Dorchester & South Dorset LETS

Back in June I took time off work go to Sturminster Newton to attend the Dorset Strategic Partnership annual conference that uses the slogan ‘Working Together for Dorset’.  Besides the great and the good, there were representatives of all sorts of community organisations including our LETS (i.e., me Chris Slade).

For me the most valuable part of the day was the networking with all sorts of people, most of whom I hadn’t met before, including Bisi who, as a result of our meeting then, has contributed so helpfully to our September 2008 Members Newsletter.

This conference is a great opportunity to promote the idea of LETS among the very people who would be most supportive, not only as potential members, but also as potential sources of grants!

I have put it into the heads of the organisers that next year there should be a LETS stall so we can tell people all about our Local Exchange Trading System. If we are to do this we need to get together with other Dorset LETS groups and work jointly on that occasion.  If we are the ‘social entrepreneurs’ that Cllr. David Fox says we are then we can do it!

My fantasy LETS day is a day in which I do not lift a finger on my smallholding but lounge about like a drape, enjoying myself. It goes something like this… Hand over my latest tax return to a responsible adult and immediately reward myself with a half hour precision reflexology session for being so efficient. As it is a special offer, it would be rude to resist a subtle energy balancing massage as well, which of course means I make it back home just in time to hand over the dog for that long promised extra long walk. 6 beefy volunteers arrive to deal with the tree stump graveyard and give the stingers as good as they deserve. As I step out to supervise briefly, someone starts on my housework so finally, I can get to the last cardboard box left over from moving in nearly two years ago next month. Hark, a gentle bell calls me to delivery of a serious lunch – home made bread and beetroot soup, with Indian banquet to follow, as a sort of private function for me and my dog Daisy, a miniature tan and white Jack Russell who has now been returned to me clean, sane and pedicured. After lunch someone makes the washing up disappear and I get a foot massage, while having sophisticated French conversation…

The serious point is please use LETS resources as often as possible. As the phrase goes, use it or lose it! LETS currency exchanges are far more valuable the monetary equivalent in pounds and pence. They represent a unit of community action, knowledge sharing and human companionship beyond measure. If you use a business directory and part with money outside the LETS system, consult the LETS directory of services and do so regularly!

And don’t forget, there may be other useful services in other groups in your county. Get in touch with other local groups in your county and ask for a copy of their directory as well. You may be pleasantly surprised!

What is your fantasy LETS day?…

I (Bisi) of North Dorset LETS first came across a Local Exchange Trading System (LETS) in May 2004 in Hampshire where I was living as an agricultural apprentice on an organic smallholding just outside Broughton. I was looking for ways and means to eke out my living and make the most of my resources, perhaps in a ‘barter’ type scheme 

I found the LETSLINKUK website http://www.letslinkuk.org, which apparently acts as an umbrella organisation through voluntary membership by individual 300 individual LETS schemes around the country. Most schemes registered are established under the democratic and co-operative LETS model developed in 1991 by LETSLINK UK. Unfortunately, research started September 2003 to establish the current state of LETS in the UK and identify the needs of LETS organisers appears to have stalled due to lack of funding. Consequently, the organisation is able only to provide limited support to registered schemes and those wanting to start a new LETS group. 

There were 15 groups in Hampshire, but trying to find, then contact my local group was like an initiation into the black arts….. As an uninitiated member of the public, it was very difficult to find a way in. Volunteers run local schemes and some are more, um, professional than others. I soon gave up (no response to emails or phone calls, try here, try there etc), but the idea of joining stayed with me.  In fact, the national network of local LETS groups is very impressive and, judging by my current group, the LETS groups are hubs of highly skilled and creative individuals. It is an incredible resource and a powerful demonstration of people doing it for themselves. 

In 2006, I moved to North Dorset and joined my current LETS group, though, not through any public access route! As a direct result of working and living as a smallholder, I met individuals involved in the local group who kindly took me under their wing and allowing me to pick their brains on anything from hedge laying (Peter Rutter – local hedge layer of 50 years standing), to where and how to find grant funding (Joan Timms – font of all knowledge). One simply cannot buy that sort of practical help and interest. 

In practice, the ‘committed’ nature of community actions can result in ‘inward facing’ local groups with closed shop style practices. This strikes me as tantamount to always preaching to the converted and that can only lead to shrinking membership within local static groups.

In a period of increasing community awareness, I think we are missing a trick. Related initiatives such as Timebanks, Freecycle, Commercial Barter, Fairtrade Campaigns, and Community Networks of all kinds, attest to the continuing interest of people in making things happen in their community. 

LETS is a powerful model for community action. Membership of a local scheme can be of enormous practical help, a friend to financial distress, a tonic to the dazed and confused. I consult my directory of services regularly, certainly before I part with hard earned cash outside the system – payment in ‘stags’ seems less painful than payment in pounds and pence. I could easily use a LETS service everyday (aka ‘My fantasy LETS day’!).

Local groups are distinctive and rooted in the community – this is a strength. However there are weaknesses in operating practice, which could and should be addressed, LETS style, from the ground up! 

The continuing interest of people in making things happen in their community is an opportunity for local groups to reach out to new members to strengthen numbers and develop the organisation. In my view, it is critical to develop the organisation in order to address current and future economic and political threats to influence how our communities function in practice. I hear Gordon Brown is looking for new schemes to tax…

I think it is crucial that local groups recognise each other, communicate and network with each other to share information and services and identify common issues. For example, there are 6 local LETS groups in Dorset: Dorchester & South Dorset LETS, North Dorset LETS (x2), Sherborne Barter, South West Dorset LETS, Wessex LETS. 

Here are my suggestions for coordinators of local LETS groups in Dorset:

1. Form an email group with other local LETS coordinators in the same county
2. Establish a start position with a brief report to capture LETS services available in Dorset (membership numbers, levels of activity / events, documentation available, etc)
3. Ask membership to local identify issues for further discussion. For example:
   · Would a simple and standard method of profiling local LETS groups give wider public access?
   · Working with LETSLINKUK Intro Pack for local group £5, Group Affiliation £25 
4. Groups get together and introduce themselves. How about Shaftesbury & Gillingham meets Dorchester!

Tuesday 20th May dawned cool and bright. I made my bedside cuppa and took it to the bathroom for my morning routine. I hopped on the scales and was pleased to note that my weight continued steadily at its lowest level so far for the year, thanks to a hectic lifestyle punctuated by Tesco Value frozen meals (5 for £4) of which the nutritionists probably wouldn’t approve! I ironed a shirt and selected a clean pair of trousers in which the creases run more or less parallel and vertical; dressing with unusual care for this was to be an important occasion – the first meeting of the new LETS Core Group and I wanted to dress smartly for Jenny, our hostess.

In my eagerness, I arrived early and found that I wasn’t the only one.  There were a few new faces: Patsy, our new coordinator; Pam from Oz who has no job on the Core Group but who had come along for the craic; and our new Web Mistress, Anna Celeste, who single-handedly halves the average age and doubles the pulchritude.  Her youth, by contrast with the remainder of us, who are way past our first flush, is a reminder that we ought to recruit another generation before we fade away.

We stooged around chatting in Jenny’s garden, admired her fluffy ducklings and marvelled at her large weeping willow tree that has engulfed a metal pipe that protrudes each side of the trunk. I plaited a yard of the living twigs and maybe Jenny will be able to make an interesting walking stick from them in years to come when they have fused together.

We debated whether to eat in the garden in the evening sunshine but calculated that we would very soon be in the shade so, numbers by now complete, we trooped into Jenny’s kitchen where snugly we sat, knee to knee around her table. One of her cats joined in and demanded attention. 

The first bottle of wine was opened and poured. The feast was prepared. We had all brought something to share and it was all tasty and delicious stuff that one wouldn’t come across every day (well, I know that I don’t eat that well except on these occasions). There was very fresh salad reinforced with leaves of mint freshly plucked minutes earlier from Jenny’s garden; a beanfeast; a selection of hummusses (hummae?  Hummii?) and we all delved in. It was all highly nutritious (it had to be with Ann Donelan supervising). Then came a fresh fruit salad and dollops of cream.  Vitamins were coming out of our ears by this time.

My contribution, a selection of decadent chocolate was kept for the meeting itself. I had previously consulted Patsy who expressed a preference for Green and Black’s dark variety. She cornered the ginger flavoured one. I think I preferred the cherry, but the plain was good too.

The meeting started.  Patsy decided that, as coordinator, she ought to be Chairperson, citing one James Taris who has written a book on LETS as authority.  Nobody dared argue with somebody who was so clearly on a chocolate high and this was fine as she made a good job of it. This James Taris is becoming frequently quoted and people seem to think that we ought to attune our way of doing things according to his recommendations.  I haven’t read him and so have asked Patsy to do a summary which may be elsewhere in this Newsletter, so we can all know where we’re going wrong and what we are doing right.

Patsy was amused at my plea that we change only one thing at a time!  My reasoning is that people generally don’t like change, especially of long established ways.  Anyway, nothing drastic is happening for the moment. When more people are familiar with what Taris says, accelerated change might be more appropriate. 

Don has left the Core Group and so we needed somebody to take the Minutes.  As she was the only person present without a job Pam was co-opted.  Jenny’s neighbour and our new Marts Accountant, the vivacious Sue, popped in for a while and the opportunity was taken to evict the cat.

The business part of the evening continued for a couple of hours and so it was after 11pm that we left.  Some were wilting.  I was ready for my bed.

Next morning I followed my usual routine and was horrified to find that I had gained 2 pounds!  All those blasted Vitamins!  I shan’t have any more of those in a hurry – back to the tried and tested Tesco Value for me!