General Ideas
- Begin your
local assembly’s Facebook group as a giveaway group to pull in people. Network
with local organizations to spread the word, and see if you can post flyers in neighborhood
businesses and schools so as many people join as possible. The giveaway group enables
community residents to lend or give away extra stuff they don’t need anymore,
and allows members to freely ask for what they desire.
- Host
screenings of important videos and documentaries centered around free food.
Each screening should ideally be less than an hour long. See if you can host
one at a library or school. Give people an hour of free time credit for
attending!
- Talk to
people. Really. Chat up the cashier, and hand them a flyer. If you volunteer in
projects a lot, be a cheerful giver and hand out free time credits- make sure
people know what they are and how to spend them, though!
- Network
with colleges and do presentations.
- Try a recruitment
bonus. Those who invite new members to your facebook group can earn two 30
minute time credits- one to keep, and one to share.
Spice Time
Credits has an excellent video on time banking, with the exact same idea: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DpYAnb-jybo
Projects
These are
some example community projects local assemblies can work on. Choose which ones
you want to tackle first, they’re categorized for your convenience. Once a
project has begun, neighborhood residents are asked to work on it in order to
earn time credits.
There are
four immediate (6 month) goals for any new Global Assembly that’s just starting
out.
1) Establishment
of an internal trading network
2) Working
towards Food Independence
3) Working
toward Energy Independence
4) Reduction
in monthly housing expenses by 50%.
Keep these
goals in mind at all times while considering projects.
Issue
membership cards to group members so they can be eligible for discounts at
assembly-run stores. A membership card may cost $10 monthly, with the money going
to a common project pool. This is a great way to raise money and determine
who’s serious about transition.
Food
[Food,
Property] - Build relationships with neighbors to pursue landsharing
agreements. Even if it’s too late to garden, gauge interest in who would be
keen on allowing you to garden in their backyard in exchange for some of the
produce next year.
[Food] - Create
a buyer’s club. Buy direct from farmers if possible. Look at programs like
Angel Food and Value Box- these organizations cut deals with low-cost suppliers
to provide entire standardized boxes of food that could feed a family of four
for a week, at half-price. Design a set of meal boxes and canvass the
neighborhood to see who may be interested. You can collect the boxes and
deliver them to houses while charging a small fee. The residents save up to
30%, and you make a handsome profit.
[Food] –
Roughly 10% of your members should be full-time farmers. A single person can
work plots up to a half-acre and grow enough to feed 10 other people. A lively
preserving program will freeze and can extra veggies, allowing you to use them
all summer long. Getting most of the community involved means you can sell your
bounty in a large-scale farmer’s market abutting a neighboring town. Grow high,
price low: Look at other stores and do your best to beat their prices.
[Food] - If each person in your neighborhood grows a large crop of a single vegetable, you can trade the produce and eat for free!
[Food] - If each person in your neighborhood grows a large crop of a single vegetable, you can trade the produce and eat for free!
[Food, Business]
- Each local assembly should have “starting a restaurant” as one of its’ long-term
goals. Seriously. Because of our cooperation-based internal economy and low
cost of living, it would be a cakewalk for our restaurants to beat the competition
and rapidly expand.
Let’s take
McDonald’s for instance- you think that they’re unassailable, but they’re
actually sitting ducks. 25% of their operating cost is labor, and they only
make 4% profit. If we open a hamburger shop that strives to use locally grown
vegetables and potatoes when possible (that other people in the co-op grow and
give to us at no cost), with free labor working to earn time credits, we could
charge 15% less for everything and outcompete. Key would be finding a partner
who’s willing to offer restaurant space in exchange for a cut of the profits
instead of a fixed rent. Keep the menu simple. Hamburgers, veggie burgers, chicken
sandwiches, fries, canned pop, milkshakes and salad. No more, no less.
[Food] – Man
does not subsist on fruits and veggies alone. Some of your members will need to
think meat! See if your group can start raising chickens and collecting food
waste from surrounding grocery stores/restaurants to feed them. With more
community buy-in, you can consider goats.
Energy
The energy
transition manager has both the easiest and hardest job. They have to research
and bring together locals to start a solar energy-coop, which involves a little
bit of business and government. It’s a good idea to wait until you have at
least 100 households on board before you start seriously pursuing this project.
[Energy] –
It’s been said before, but do everything you can to reduce home energy use at
home.
Housing
There’s only
one big way to save money here, and it will take a leap of faith: find housemates.
If you have an empty bedroom, get to know someone else within the group so you
can move in together and split costs with them. With all the money you both
save, you can save it to fund more transition efforts. Be sure to blog about
your experiences on your local assembly’s facebook page!
From Hybrid
Transition:
“One of the
reasons we ask members to recruit just 1 new member a month each is so we can
find other like-minded people living closer to us to do stuff with. Then if 2
single members are each renting a 1 bed apartment with total costs being $800 -
$1,000 a month each, they get TOGETHER and rent a 2 bed apartment for say total
$1,200 a month, $600 a month each. This is an instant savings of $200 - $400 a
month each, use $1 a week for global Hybrid efforts and use the rest for
something local. Then keep recruiting to find more people to do the same.
“Maybe then
3-4 single members in 1 area get together and rent a 3-4 bed home. Now they
work TOGETHER growing food in the yard and inside the home, maybe having less
cars (saving thousands of dollars each year per car) and sharing rides, taking
turns cooking and cleaning etc. With all their savings they again gift just $1
a week towards global Hybrid efforts and use the rest for something local. When
20 - 40 members are living this way in 10 homes in 1 area they use their
savings to buy a small apartment building, renting out half to nonmembers to
help pay the bills, again growing food in the yard, basement and in their
apartments, sharing cooking and cleaning etc...
“Once fully up and running a Hybrid Money/No
Money Lifestyle is one where members work together up to 20 hours each
week as needed. Instead of getting "paid" they receive FREE rent,
utilities, food, clothes, cell phone, internet access, local transportation, haircuts/styling
and other salon offerings, massages, gym membership, tool rentals, boat
rentals, camping gear rentals, play tennis, golf, basketball, volley ball and
just about any sport they want to play, classes in anything they want to learn
(exercise, yoga, martial arts, cooking, baking, computer, arts, crafts,
language and anything else our members know and can teach as part of their 20
hours a week work for the Hybrid group.”
Healthcare
[Healthcare]
– Healthcare will remain a significant expense for some time, so try to stay
healthy. One way you can get people involved using time credits would be on the
home care services side of things, helping the elderly in-home and paying them
for each hour.
[Healthcare] –
Attending group exercise sessions (and exercising for the entire thing!) may
also be a way to earn credits.
Education
[Education] –
The Zeitgeist Movement has an excellent program called “TZM Educate” where
members host talks at schools in an attempt to introduce them to sustainable
philosophy.
[Education] –
Connecting with food, see if you can get school waste to go into a compost pile
instead of the trashbin.
[Education] –
Offer to “pay” teachers in time credits for what they’re already doing- it’s
essentially free money.
Politics
[Politics] – Government Capture describes what
happens when a large industry or special interest “captures” the government and
uses it for it’s own ends. This is a natural end result of the late-stage transition process. Once time credits become
more popular, we could set aside a certain amount of time credits and
offer them to other local councils to use for their own needs. This gets them
using the currency and working with its benefits on a day-to-day basis.
[Politics] –
Run for office to gain publicity, and get people together to hold a
constitutional convention for your city. The local assemblies will eventually
become the basis for a new form of political organization as described in
Libertarian Municipalism: http://autonomous-england.blogspot.com/2013/11/libertarian-municipalism.html
Networking
[Networking]
– Encourage the formation of local assemblies for other cities near you on
facebook. Form into confederations and network with each other- as an example,
50 nearby local assemblies will each elect two delegates to the next-higher
assembly facebook groups and so on.
[Networking]
– Run happiness surveys to see how well you’re doing and how you can do better.
Recruitment
[Recruitment]
- Along with your work less have more flyers, print out pitch scripts that you
can go door-to-door and read to your neighbors. While you’re reading from a
flyer, have a copy ready for the neighbor to keep. They may read a little
something like this…
-----
Hi! Have you
heard about The Global Assembly?
We aren’t
trying to sell you anything- in fact, it’s the exact opposite. We’re a group of
local people who want to help build stronger communities and save money doing
it. Times are tough, and any way we can get together and save for the things
that really matter is a blessing.
--Pause to
let them talk, maybe start a short convo. Be friendly, smile and listen
intently.--
Have you ever
noticed how neighbors don’t get out and talk to each other anymore? People are
afraid to go outside their homes or even ask for help nowadays, it’s a shame.
If it takes a village to raise a child, well- whatever happened to the village?
We created a facebook group to help rebuild community spirit. It’s a giveaway
group- so if you have extra things around the house you don’t need anymore, you
can post them and give or lend them to neighbors. It’s okay if you don’t have
anything to give- if you need something, you can ask to see if anyone else has
it. The only rule is that everything must be given away for free to build
gratitude and generosity. It’s a great way to meet new people and save money.
Joining is
easy and free, would you like to check it out?
---
If they say
yes, hand them a flyer. Also casually mention the work less, live more project.
The flyers should have an extended section which bullet-points the other community
programs your local group is working on.
-----
The Global
Assembly: “Take care of your community, and your community will take care of
you”.
Here are some
of the other awesome money-saving, community-building activities we’re working
on in [your neighborhood name]
- Want free
electricity? Join our neighborhood solar co-op! Call (Phone #)
- Need extra
help around the house? Join a community project to earn time credits you can
use to get people to help mow your lawn, cook for you, keep company or almost
anything else- all for free! Learn how it works here. (link)
- Save up to
50% on groceries by joining the neighborhood buyer’s club!
Next: http://globalassembly.blogspot.com/2015/09/page-6-essence-of-transition.html
Prev: http://globalassembly.blogspot.com/2015/09/page-4-how-to-solve-money-time-and.html
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