Ottawa area barter

[Cathy Woodgold]

There seems to be considerable interest in setting up a barter
system/community currency in the Ottawa area. It may be a
hybrid system with a community currency as well as
Simultaneous Multilateral Barter. There's a plan
to set up a steering committee to start planning and organizing.

I've updated my web page on Simultaneous Multilateral Barter,
including reasons why I feel that Simultaneous Multilateral Barter
can enhance a community currency system:

http://web.ncf.ca/an588/multi.html

Cathy :-)

[Evgeni Pandurski]

On 29.10.2011 18:29, Cathy Woodgold wrote:
> There seems to be considerable interest in setting up a barter
> system/community currency in the Ottawa area. It may be a
> hybrid system with a community currency as well as
> Simultaneous Multilateral Barter. There's a plan
> to set up a steering committee to start planning and organizing.

This is great news!

I would suggest that you look at the payments functionality that
multiswap.net (and CMB) offers. Your steering committee can register an
account and create "LETS Credit" product, which can be your local medium
of exchange. (In fact, every widely trusted user can do this, too).
Also, I think making payments from a mobile phone should work quite well
for you.

There is one difference if you compare multiswap to the "classical"
LETSs -- in multiswap all balances are positive, so the steering
committee should approve credit lines to each of the individual member
businesses. This has the positive effect of limiting free-riding; and
the negative effect of burdening the committee with more responsibilities.

Evgeni