Local Economy Day Aims:
At the meeting on 7.5.2008 Sue recorded the reasons each of us gave for wanting the Local Economy Day. Please feel free to alter if I have mis-interpreted
| Jody | Give message to audience of Macro to micro perspective/Big picture to how to do it locally |
| Hannah | Show that we can design our economy differently and better |
| Josh | Gauge local business response and empower collaboration |
| Robert | To see or let people know that local currency is a possibility |
| Duncan | To show/ build an economy as if people mattered |
| Sue | Become aware of what we are doing together |
| John | To show why local community is valuable using exchange of skills and resources |
| Mamading | Engaging local people to make a real impact |
Sue writes: I have been reading the Transition Handbook. Page 38 helps with a clear direction, which I suggest is valuable for the reason why we are having the event. It is an envelope for what we all want to achieve and would be a good rallying cry for our visions. It will make good press, especially with people’s present perceptions of vulnerability and disempowerment. It will also help us to create the unique transition for Brixton.
Planned Relocalisation becomes Building local resilience
This gives us an arena for building personal autonomy and creating interdependent living. This is what Brixton needs to regenerate and transit to the future. Brixton is also a particularly valuable place for developing how local and global network together for planetary benefit.
The suggested activities include:-
- the Great re-skilling
- localised food production – this would lead us to look at the issues with countries that now grow cash crops for us and how we provide food for people with different diet experiences.
- energy descent planning
- local currencies
- local medicinal capacity
Aims, Outputs and Outcomes
Duncan writes: What we have promised on the TTB Programme of events says "Transition Town Brixton is hosting an exploration into how money and our globalised economy works (or doesn't) and how localisation could work. Key speakers in the morning, with discussion and hands-on exercises, some local trading at lunchtime, Open Space workshops in the afternoon to explore how we can build a more resilient localised economy with production, distribution, local currencies and trading systems. Why is 'local' important? And what's in it for locals? How can we make it work here? - Join TTB Business and Economy group
Aims
- to be useful to Brixton people primarily but no less to incomers.
- to be inspiring and memorable, active and experiential, visionary, imaginative.
- to be a true exploration
- combining conveying information to the audience and
- mining the collective experience and genius of the community as it processes that information.
- to have people feel/see the benefit of localisation the substance of the day
- to initiate productive relationships
- to have actual exchanges or trades taking place
- to connect different sectors
- to raise awareness in local people, businesses, the Council, advisors, and nation- and London-wide
- of money, credit, globalised economy
- of reasons for (and inevitabily of) Localisation
- of success stories of localisation
- of ways of doing localisation
- of benefits of Localisation
- to have permanent useful legacy of the day
- Local
- more local networking among businesses and local customers.
- a business exchange network (see Totnes and Lewes)
- some localised supply chain stories
- wider audience
- Open Space written up on the WIKI
- a short film on the web
- graphics that communicate the concepts of a localised economy.
- articles in national press
- Local
- to inspire people
- to engage in Transition
- to begin to 'do' localisation
- to empower people
- to feel confident that they can
- with knowledge of how
- to skill up the TTB Business and Economy group as to how to lead the localisation process
- to build more consensus and cooperation among Brixton business advice and support groups, Lambeth and TTB
- to get more local businesses interacting/intertrading more actively
- more local business engaged consciously in Transition and promoting it with their actions and to their customers.
- more engaged local people, involved, taking responsibility for doing what is necessary to achieve our localised economy.
These could usefully be divided into outputs - actualities that we must make happen on the day - and outcomes the more qualitative stuff that will result... Please feel free if you can think how