21 March 2011, Spring Equinox – A historic day, with the very successful launch of The Oliver, Bath Lets Local Currency. There was a procession through town with ‘The Blues Bros’ guarding the wedge of freshly printed bank notes. It was a day of free money with 15 Olivers being given to anyone that was interested, to help get the currency into circulation. The turn out for the launch was massive with a lot of support and a lot of businesses on board to accept it in their shops. On that note I’m accepting them in The Bell in exchange for Tea, Coffee, Sandwiches, Soup and Pizza. I had a real wave of worry that I might end up with mountains of Olivers and nothing to spend them on!
This will help localisation rather than globalisation giving Bath the chance to ‘spend’ on each other rather than having the money going out of the locality. This might seem at first glance not very relevant, but the more I look at it the more excited I get. It helps with a community’s resilience and helps with people getting to know and trust each other, that is community. All we have to do is use it, to join The Lets scheme visit www.bathlets.org.uk.