tangible thing, but it will also be a call for collaboration, to get green groups to work together more and bring some new people to the table.”

Building a more sustainable Bristol is what makes us tick, so we were pleased to hear that the Bristol Pound played a prominent role in helping the city make the shortlist. For Darren (who puts his £B where his mouth is): “It’s part of the vibrant bottom-up culture of Bristol that gets us noticed… Bristol Pound is one of the projects that attracted world-wide attention. It’s innovative, exciting and challenging the status quo – and demonstrates our ability to work in different ways, showing top-class leadership.”

This innovative, forward-thinking spirit, which makes things happen, is central to the bid. Our independent streak was evident when Bristol opted for a directly-elected mayor, and the combination of top-down investment with grassroots activity gives Bristol a competitive edge. Darren Hall again: “We have some of the best stories in Europe to tell about how to do things from a bottom-up perspective –Europe is in a recession, and Bristol has achieved amazing green things with very little major investment. George (Ferguson) is now bringing much bigger investment to the green agenda – so we can do the top-down and bottom-up.”

Darren Hall, Manager at Bristol Green Capital Partnership.

Active local food movements, such as our Farm Link Initiative and community-led energy cooperatives and schemes, like Switch and Save, are already happening across Bristol, and you can spend your Bristol Pounds in businesses with sustainability at their core, such as Poco. Darren went on to tell me how Bristol’s very own currency helps us to work towards a more sustainable future: “It really helps in two ways – directly supporting the local economy, but secondly, and perhaps more importantly, helping people understand some of the issues about consumerism, globalism and where their money goes.”

Another innovative project which helps to inform people about greening the city is Future Bristol 2050, launched by Dr Rose Bailey (UWE) stemming from her PhD research, and part of the engagement strategy for the Green Capital Bid. She set out two possible low carbon futures for Bristol – broadly, X is based on being a major player in the global market, whereas Y is more about re-localisation from food to jobs – you could say “more Bristol Pound”. The website is interactive and allows you to have your say on Bristol’s future, so why not head over there and stand up for the local? Dr Bailey hopes that winning the bid will bring high-profile green projects to the city (that we may have missed out on to London) and be “a springboard for all sorts of activities, and an acknowledgement of the passion, independent nature and strong grassroots in Bristol.”

Sustainable solutions are also evident in the buildings where we work and play. Take At-Bristol, the first attraction to sign up to the Bristol Pound, and one of the UK’s most sustainable buildings, winning several awards for its outstanding achievements.

The nomination for Green Capital is certainly a huge endorsement of the way the city is working towards a sustainable future, whether council or community-led. An independent panel of experts has already monitored the four finalists on 12 key criteria, ranging from climate change to energy consumption. The next challenge for Bristol is to present its green vision to the Jury in Brussels on 24 May. Bristol has made the shortlist three times, just missing out to Copenhagen last time round. The winner will be announced on 14 June in the current Green Capital, Nantes in France. Let’s hope it is third time lucky…

Show your love for Bristol and back the bid

All of you, and the inspiring, good, green work happening across Bristol has brought the city this far. But now Brizzle needs your help to spread the word:

-        Share your green stories on the Back the Bid website.

-       Or email: green.capital@bristolgreencapital.org

-       Get social on the Bristol Pound’s Facebook page and on Twitter with #greenbristolbid

Written by Chris Parsons.

Fact File:
- Bitcoin is an electronic alternative currency created in 2009
- There’s no fixed exchange rate so its value fluctates rapidly
- One bitcoin equalled a peak value of $266 in April
- Bitcoin exists entirely outside the standard banking system
- The first ever formal bitcoin transaction was to buy two pizzas
- Now bitcoins can be used to buy anything – absolutely anything

Everybody loves pizza, right? Where’s your favourite takeaway? How about a fine establishment like Hotwell Road’s The Red Pizza Company, or The Sportsman on Nevil Road which, oh look, both just happen to accept payment using the fabulous £B TXT2PAY system. Awesome.

What toppings do you like? Black olives. Green peppers. Anchovies? No way, gross. How about pepperoni? OK, cool. How about getting two, they’re always amazing cold for breakfast aren’t they? Don’t lie, I’ve seen you do it!

Now just dial your order through. Thank you sir, that’ll be $2.6 million please. Er… what?

That may be how much two pizzas cost Laszlo Hanyecz exactly three years ago today. But on May 21^st 2010, Hanyecz was doing something extraordinary and groundbreaking – he was making the very first real world transaction in bitcoin.

What is bitcoin?

Bitcoin is a digital currency created out of nothing. Bear with me, I’ll try to make this as painless as I can.

In 2009, an unknown developer built the digital infrastructure that gave anybody with a computer the ability to find and own bitcoins. The idea is that bitcoins are created by computer servers joining into a network and solving complex mathematical puzzles in a process called mining. Whichever server solves the puzzle first is rewarded in bitcoins.

But before you rush out and buy 1,000 high-powered computers to make your e-fortune, note this: bitcoin has a finite money supply discovered at a pre-determined rate. The more machines there are mining, the harder the puzzles get to solve, so that a set number of bitcoins are created every ten minutes. Take that, quantitative easing.

For the first 18 months, bitcoin mining was, well, for a handful of geeks (don’t take that the wrong way, everyone knows geeks are cool nowadays). Unlike the Bristol Pound, there’s no fixed exchange rate against another currency; a bitcoin is worth whatever someone thinks its worth, and for a year or so nobody thought it was worth very much.

Hanyecz’s proposition

The bitcoin pizzas – all $2.6 million of them

Which brings us back to Laszlo Hanyecz, who’d been mining bitcoins from his Florida home and acquired a reasonable enough stash that he idly posted the below note on a forum:

I’ll pay 10,000 bitcoins for a couple of pizzas.. like maybe 2 large ones so I have some left over for the next day. I like having left over pizza to nibble on later. You can make the pizza yourself and bring it to my house or order it for me from a delivery place, but what I’m aiming for is getting food delivered in exchange for bitcoins where I don’t have to order or prepare it myself, kind of like ordering a ‘breakfast platter’ at a hotel or something, they just bring you something to eat and you’re happy! …

If you’re interested please let me know and we can work out a deal.

Thanks,
Laszlo

Hanyecz agreed a deal and transferred 10,000 bitcoins to a recipient in the UK who then phoned through an order for a Floridian store to deliver two pizzas to Hanyecz’s house.

At that point in time, one bitcoin was worth about one cent, meaning Hanyecz paid around $100 for his pizzas. That’s quite a lot for a pizza, I hope he enjoyed them. Since then however, interest and speculation in bitcoin has increased and the exchange rate  skyrocketed, reaching a peak last month of a staggering $266 to one bitcoin.

So had Hanyecz held onto his 10,000 stash for three more years, he could have cashed them in for over $2.6 million (£1.7 million).

How much do you like your pizza now, Laszlo?

In truth, it was Hanyecz’s pizza transaction (which is now so much a part of monetary folklore, today’s notional exchange rate is constantly available at the Bitcoin Pizza Index) that kick-started the rapid rise in popularity of bitcoin.

The currency’s principle is based around a very different model to other alternative currencies like Bristol Pound. Bitcoin is unapologetically a global currency existing outside the banking system and that’s the key attraction for some. Users aren’t limited to pizzas, there are sites allowing consumers to indirectly shop from huge corporate monoliths like Amazon, should they so desire, and indeed purchase absolutely anything else besides – quite literally, if some of the more scandalous reportage is to be believed.

Bitcoin, therefore, is not set up to promote your friendly, local independent retailer in the same way as Bristol Pound. Had Hanyecz been a Bristol citizen using TXT2PAY to procure his pizza, he might have supported a number of local businesses in a transparent supply chain that sourced the flour, cheese, tomato and more with the minimum of food miles.

On the world currency markets, things are still quite volatile for bitcoin, with huge price increases and subsequent crashes relatively frequent, so only time will tell whether it will provide a genuine alternative to the traditional monetary model or not. In the meantime, who fancies pizza?

‘Bluffer’s guide to bitcoin in 104 seconds’

Written by Francesca Wakefield - founder of The Ideas Arcade.

Alex Lucas lives in a Bristol landmark. Bright red and adorned with white flowers, birds and a huge sign welcoming you to the area, Alex’s Montpelier home can’t be missed – and can’t help but make you smile when you walk past it.

“I like to think I’m the opposite of Banksy” she tells me “–when something just appears and people wonder how it got there. With my house I was up there for days!” Five days, to be specific, and with such lovely results that it was featured in The Times newspaper as one of the 50 best places to live in the UK. Alex muses that there’s a real respect and “ownership” of the house with local people, something she believes in part because of the total lack of graffiti the mural has suffered in the two and a half since she painted it.

Her beautiful home is also where we meet to drink liquorice tea and chat about her design for one side of the B£5 note. But before we get to that I discover that, as well as a brilliant artist, Alex is also a font of Picton Street trivia. I learn about old Police ‘Charlie Boxes’, tunnels under the road and which number Cary Grant used to live at (No 21, you can add it to your next walking tour of Bristol for visiting relatives).

Bristol born and bred, Alex studied Multi-Media Textiles at Loughborough University before finding her own unique style painting and printing her own predominantly animal focused designs, for private clients or to sell through the ‘window shop’ she created in her front room – Bristol Pounds obviously accepted.

“I use animals a lot, particularly ones that get up to mischief – I draw animals a lot more than people” she says. “When you look at a drawing of a person it’s much harder to see anything other than that person – but with animals you’re opening up a massive range of possibilities for the viewer. One animal could remind you of 8 different people”.

Animals are the most obvious theme in Alex’s work, but her design for the B£5 note – an image of a tiger spray painting ‘O Liberty!’ onto a wall – taps into other important ideas for her as well. Ideas such as the importance of play, the ability of art to affect us people and the untapped potential of a more positive street art culture.

“I’ve loved being involved in the Bristol Pound!” she says. Her B£5 design, framed in a colour coded mount in her front room (“it had to be pink”), has appeared in The Sun national newspaper and always makes Alex smile whenever it pops up on Google.

Written by Alice Marshment of Bristol Bakestress fame. Photography by Kelly Lear (www.kellylearphotography.co.uk).

I am barely seconds into Jethro Brice’s Easton home when I trip over a bike. It’s one of several occupying space in his dining room. “They belong to my housemate” he explains, “she’s a bike mechanic”.  This seems fitting, as bicycles feature prominently in Jethro’s work.  He has recently started a business as a bespoke bicycle art designer (http://jethrobrice.com/bicycle-tattoo-parlour http://bristolpound.org/directory/jethros-bicycle-tattoo-parlour), which of course accepts £B, and a bike is one of several key images on the 1£B which Jethro designed; the reason I am here to talk to him.

Over a cup of lemongrass tea Jethro tells me that he originally moved to the West Country to be part of an organic farming collective in Radford, but three years ago relocated to Bristol in order to concentrate on pursuing his love of art. He enthuses about the creativity prevalent in the area, which supports not one but two community choirs, as well as Bristol Refugee Rights (recently relocated to St Pauls) where he runs a regular art table space as part of the drop-in centre.

Jethro’s winning design.

Jethro’s winning design for the 1£B has an environmental theme, and his aim was to depict the environment as a series of dynamic relationships.  The elements he chose – a fox, an apple tree, and a magpie feature alongside the bicycle – stand out for him as symbols of Bristol both literally and metaphorically. Walk along many of the cycle paths that dot the city, for example, and you will see apple trees flourishing amongst the urban jungle. The ubiquity of foxes and magpies demonstrate the impact people have on the environment since these animals are the ones that are able to thrive in close proximity to their human neighbours. Even cycling is itself a way of defining the local environment in that it demarcates the distance that can easily be travelled.

A passionate supporter of the £B, having already come across similar schemes in Totnes and Stroud, Jethro is particularly keen on the way in which the £B keeps money in the local economy and encourages self-sufficiency. He regularly shops at local businesses that have embraced the scheme, including East Bristol Bakery and the Bristol Sweetmart and says he hopes more will soon join. The £B has already had positive outcomes for Jethro’s freelance work, for example when someone in Australia saw an article about Jethro’s design and asked if he could use his imagery as a tattoo. This led to a new commission from which others have followed.

In addition to the bicycle art, Jethro is the main creator behind the FutureMuseum project (futuremuseum.org.uk) a pop-up installation exploring what mundane artefacts reflect about today’s society from the perspective of the future, and if money talks, it will be interesting to see what the £B has to say.

Researched and written by Chris Parsons.

“It softens suffering’s dread; it offers work and bread”

In fair Wörgl (1930s), where we lay our scene.

Once upon a time, in a land far, far away which we shall call Austria, dear reader, there was a small town known as Wörgl. And Wörgl was a place that seemed to hesitate. For whilst the Tyrolean mountains hoisted themselves though the clouds on all sides, as if aspiring to greater heights might bring the sun closer and transform their snowy white peaks to flower-laden meadows, Wörgl stayed low where it was, too shy and timid to really stand out.

A doomed town?

And it was a bad time for the good people of Wörgl. It was the 1930s, a decade when a Great Depression struck down all those who spoke the name of Black Tuesday, the fiercest plague that ever did rise up from the West. Wörgl was a town of industry, its workers forming mighty concrete slabs to construct the future wonders of the 20^th Century for all to behold. Or so they thought. But none were spared the Great Depression and the squealing rusty gates of the factory squealed shut for their final time and the men had no other place to turn.

More than one in ten could find no work. Hundreds of families possessed not a penny between them. The town’s taxes went unpaid, its debts mounted and the assets of the local co-op bank were frozen as though caught in the starriest winter Alpine night.

Storytellers bicker over whether the men of the Viennese banks took the form of panicked deer, cackling hyena or idol sloth, but all concur they did nothing to help. Loan interest rates inflated in the manner of a deadly hydrogen zeppelin whilst the amount of circulating money shrank like the denim of Mr Strauss’ very first stonewash.

Our story’s “hero”, Mayor Unterguggenberger

Wörgl needed a miracle worker and he arrived at Christmas, a gift-wrapped portent from above. Precisely 622 metres above in fact, from nearby, more elevated Hopfgarten, and his name was Herr Michael Unterguggenberger. In December 1931, the Herr became Mayor and he looked out at a town in crisis. There was no money, no work and an infrastructure crumbling like thin fresh pastry on a home-made Apfelstrudel.

But the Mayor was no charlatan and had concluded all his economics homework with scholarly diligence. He knew he had nothing to lose. He took the town’s remaining few Schillings, lodged them in a bank as security and made his own money. Soon he began to pay half the salaries of his devoted council workers in his own currency, which all the local businesses were ready to accept.

But here’s where the Mayor’s cunning kicked in: whoever was found to be in possession of his notes at the end of the month required a stamp to keep the cash valid, and the stamp cost 1% of the note’s value. At a time of scarcity, nobody wanted to pay the 1%. And whilst they were also free to change the money back into Schillings, the people of Wörgl were even less inclined to pay that 2% fee.

So because holding onto these notes for a year would mean losing a whole 12%, the people made sure they spent the Mayor’s money and they spent it quickly. And when they  ran out of the things they needed to buy, they spent the Mayor’s money on paying their taxes. Early. Yes, they even paid their taxes early, dear reader!

A happy ending

The front of a 1 Schilling Wörgl note with validity stamps for the first six months of the year

The Mayor was elated. His new money circulated over one hundred times faster than the Schilling and created greater than twelve times more employment than the equivalent amount of national currency. It was the Great Depression and yet the Mayor’s money meant Wörgl built roads, bridges and municipal buildings for all to see yet avoided increasing any prices.

The Mayor’s success was eyed enviously by towns both near and far and soon hundreds wanted to copy his ideas. European ministers and famous American economists came to witness the miracle with their own eyes. A forum was held for the Mayor to share his secrets with other towns ready to follow his lead. Wörgl’s time had come. It no longer hesitated and was neither shy nor timid. Wörgl grew into a beautiful swan for all to admire and everyone there lived happily ever after thanks to the Mayor’s miracle. The End.

The twist in the tale

Except, that’s not how this particular fairytale did end, dear reader. I regret to reveal that the fabulous experiment in Wörgl gave those Viennese bankers a terrible fright and the Austrian Central Bank re-asserted its legal monopoly to issue money, which our heroic town fought valiantly in the courts to overturn without success. So the Mayor’s money was taken away just one year after it was first issued and Wörgl once again found itself in the grip of a Great Depression, with rising unemployment and a stalling economy. And the moral of our tragic tale? Perhaps it’s that centralised money doesn’t give us all the answers after all? Now, if they’d just had enough time to set up a sexy TXT2PAY scheme like Bristol Pound…

“To all whom it may concern! Sluggishly circulating money has provoked an unprecedented trade depression and plunged millions into utter misery. Economically considered, the destruction of the world has started. – It is time, through determined and intelligent action, to endeavour to arrest the downward plunge of the trade machine and thereby to save mankind from fratricidal wars, chaos, and dissolution. Human beings live by exchanging their services. Sluggish circulation has largely stopped this exchange and thrown millions of willing workers out of employment. – We must therefore revive this exchange of services and by its means bring the unemployed back to the ranks of the producers. Such is the object of the labour certificate issued by the market town of Wörgl: it softens suffering’s dread; it offers work and bread.”

 

 

by Megan Liversey

Join in with Mandy’s Make from 9am to 12pm at the Duchess of Totterdown, Wells Road on the 17th April for a colourful creative workshop called ‘A Morning with Matisse’.

Henri Matisse was a French artist known for his original use of colour, creating some of his most exquisite works by cutting shapes out of brilliantly coloured paper. Delightful, playful and inventive, his ‘drawings with scissors’ sought to discover pure forms and to capture movement on paper with his bold love of colour. He believed that, “scissors can acquire more feeling for line than pencil or charcoal”. In this three hour workshop for £B25, you will be looking at Matisse’s work and recurring motifs and using them to inspire and create two decoupage pictures or table mats which are yours to keep.

Mandy’s Make are new to Bristol and devise an extensive programme of fun, informative and practical workshops made to suit everyone, including puppet monster making, clay modelling and furniture facelift workshops. They are perfect for party’s and can also cater for you providing truly scrumptious treats.

You can get involved in the workshops at their HQ in Brislington or they can bring the workshops to you, wether that be to venues, cafes, the workplace or home. There are regular slots at The Old Bookshop in North Street, The Duchess of Totterdown and The Shakespeare Pub in Totterdown where adults can get involved with ‘Art for the terrified’.

At Mandys Make they truly believe that “The best gift you can bestow on anyone is creativity” and they feel a organic connection with the Bristol Pound and the City itself.

Mandy explains “There is something special and unique about Bristol, its a multicultural city full of creative people that aren’t afraid to give new ideas a go. We want to contribute towards this by carrying out creative workshops locally and by promoting the local environment, we believe creativity encourages confidence and independent thinking “.

For more information on Mandy’s Make visit their website http://www.mandysmake.com/ home.html

Written by Carolyn Hair – of Culture Darling fame.

How long could you live without access to credit cards, or that printed cash with the Queen’s head on? Well, recently I took up the challenge of swapping my purse for my mobile phone with Bristol Pound’s TXT2Pay system. As I made my way around Bristol on my mission, people usually asked worriedly whether I had to pay for everything this way – food, drink and entertainment. So how long would I last…?

Day 1 – feed me TXT2Pay

First off, confession time. I hadn’t used the TXT2Pay system before. So fearful of a rumbling stomach in the afternoon, I was a bit nervous about my first cash-less purchase, but headed off to Corn Street to see what I could find. As a TXT2Pay newbie too, Café Revival, seemed appropriate for a yummy sarnie and coffee to go. And it was as easy as it sounds! I simply texted:

“Pay **** (my pin) caferevival1 5.30”

Et voilà, without plastic or paper money, I’d just bought lunch! There is certainly noshortage of TXT2Pay-friendly eating establishments. The week’s groceries were purchased from the Better Food Company topped up with bread, cheese and provisions from The Source Food Hall and Café in St Nicks market. My sleep was sweet – this was going to be easy…

Day 2 – start the day with TXT2Pay

Coffee is an essential start to this caffeine addict’s day, so my confidence started to wane on Day 2. But I just needed to take a slight detour to Baristas, leaving with TXT2Pay coffee and chat (I was told I had a cool name). So TXT2Pay put a smile on my face on a Tuesday morning (and that’s not easy to do).

Popping to the movies is one of my favourite ways to pass the time so there was some celluloid concern in my TXT2Pay week. But the trusty DVD store, 20^th Century Flicks came to the rescue. It’s been ages since I’ve enjoyed the ‘video store’ ritual of my teenage years, and with the largest collection in the UK, it was a film-goer’s delight. Eventually I opted for a film I hadn’t heard about, Pandora and the Flying Dutchman. Whilst chatting about the Bristol Pound, it was suggested that TXT2Pay was handy if you forgot your wallet. So I ended Day 2 thinking that actually my mobile was more important than my purse!

Day 3 – ideas washed down with TXT2Pay

With the dominance of online retailers and high street stores, would I be able to buy novels for my book club in Bristol with TXT2Pay? Luckily, in the heart of St Nicks market lies Beware of the Leopard, two rooms jam-packed with books. I dare you to leave without buying something!

Books bought, and my thoughts passed to food again. This time soup from the Sourdough Café – delicious and all the better for being served with a TXT2Pay chat. Sourdough’s Jessica said that the TXT2Pay was helping the uptake of the Bristol Pound:

“More and more people are using TXT2Pay and it’s inspiring even more people to use theBristol Pound. It is good for businesses too as many of those we trade with use it too. It is interactive between traders and consumers.”

In the evening, I had already bought tickets for a Festival of Ideas event with Ben Goldacre, but I let myself off as it was at At-Bristol which takes TXT2Pay anyway. After all those ideas, a drink or two was in order, so we headed to the Arnolfini bar where TXT2Pay was warmly welcomed.

Day 4 – TXT2Pay curry close to home

One of the fun things about the challenge was that I moved around the city, seeking new places, but I also wanted to test out if it easy to incorporate TXT2Pay into my daily life. Shopping online is such a habit now that it was good to know that I could still keep it local with TXT2Pay via The Bristol Shop. It was also a relief to discover there is somewhere very local for me to eat out – the Thali Café Totterdown. So I treated myself and my boyfriend to a meal in the name of TXT2Pay. Would I ever go back to sterling…?

Day 5 – fashion fix à la TXT2Pay

I have weakness for vintage fashion so not being able to buy second-hand clobber, and the whole thing could have been off before it started. However Shop on the Christmas Steps came to the rescue. I had a fashion fix over lunch and, while resisting a rail of dresses, I bought a pair of earrings for Mother’s Day. My Mum didn’t miss out because of the TXT2Pay challenge – she also received her favourite chocs from A Bar Full of Chocolate and a card from Jenny Life.

I could have easily kept going over the weekend, filled with drinks, eating (and more eating) and perhaps venturing to check out live music, but I had to leave Bristol for a weekend away. So at around 6pm I took up my purse again as I had to buy rail tickets to London town… However, I bought supplies for my journey from the Park Street Local Shop.

The challenge certainly reinforced how easy it is to shop locally, and altered my daily path through the city. It also revealed how the Bristol Pound as a conversation starter can brighten your day – it really is happy money.

Bristol, the challenge is on – how long can you last without Sterling?

How long can you survive and thrive on TXT2Pay? Can you beat my 4 ¾ days? We challenge you Bristol! Tweet us @bristolpound or visit us on Facebook, and we’ll feature your TXT2Pay adventures on our blog.

Written by Chris Parsons

That’s a reality that Christian Gelleri believes could happen. In 2003, Gelleri was teaching in Prien am Chiemsee, a picturebox Bavarian home to 10,000, just 20 Alpine kilometres from the Austrian border. Gelleri inspired his 16 year old economics students with a unique lesson in finance, offering them the chance to make their own “banknotes”. Ten years on and that school project is now the world’s most successful complementary currency. If ever the Waldorf School at Prien has had an “O Captain! My Captain!” moment, this must have been it.

Called the “Chiemgauer”, the students designed voucher-style paper money and ran the scheme from their desks, offering a 1:1 exchange rate with the euro and initially relying on the goodwill of a handful of parents, school staff and local businesses to help generate a not insignificant turnover of €75,000 in their first year. Most school projects would have ended here, congratulating everyone on a job well done. But not the Chiemgauer.

A decade of success

“We’ve had about a €30 million turnover in these 10 years, €6.5 million of that last year alone,” says Gelleri. “The success of the Chiemgauer has been bigger than I ever imagined.”

Over 600 businesses now accept the Chiemgauer. As well as cakes, coffees and clothes, users can buy computers, book hotel rooms or take taxis. Whilst there may not be a Chiemgauer TXT2PAY system to rival Bristol Pounds, there is a “debit card” for purchases and even cashpoint withdrawals.

The Chiemgauer also generates funds for local charities, so far racking up over €250,000 in donations to these good causes. The main mechanism for these donations is one that Gelleri thinks could be the secret to more sustainable national finances.

An alternative to “monoculture” money?

This key difference is that the currency is only valid for three months. If a user wants to extend the life of their notes further then they can, by purchasing a validity stamp for an additional three months at a cost of 2% of the note’s value. It’s what Gelleri calls “Express Money”; speeding up the circulation of money by encouraging people to spend it. The money’s regionality and a charge for any conversion back into euros means the local economy reaps the benefits.

“98.5% of international money flows are speculative, only 1.5% are ‘real’. [Chiemgauer] attaches the national currency to the real economy and that’s very important. Complementary currencies could play a positive role in helping weak economies like Greece to recover,” says Gelleri who, along with Thomas Mayer, has set out his proposal for a southern European parallel currency at save-the-euro.org.

Whilst there are well-laid plans for a grand event in May marking the official 10^th anniversary of the Chiemgauer, Gelleri is not living in the past and clearly feels he has not yet cemented his true legacy. “Similar concepts have been implemented in many regions all over the world and that makes me a little proud but I also see we have much more to do,” he says. “We need more lighthouses like the Bristol Pound to act as models for other regions.”

What would Gelleri like to be telling us in another ten years? “That our complementary currency is a matter of course in our region and many others too. We need more ideas like this to bring increased stability and equality to the economy. We need to develop a real monetary ‘ecosystem’.”