Stories about community currencies

One of the best ways to learn about the benefits and possibilities of community currencies is to hear some stories about them in action. In this section you will read about some of the most successful systems and some of the reasons for their success.

Each example is chosen to illustrate some different application or aspect of community currencies from around the world. There are two examples of time banks supported by WICC in this section BOB Youth Timebank - GlynCoch, Wales and Blaengarw Time Centre, Wales).(see Time Banks supported by WICC).

You will find examples of person-to-person time banks at the Time Banks UK (www.timebanks.co.uk) and Time Banks USA sites. (www.timebanks.org)

You will find links to many more community currencies around the world at the Worldwide Database for Complementary Currencies (www.complementarycurrency.org).

BOB Youth Timebank - GlynCoch, Wales

The Glyncoch Youth Time Bank (aka BOB - 'Building Our Bridges') has been running at the Glyncoch Community Centre for 12 months.
BOB has 35 members and has increased the number of active citizenship hours from 210 to 1020 hours over the last year.

The young people have aquired time credits by:

• producing a mural for the local primary school helping to run the summer festival    getting involved in environmental projects running the youth club andputting on concerts for the community
• assisting the community centre committee.

With their time credits the young people have enjoyed a 3 day outdoor pursuits weekend, quad-biking, ice-skating, a survival skills and gorge walking course, My Fair Lady at the Millennium Centre and a karate competition in London.

Through the time bank the young people have begun to take more responsibility in the youth club. They have formed their own constituted organisation GYAT (Glyncoch Youth Action Team) and are taking over the decision-making processes of the youth club.

Time Centre - Blaengarw, Wales
http://www.creation.me.uk/projects.htm#timecentre
Blaengarw Time Centre is based in a hundred year old miners' welfare hall at the top of the Garw Valley in South Wales. The centre is run by a community organisation known as Creation Development Trust, which employs two workers to organise the Time Centre. Local people are encouraged to get involved in a range of community activities: running the community centre itself; taking part in one off community projects such as’ CUT ‘doctors have been able to measure health gain through lower prescription levels of anti-depressants for milder mental conditions’
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Fair Shares - Gloucester, England
http://www.fairshares.org.uk/
Fair Shares pioneered the first person-to-person Time Banks in the UK in 1998, sparking off a movement across the UK. It manages the Gloucester Time Bank, the North Cotswolds Time Bank and the Newent Time Bank. It has also brokered an innovative arrangement for prisoners in Gloucester Prison to earn time credits which they can give to family members who receive services in their community.
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Rushey Green Time Bank - London, England
http://members.aol.com/kimmorrissey01/timebank/rusheygreen/
The Rushey Green time bank was set up by Dr. Richard Byng of the Rushey Green Group Practice in partnership with the New Economics Foundation in 2000.
GPs refer patients to the time bank where they can receive a range of services including befriending, running errands, giving lifts, arranging social events, woodwork, poetry writing, teaching sewing, babysitting, gardening, swimming, fishing, teaching the piano, cooking, form filling, and so on. Time is not only given between individuals. Members have helped with Community Health Council mail-outs and in improving the health centre's own garden. It is the first example of a time bank in a healthcare setting in the UK.
Doctors have been able to measure health gain through lower prescription levels of anti-depressants for milder mental conditions’.
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South Powys LETS - Wales
http://www.splets.org.uk/
One of the few surviving Local Exchange Trading Systems in Wales. Begun in 1993 and based in and around the beautiful Brecon Beacons National Park in South Wales.
Run by volunteers with one funded development officer since 2002, supported by the National Park Authority and Environment Wales. Person to person exchanges with an emphasis on regular social events, working parties such as gardening gangs and craft workshops, fairs and exhibitions. Its currency the 'Beacon' was featured on BBC Wales News as an alternative to both the pound and the Euro!
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New Moray LETS - Scotland
http://www.newmoraylets.org.uk/
Possibly the highest trading levels of any LETS anywhere, 1 million LETS credits traded since its beginning in 1997 if its Website is to be believed. Based in rural Scotland around Forres.
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Elderplan Member to Member- New York, USA
http://www.elderplan.org/programs/member_to_member.shtml
Elderplan is a health corporation based in New York City. Elderplan's award-winning Member to Member volunteer program allows members to share their different abilities to help each other. Member to Member brings a helping hand to Elderplan members in need, whether it is walking with a member to the store or Elderplan's "University without Walls" program. It was one of the first applications of Edgar Cahn's Time Dollar concept in the 1980s
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Fureai Kippu - Japan
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fureai_kippu
Fureai kippu is a Japanese community currency created in 1995 by the Sawayaka Welfare Foundation so that people could earn credits helping seniors in their community. The basic unit of account is the hour of service to an elderly person. Sometimes seniors help each other and earn the credits, other times family members in other communities earn credits and transfer them to their parents who live elsewhere.
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Ithaca Hours - New York, USA
http://www.ithacahours.com/
Founded in 1991 to keep wealth in the community and help local businesses in the town of Ithaca in New York State. A rare example of a community currency issued by Fiat rather than Mutual Credit (see How currency is issued). Much imitated across the USA. They also claim to have hosted a top official from China's Central Bank in 2001, who was looking seriously at this mechanism as a tool for economic development in China.
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Salt Spring Island Dollars - Canada
http://www.saltspringdollars.com/
Salt Spring is an island off British Columbia with a population of 10,000 people and hundreds of thousands of visitors a year. The concept of Salt Spring Island Dollars was the result of roundtable discussions of the Sustainable Salt Spring Island Coalition in the year 2000. They decided to create the Salt Spring Island Dollar which is purchased with Canadian Dollars and spendable in most local businesses.
Currency is available as notes and coins designed to a high standard by local artists and with anti-counterfeit properties. It is administered by the Salt Spring Island Monetary Foundation. Many notes are kept by currency collectors and the remaining Canadian Dollars are invested in community projects.
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Chiemgauer - Germany
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiemgauer
Chiemgauer is the name of a regional currency started in 2003 in the Chiemsee region of Germany. It is named after the Chiemgau, a famous region around the Chiemsee. Christian Gelleri, a high school teacher, started this project with his economics students who are in charge of designing and printing vouchers, administration, accounting, advertising and other services. Now it is supported by a German regional currencies' network called RegioNetzwerk. It has attracted local organic supermarkets, hotels and a wide range of local businesses to take part.
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Berkshares - New England, USA
http://www.berkshares.org/
BerkShares are a local currency designed for use in the Southern Berkshire region of Massachusetts with issue by BerkShares, Inc., a non-profit organization working in collaboration with the Southern Berkshire Chamber of Commerce, participating local banks, local businesses, and local non-profit organizations. Local people are encouraged to use the currency in order to make a conscious commitment to buy local first. They are encouraged to take personal responsibility for the health and well-being of their community by laying the foundation of a truly vibrant, thriving local economy.
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SANE Community Exchange System - South Africa
http://www.sane.org.za/
The SANE Community Exchange System (CES) is internet based but also has paper-based 'branches' for the computerless. The CES serves two basic functions: it is an online money and banking system and it is a 'marketplace' where people sell goods and services. The CES is an international complementary currency system with 50 exchanges in eight countries (October 2006). All exchanges can trade with each other and credits earned in one area can be spent in another. LETS-style groups are invited to join the CES network and become part of an expanding, global 'new money' system. The CES has seen phenomenal growth in the past year and will see even more in coming years.
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Red Global Trueque - Argentina
http://www.trueque.org.ar/ (Spanish only)
The Red Global Trueque is a network of local barter markets in Argentina which allowed many thousands of people to survive during the crash of the national currency in 2001
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