The summer has gone pretty much according to the plan I laid out in my
Spring Newsletter,
with of course the inevitable addition of things that have popped up
spontaneously. I’m sorry I’ve been too busy to report about all of it,
even though I’m sure many of my readers would want to know. My main
reason for writing now is to highlight the agenda for the remainder of
my summer tour in case some of you happen to be in the neighborhood of
Ireland, Scotland or England. I hadn’t really planned to visit Italy but
here I am—in Rome after visits to Tuscany and Sardinia (more on that
below). In a couple days I’ll fly to Dublin for the final events of my
summer tour.
Here's what I'll be doing.
_________________________________________________
Ireland Events and My Remaining Tour Itinerary
25 to 27 August 2015. I’ll be at Cloughjordan Ecovillage to participate in the P2P Summer School program on
The Art of Commoning. Then on
Friday, 28 August, I will give a lecture at Trinity College
, Dublin
, followed by a panel discussion. And on
Saturday, 29 August, I will conduct a workshop at the same venue. Here are the details.
Friday August 28th 19:00 - 21:00
Talk: The Liberation of Money and Credit
Where: CONNECT (Formerly CTVR) Dunlop Oriel House, 34 Westland Row, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin 2.
Map.
On the evening of Friday August 28th, Thomas Greco will give a presentation on
The Liberation of Money and Credit,
outlining the fundamental importance of reclaiming the credit commons
and showing how communities and businesses can reduce their dependence
on bank borrowing and conventional, political forms of money. After the
talk Thomas will join a panel with Michel Bauwens and Kevin Flanagan of
the P2P Foundation, Dr Rachel O'Dwyer of Trinity College Dublin and
Graham Barnes of Feasta for a Q&A session.
Saturday August 29th 10:00 - 16:00
Workshop: The Exchange Revolution: Taking Complementary Currencies and Moneyless Trading to a New Level
Where: CONNECT (Formerly CTVR) Dunlop Oriel House, 34 Westland Row, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin 2
Map.
On Saturday, Thomas will run a workshop for currency activists,
practitioners, researchers, and social entrepreneurs on The Exchange
Revolution: Taking complementary currencies and moneyless trading to a
new level, also at the CONNECT venue in Dublin. Anyone with a specific
interest in developing and extending the impact of community currencies,
mutual credit, and other complementary exchange mechanisms is invited
to attend.
Both events are sponsored and hosted by CONNECT (formerly CTVR –
http://www.ctvr.ie/), at their Dublin city centre venue and supported by Feasta, the Foundation for the Economics of Sustainability (
http://www.feasta.org) and P2P Foundation Ireland.
Both Dublin events are free but people are asked to register at:
http://www.eventbrite.com/e/beyond-money-events-with-thomas-greco-tickets-18131016358
Tuesday, 1 September, at Queens College, Belfast
Evening Lecture, Communities
, Currencies and the Commons: Democratising money creation & enterprise after the Euro-Greek crisis,
with Thomas Greco at Queens College, (Senate Room) at 7.30pm
(registration at 7.15pm) hosted by the School of Law partnered by
Positive MoneyNI. The talk will be followed by panel discussion.
Coordinator – William Methven,
methvenwilliam@gmail.com
From Belfast, I will travel to Edinburgh, Scotland for a few days of
exploring, then to London. I’m scheduled to fly back to San Francisco on
September 9.
_________________________________________________
My Activities in Greece, an abbreviated sketch
Altogether, I spent a little more than three weeks at the
Kalikalos Holistic Summer School
during the months of June and July. Kalikalos is located on the Mt.
Pelion peninsula where the views are spectacular, the mountain villages
delightful, and the nearby beaches inviting, all of which provides a
good balance of work, play and living in community with people from
diverse places. In this ever-changing community of students, workshop
leaders, volunteers, facilitators-in-residence, and staff, everyone
pitches in to prepare meals, clean up, and share their special gifts.
The daily program routine leaves plenty of time for recreation and many
people choose to go down the mountain to the beach in the afternoons
(about a 20 minute ride) or to hike the ancient donkey trails that
connect the villages. Healthy living is a fundamental aspect of the
Kalikalos experience with plenty of opportunity for yoga, meditation,
tai chi and whatever other modes of centering people care to share.
Meals are vegetarian and based mainly on fresh whole foods and
traditional Greek ingredients—local olives. olive oil, feta cheese,
locally baked bread, tomatoes, cucumbers, and vegetables from Kalikalos’
own gardens.
During my first week there I gave two presentations and conducted sessions in which we played two of my simulation games,
Money Monopoly and
Free Exchange.
Then in July during the workshop on Solidarity Economy, I participated
in most of the sessions and gave two presentations on the money problem
and exchange alternatives.
While my work on exchange alternatives in Greece has been mostly with
private groups and activists, I have developed proposals for creating
domestic and community liquidity
at all levels ranging
from the bottom upward to include grassroots initiatives, business
associations, municipal governments, and even the national government. I
will be publishing specific details about these proposals in the near
future. I am also continuing to work with colleagues in Volos on laying
out the framework for a nationwide network of localized credit clearing
exchanges.
During the last weekend in July I conducted a two day workshop in Athens
for a sizable group of participants interested, or active in programs
to create complementary liquidity. In the first session our discussions
were based on my slide show on the Greek situation, and in the second,
my presentation on the issues that need to be addressed in
Taking Moneyless Exchange to Scale. That slide show is posted on my website at
https://beyondmoney.files.wordpress.com/2015/07/workshop-athens.ppsx.
On Wednesday, July 29, I was interviewed on Porto Kali internet radio in
Athens (in English with Greek translation). You can listen to it at
http://wp.me/a43RA-Ge. _________________________________________________
The Greek Crisis
The Greek debt crisis has been all over the news lately so most everyone is aware of it, but most people are
not
aware of the underlying causes or what is being done to the Greek
nation by the financial and political powers-that-be. Several of my
recent posts at
http://beyondmoney.net
have dealt with that topic. In addition, there have been some very good
recent articles that clearly explain it. These three are especially
enlightening:
And if you want to understand the larger agenda of which the Greek
situation is indicative, be sure to listen to Ellen Brown’s interview
with Dr. Paul Craig Roberts,
Greece-y Mess - 07.08.15, at
http://itsourmoney.podbean.com/e/greece-y-mess-070815/
_________________________________________________
Sardex
Last week I had occasion to visit the Italian island of Sardinia and
spend a few hours meeting with the founders and managers of a commercial
trade exchange called Sardex.
I’ve known about Sardex since almost its beginning five years ago and
have corresponded over the past few years with Giuseppe Littera, one of
its founders, but this was the first opportunity I’ve had to get an
inside look at their operation. I came away with a better understanding
of how they operate and the impression that the Sardex structures,
procedures, and protocols come closer to optimal than any other trade
exchange I've seen. It appears to be a developing model that can be both
scalable and replicable.
You can read my brief but more complete report
here,
and. you can get a pretty good picture of the distinctive features of
Sardex by viewing Giuseppe Littera’s presentation (in English) that was
made at a conference in Volos, Greece, in 2014. You can find it on
YouTube at,
https://youtu.be/rvaL2A8juz0.
_________________________________________________
All best wishes for a playful and enjoyable summer,
Tom
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