Community Dollars - Change your money~Change the world

Hi everyone,

Get ready cause there's some serious excitement building about local currencies in the Kootenays. Read on to find out how FERNS is changing.. for the better!

As many of you may know, at the end of October, Michael Linton (the man who designed the first LETS system nearly thirty years ago), and his colleagues Ernie Yacub, and Pieter Vorste came to Fernie, Kimberley and Nelson on a partially CBT-sponsored speaking tour of the Basin about Community Way. Community Way is the next evolution of LETS – and the best model for a successful implementation of a community currency out there (in our opinion).

While this model does allow for the same type of inter-member trading that you find in LETS, it also provides a way to engage the business community while supporting local charities and other community groups. As a result, KimberleyLETS has now joined Nelson and Fernie currency groups to form an informal association called Columbia Community Dollars (CC$). Collectively, we plan to launch CC$ as a Basin-wide initiative on Earth Day (April 22), 2011.

As money inevitably is referred to by a host of slang terms (cash, moolah, green, scrip, etc.), so too will CC$ be referred to in slang terms. This means that the Kimbo will continue to live on as the local name for CC$ in Kimberley, but can be traded amongst all communities participating. In addition to some fancy new software, we will also be getting a printedcurrency for Columbia Community Dollars, which we will have available by the launch, but hopefully earlier to allow early adopters to get trading prior to the official launch.

To check out what it is all about, visit the website at www.communitydollars.ca, and if you're in the facebook world, check out our page by searching for 'Columbia Community Dollars'.

What we are looking for right now are businesses and community groups to express their interest in being involved HERE. There is no need to commit right now. We are only seeking expressions of interest, to see if we can get a critical mass of interested businesses and groups. You can also sign up as an agent of change, and commit to exchanging a set amount of your CAD$ for CC$ each month.

Our FERNS website www.localcurrency.ca is still active for trading. We'll let you know when that changes and how our system will be incorporated into the new one.

We need help making this happen! If you are interested in being a part of the local coordinating group, and in joining the discussions between communities, please feel free to email Dawn@CommunityDollars.ca Anyone interested is welcome to join us, plus you get paid in CC$ for your time.

Change your money~Change the world