May Member Meet up: Re-imagining Bristol Pound

Thank you to everyone who made it to the latest Bristol Pound Member Meet up. It was great to see you all at The Tobacco Factory. It was a lovely venue and a lovely meetup.

Thanks especially to our guest speaker, Coco Kanters. I think everyone in attendance would agree that we learnt a great deal from Coco and Bristol Pound could learn from the alternative currencies that she taught us about.

We heard about the SamenDoen, a community currency program based in Bergen op Zoom and Thalen in The Netherlands. SamenDoen uses a loyalty system to rewards shoppers for spending in local independent businesses. They collect points which they can redeem with businesses or use to help community projects or charitable causes. For more information, visit the SamenDoen section of the Qoin website(Qoin are a Dutch company that run the accounting for a few local currencies, including Bristol Pound) : http://www.qoin.com/samendoen/

We also learnt about the Utrecht Euro. This is built on a similar model to Bristol Pound but is part of a Social Trade Circuit Netherlands which is a collection of local currencies. You can spend these local currencies in other towns that are part of the Social Trade Circuit Netherlands. For more information, visit the Utrecht Euro website: https://www.utrechtse-euro.nl/ (this one will need to go through a google translate, unless you speak Dutch that is).

After Coco’s talk, she split us into 3 groups to workshop ideas on “Re-imagining Bristol Pound”. We were given the titles; Why, Who, What & How? And asked how we would create Bristol Pound if we started again, with the other local currencies in mind.

These are the ideas that came from the workshop:

Why should a local currency exist?

• To support Local Economy and Businesses
• Creating Community Cohesion
• To promote Social Justice
• To create a sustainable city & planet

Who are local currencies for?

• Everyone
• Individuals
• Tourists
• Social Enterprises
• Charities & charity shops
• Innovative, modern companies

How to create and publicise a local currency?

• Campaigning
• Linked with rewards
• Forum based, strong networks
• Lasting relationships
• Peer to peer

What should a local currency consist of?

• Paper money – because it’s tangible
• An app
• Contactless cards
• Connecting with other currencies

Thanks again for coming and making the event a success.

We hope to see Coco back in Bristol soon!