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Dear
Friend
Happy New Year to all of you, whether you are an organiser of a
LETS group in London, a member of London-wide LETS, someone who
is "just looking for a local group", an "interested organisation",
someone who wants to invite people to visit and work on their property
in Europe, or one of our researcher and journalist friends.
Meeting
Sunday 21st January
You are invited to our next meeting on Sunday 1st February 2009.
We will be welcoming a group of student researchers from Belgium.
Suggested timing:
• 11am for coffee and agenda setting,
• 12noon AGM of LETSlink London - the network for LETS
organisers in London.
• 1pm Lunch - please bring food/drink to share.
• 2pm Networking for members of LWL and those who wish
to join a local group.
• 4pm Tea and technical show and tell - bring a laptop.
To give us an idea of numbers, when you want to come, any issues
you wish to raise, and for venue details RSVP to letslinklondon@freezone.co.uk
Update
on press coverage
There are many portents to 2009 becoming a year of positive change.
Largely due to the Credit Crunch (and the Cash Crumble) - I got
that delightful phrase from my colleague Sabine McNeill - we have
seen a significantly increased interest in Local Exchange Trading
Schemes - a steady trickle due to newspaper write-ups, but massively
from TV - well done Jonathan Maitland from ITV - within half an
hour of "Living without Money" on Friday 9th January, 150 enquiries
were in my inbox. I will be writing more about that on a separate
message for organisers all over the UK, but in London, I've heard
from KUTLETS that they suddenly got 8 new members. In North London
we were expecting the usual 3 attendees at our intro-evening, and
in January we had 9. Multiply this all over the country, and you
get the picture.
Wandle LETS has done a feature for a BBC1 regional magazine show
'Inside out London' which may be shown on Wednesday 28th January,
failing that it should be shown on a Wednesday evening in the first
few weeks of February. The show is broadcast every Wednesday evening
at 7:30 pm with the first in the new series being broadcast last
week. So you should all expect an increased interest in joining
your scheme.
Update
on progress of LETS in London
In London the picture is rather patchy. In addition to the original
map which links from here: www.letslinklondon.org.uk,
see also: www.letslinkuk.net/london/postcodes.htm
which shows the true position on one page. North London LETS
covers a wide area, Brixton & Southwark are in the process of being
relaunched as an online scheme, and our diagnosis is that West London
and East London need to be set up in a similar way ASAP to cover
huge gaps in those areas.
London-wide LETS is gently coming into being. Out of 804 members
on this list, only 80 of you have got around to joining, which is
easy - just go to london.letslink.org
- or: www.letslink.org and
press "TRADING"
- it goes to the same place - and click JOIN.
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More
about London-wide LETS
If you are a LETS organiser, you can have a personal account, and
a separate one for your scheme - YES - please do feel free to use
it as a contact point to find people who could join your scheme
and for "intertrading" with other groups - this means facilitating
the occasional trade between members of different local groups.
We anticipate that in time, LWL it will become an effective marketplace
for London-wide trading and European exchanges. Meanwhile it serves
as a useful space for us to try out new ways of running LETS. Internal
messages will be sent around from time to time to help things along.
Does it cost to join LWL = London-wide LETS ? Most groups ask for
a joining sub, and the majority have annual renewals, which is seen
as a way of "pruning" the membership - ouch! Meanwhile other organisations,
eg Freecyle and Facebook, have enrolled thousands or even millions
in a short space of time by doing the opposite. So we have decided
to adopt an innovative protocol - because we do need funds - "Donate
Any Time" - woops that's another handy acronym - DAT - which will
translate directly into your account. So if you are "money-rich"
but "time-poor" and wish to participate, you can start this way:
cheques please to "LETSlink London" at the address below please:
we are having problems with paypal at the moment (like many other
voluntary organisations).
How
to participate
If you would like to participate, one thing that would help enormously,
is phoning up people who were members of the scheme, for whom we
don't have email addresses, and offering to be local phone contacts,
so that people can immediately speak to a local person, who is a
member, and who may know of local events where they can meet other
members. Arranging such events can be fairly straightforward - my
local group, Camden LETS, "goes round the houses" and this creates
a very friendly ethos in the group.
Thanks to the local organisers who do keep us informed of your
events and also to John Bradford of Wandle LETS who is willing to
share their leaflet design - we hope to provide facilities where
you can post these things up direct, it's in the pipeline - watch
this space. If you have any practical or theoretical ideas to share,
do send them in. That's it folks !
Conference
Announcement
Last but not least: check out our events
page:
your event can be posted here if relevant to LETS. In particular
note the dates for a national conference being organised by Sabine
McNeill, with our support, called
Conference on 24th & 25th April 2009: CHALLENGING THE CREDIT
CRUNCH: Can We Change the Economy: Yes we Can.
Looking Forward
Mary Fee, Secretary, LETSlink London
12 Southcote Road, London N19 5BJ
020-7607-7852 * 07966-216891
www.letslinklondon.org.uk
www.letslink.org
LETSlink London is a Company Limited by Guarantee,
with Charitable Aims: No 3421541 registered in England &Wales
at 12 Southcote Road, London N19 5BJ
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