Transition Nelson is excited to announce a new program in partnership with the Mir Centre at Selkirk College.

The Nelson Good Neighbour Program will recruit volunteers to act as community mediators.  After a FREE 3-day training sponsored by the Mir Centre at Selkirk College, the volunteers will collaborate to design a system for responding to community requests for help resolving conflicts and building relationships among neighbours.

The idea for the program came from another Transition Nelson initiative, the cross-sector table. The cross-sector table brings together leaders from different sectors in Nelson, including the environmental, social service, government, business, education, and health sectors. At one of the meetings, it came up that enforcement of bylaw complaints is a stumbling block for addressing community needs. The group brainstormed how a community mediation program could help to address that need as well as strengthen the social fabric of our community.

The Good Neighbour Program has received vocal support from the Nelson Police Department and positive feedback from Nelson City Council.  With this support in hand, Transition Nelson is looking to launch the program in Spring 2012. Volunteer mediators are now being sought to participate in the development of the program and become the first communtiy mediators for the City of Nelson.

The FREE training will be held on Mar 30- Apr 1, with mandatory follow up dates on April 14, June 19, Sept 4, January 8, and April 2 2013. For more information, or to apply, download the application form, available on the Transition Nelson website.

Thanks to Laureen and Vern Barker, owners of Gaia Rising in Nelson, who have this to say about Columbia Community Dollars:

“We are enthusiastic about local currency because we see this as a way of keeping consumers’ dollars in the community and supporting local businesses.  We see it as a way to support our local societies instead of having fundraising dollars leave the community, and as a way to reward volunteers.

We are thinking of accepting 30-50% Community Dollars towards any purchase, and will be feeling our way along a bit initially. We may accept as much as 100%, since proportionately Community Dollars will make up a small part of the overall economy.

We will be donating our Community Dollars to West Kootenay Habitat for Humanity.

I am happy to see a variety of businesses joining in, especially suppliers of groceries, bread, hopefully…eventually cafes, clothing stores, music stores, theatres, video rentals…soon we will be able to shop exclusively at Community Dollar organizations!”

Thanks so much for participating, Laureen and Vern!  We are honoured to have you and Gaia Rising on board!

This is the moment to take our communities to a new level of well-being.

Our basin wide local currency has almost reached critical mass. It’s a complementary monetary structure that supports our impulses of generosity, well-being and concern for each other. When implemented, it will strengthen our social bonds and transform our communities.

photo: Creative Commons, gromgull's photostream

The Community Way model is based on charitable giving. With Community Dollars, money remains active in our communities, increasing funding to community groups, enriching local businesses, and increasing the overall spending power of the community. And it’s simple for bookkeeping purposes, since one dollar of local currency equals one dollar of Canadian currency.

When money is scarce, we experience fear of not having enough. Even if we’re doing well personally, when local businesses suffer it affects all of us and the quality of our communities. It also affects our bottom line as people’s spending power is diminished. We can reverse this with Community Dollars.

But it depends on us. We need to make this happen. It’s a leap of faith; there’s nothing to lose and everything to gain.

Here’s how it works: A business creates currency by donating a promise to a local community group, who can exchange that promise for Canadian dollars. The promise is to honour local currency at a percentage the business can afford. The more participants, the more options for holders of this currency, and the stronger our communities become.

Our group researched the various models out there, and this one — the Community Way model — is the best by far. Not only that, we have its creator, Michael Linton, guiding us through every step. We know what the issues are, and how to mitigate them.

More important, we know what this can do for our communities, and we want to help them flourish. We want to see the benefits to the businesses, community groups, the farmers and the people we know. We want the best for the communities we love.

photo: Communitydollars.ca

And we want to see the health, well-being and strengthened community fabric that we know this model can create. We want to replace the worry that so many feel with a sense of ease and abundance, and this system can do that.

But we need your help. Please take this opportunity to go to our website and sign up now. We’re counting on you to help us create the resilient, local economies that will help so many of us.

Let’s seize this moment and create the future we want.

photo: Creative Commons, Phillie Casablanca's photostream

Transition Nelson is tentatively scheduled to make a presentation to City Council about Local Currency.

We hope you will come and show your support for this initiative that will benefit community groups, businesses and the general public in the Columbia Basin.

photo: Matador Network

Here’s an excellent article from the Matador Network by Carlo Alcos about local currencies and more.

TIME magazine ran an article a couple years ago about alternative economies. This passage neatly sums it up:

Periodically ditching the dollar (or the pound or the yen) in favor of homegrown currency doesn’t merely fortify the local economy; it also builds community. People have a stake in their neighbor’s well-being because that neighbor represents both market and supply chain. Some argue that such transactions are more secure than others because knowing the person you’re dealing with, and his family and friends, serves as a kind of social collateral.

Social collateral. I love that.

from Community Dollars website

Does anything energize like good synergy? I doubt it. When you share a grand vision with a group of like minded people and work hard together to achieve it, there’s nothing quite as fulfilling.

This past weekend, our colleagues from Kimberley and Fernie came to Nelson to plan the rollout of Columbia Community Dollars in our region. Michael Linton and two other Community Way enthusiasts also drove to Nelson from the Comox Valley to attend. Lucky us! Michael created the Community Way local currency model and the internationally renowned LETSystem before it, so his and their guidance is invaluable to us. After months of researching various models, we found the Community Way model the best by far.

Our challenge is communicating why this currency will work. People have strong and often unconscious emotions around money, and a monetary system feels like something neutral. We’re so used to it, that it feels like the air we breathe. But it’s a system that has been created by people, and it is far from neutral.

Even with “buy local” campaigns, ordinary money only stays in communities about 1.5 times before it leaves. The money we’re

from Community Dollars website

creating stays in our communities forever, perpetually enriching all who use it. Its creation depends on the generous impulse to give charitably, and businesses, community groups and people like us benefit from its use. And it doesn’t generate debt or interest.

We care deeply about our communities, and have put in countless unpaid hours getting this going. We are passionate about this, and feel almost like an organic whole revolving around a wildly inspiring solution to some of our social, environmental and economic problems. We hadn’t all met face to face before, even though we communicate weekly on Skype, so putting faces to names and voices and being together in person really strengthened our connection.

This synergy is a shared commitment to something bigger than us. It’s a solution whose time has come. Our tagline: Change your money, change the world! We’re honoured to be doing this, and hope you’ll participate in this opportunity to strengthen the fabric of our society by putting money that has soul into circulation.

Here’s how you can: To find out more, please take a look at our website. Here are links for businesses and community groups who want to participate, and if you want to exchange federal dollars for community dollars you can do that here. We hope you’ll join us on this worthy adventure! Stay tuned.

photo: Pieter Vorster

Dear fellow Transition Town Members:

photo: transitionnetwork.org

We are sending you this email as an invitation to join forces to create critical mass for an event that we, Kelowna Transition Town, are planning. We are planning to have a Transition Town Workshop on March 26-27, at Okanagan College, KLO Campus in Kelowna.

It has come to our attention that to build attendance and diversity at functions such as these, it is essential to involve neighbouring groups. So far we have organized a few of the components regarding this event.  Michelle Colussi from Victoria Transition Town will be providing the trainer(s) for this course.  We have been able to secure an excellent venue and will provide refreshments, course materials and name tags to all attendees.  We should also be able to facilitate accommodation for out of
town attendees, more than likely in the form of billeting if wanted.  It would be great if each out of town group could organize their own carpooling to come to the event.  Our biggest challenge with an event such as this, is to raise awareness about the event and we hope that by collaborating with you that we can reach more people in more communities.  If we work together we should be able to create more momentum and attendance which should ultimately create a great workshop.

A bit about us:
Carol Kergan, Sarah Navene, and I ,Haruko Kagami, took Transition Town workshop in Vernon on March 2010. We formed a small group to start Transition town movement in Kelowna. We have hosted open space, film screenings, and participated in the  Okanagan Organic Festival. The number of our core group has grown to 8 people. We also send local event information through our e-mail list to over 50 people.

Target of working together:

* Create bigger momentum through out the Okanagan Valley.
* Help each other on this journey of movement.
* Sharing resources.

We are planning to have an orientation meeting with conference call style in January.  If you are interested in joining this orientation, or if you have any suggestions / questions, please let us know.

Also if you know someone / group that would benefit from this event, please let us know so that we will send an invitation e-mail to them.

Haruko Kagami
Kelowna in Transition

This talk should be of interest to Transition Nelson members.  Ross is a very strategic thinker who was a key player in the creation of the Great Bear Rain Forest.  Here is his November, 2010, talk which is part of Hollyhock’s Leadership for Change series.

Happy New Year, everyone!

I believe 2011 will be a really exciting year for Transition Nelson!

As Co-ordinator, it’s been hard to know what to do to bring the group together, especially since I’ve been so involved with our local currency group.  This project is foundational, and I believe it will enable many Transition values to be realized.

Transition Nelson has achieved so much in the past year, and it seems all that effort has taken its toll.  My burning question is how to engage people in a way that doesn’t lead to burnout.  How can we make this organization a place that nourishes us?

Here are some ideas I’ve had about how to help this organization to be sustainable:

I think a local currency will help all of our overall economic well-being, and it should help us all to get by a little more easily. That’s my hope, since these are tough times for many I’ve spoken with.  I wonder if we can help each other materially when we
have meetings — do plant or seed exchanges, bring food to share, put in bulk food orders together…I’m sure there are many other
possibilities.  How can we strengthen our community ties by helping each other out a little more?

It seems to me that the meetings where we’ve had the best turnout are casual and involve food and drink.  Often business gets taken care of as people have the conversations they need to have in a relaxed environment.  How can we create the kind of casual
and enthusiastic environment that is so conducive to getting things done?  Should we meet over potlucks?

I’m also noticing that people who are involved with Transition Nelson are also involved in other community groups.  Would it make sense for Transition Nelson to assist these groups and enable better co-operation and coordination between them instead of stretching people even further?

And what about working as teams?  With a good friend(s) or someone you have an affinity with, be part of Transition Nelson and other groups together and spell each other off.  We all need to replenish ourselves occasionally and need back up.

I’d like this to be the beginning of a conversation, and once we get it going we can plan to meet in the new year.  Let’s get back on track towards the resilient future we yearn for!

All the best,

Diana van Eyk
Co-ordinator
Transition Nelson

Here’s an interview with Bradley Roulston, Bill McNally and Billy Jones on Kootenay Co-op Radio about Community Dollars, the new basin wide local currency based on the Community Way model.