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Complementary Currencies Creating Exchange Systems that Keep Wealth Local

Aberdeen & Grampian Chamber of Commerce 21 June 2011, 10:00am – 3:00pm.

A seminar and round table discussion with Richard Logie, Founder, Business Exchange and Jonathan Dawson, Head of Economics, Schumacher College.

Even in the best of times, today’s money system has hardly served well the needs of more remote economies such as those in the north of Scotland; money has been scarce and it has been hard to attract inward investment into local enterprise. Now, the credit crunch and the increasing volatility and vulnerability of money markets make the situation even worse. The good news is that there has been a wealth of experimentation in recent years across the world in mobilising domestic resources for local investment and keeping these resources circulating locally rather than rapidly leaking out of the region.

One important element of this experimentation has been in the development of complementary currencies – complementary, that is, to national tender. These include time banks, business-to-business barter schemes and local paper currencies.

The seminar organised by CIFAL Findhorn, United Nations Institute of Training and Research, the Aberdeen & Grampian Chamber of Commerce in partnership with the Scottish Government will provide an overview of the main complementary currency systems and how they work.  Local Authority representatives, Policymakers and Regulators, Development Officers, Research Institutions, Higher Education and Learning Centres, Private Industry, Community Businesses, Community Planning Officers and Social and Economic Development Officers are all invited to input and work together to create exchange systems that keep wealth local.

Presentations will be given by Richard Logie, founder of the GETS www.getsplus.com an organisation that provides training and technology to communities and business networks enabling them to operate their own complementary currency system and he also operates a B2B Trade Exchange in Aberdeen since 1995 called TBEx (The Business Exchange) www.tbex.com that enables businesses to trade among each other using their unsold capacity or goods; and Jonathan Dawson, Head of Economics, Schumacher College and part of the design team for the Findhorn Ecovillage’s 10 yearold currency, the Eko www.ekopia-findhorn.org/eko.shtml.

This is a free event by invitation only and includes a light lunch however we ask a nominal administration fee of £20 to confirm your place. Scheduled times for the seminar are 10:00am - 3:00pm. A detailed schedule will be sent closer to the time.

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