From the Keene Sentinel:
Local is the way to go
It was great to see the front page of the Business section of The Sentinel on Saturday, Jan. 2, and read the featured story titled “Money From Nothing: Buffeted By Economy, Town Builds Its Own Currency.”
I appreciated reading this tale of how some community folks in the little rural town of North Fork, Calif., came together and developed a local currency to help their community through the recession and their very high unemployment level.
I also thought that the leader of this effort was right when he said, “Wall Street is making more money than it’s ever made, and Main Street is evaporating. That’s unsustainable.”
While this guy seemed a little “hippy-dippy” to me, and not very concerned about whether his local currency would even succeed, I appreciated The Sentinel mentioning that local currencies have been tried successfully in several communities around the world, including Ithaca, N.Y.
In Ithaca, as noted in the article, there is already $100,000 of local currency in circulation and it is not only accepted for exchanges among individuals doing odd jobs for each other, but also by the local public transit system and many local businesses.
Just south of us, in the Berkshires region of Massachusetts, the use of the local “Berkshares” currency has been spreading from small community to small community — and there is now even a New Economics Institute in Great Barrington that offers a library, relevant publications, and training about how to set up local currencies and maintain them successfully.
I know that some folks within the informal, but growing Keene transition movement network are beginning to have conversations about local money and we are wondering whether it might be worth developing something like “Monadbucks” here in the Monadnock Region.
If this is something that might interest you, please contact me at steve_chase@myfairpoint.net. Also, if you want to dig deeper into this proposal, you can order the Transition Movement’s book “Local Money.”
Also, for more information on this, and many other ideas about creating a more resilient local economy in the Keene area, I encourage folks to visit the Keene Transition Movement’s Community website and blog at http://transitionkeene.org.
With this website, we are trying to provide a good place for conversation among local people who want to face up to the challenges of peak oil, climate change, and a dysfunctional global economy with creativity, courage, and a positive vision.
There is so much we can all do together to strengthen the heart and soul of our community.
STEVE CHASE
Transition Keene Task Force
380 Water St.
Keene
According to the Keene Transition Movement’s website, Steve Chase is “the Director of Antioch University New England’s Environmental Studies masters program in Advocacy for Social Justice and Sustainability”.
