Scale / location of network

To mangle a tired old marketing meme: "Big enough for dynamism, small enough for trust."
Much of what follows is obvious, stated here for clarity (and to check agreement - do chime in!).
Mutual Credit groups will have a 'correct' size. On the one hand, there will be sufficient variety to offer both a reliable market for members' sales and a range that can satisfy needs and supply sufficient credit; on the other hand, it will be easy to trust that other members are committed to the network.
This implies two things: one, that Mutual Credit must grow through federation of some kind, and two, that each network will be in some sense 'local'.
This thread is for discussion as to what the right 'local' will be for UKMCN to launch into.

What local means can vary, meaning one thing for gardening another for furniture manufacture, another for faitrade import/export, another for writing.
These examples have clear characteristics that condition what local means.
Gardening will have a defined physical locality that is relatively small.
Furniture manufacture will have a larger physical range.
Fair trade import/export will have an international physical limit, overlaid by an ethical certification limit.
Writing has no meaningful physical boundaries.
I have deliberately described activities, rather than individuals or organisations, to make the obvious point that very few will find their whole lives fully defined by a singular definition of 'local '. A gardener who writes novels and works part-time in a furniture factory that buys fair trade timber is not a hard case to imagine.
We have a rather flexible definition of local, to be mapped onto a requirement to achieve appropriate scale.

Dil, thanks for taking the initiative to start mapping the territory of association. In the context of exchanging goods and services ON A RECIPROCAL BASIS, I think it boils down to (1) geographical communities and (2) communities of interest.

I like your emphasis on 'reciprocal' - this is the basis of the trust in other members, a belief that reciprocity of responsibility to make good upon commitments/credit is shared among a known circle of membership.

The previous posts were attempts to set out the territory (assumed obvious unless anyone wants to disagree/elaborate).
I'm now going to suggest a basic set of 'local' conditions that I believe will necessarily be common if Mutual Credit comes to mean anything.
The sets are of a few fundamental types, as follows:

• Physically located - an identifiable geographic place - eg a village.
• Conventionally defined - members abide by some particular agreement - eg all are co-ops, or universities.
• Sectorally defined - members are connected to some complex sector which has a clear internal economy - eg the film industry.
• Purposive - members share a defined project or aim - eg workers in an organisation, campaigners, stamp collectors.

Mutual Credit already means something: associated traders engaged in the reciprocal exchange of goods and services without reliance upon conventional money (moneyless exchange), enabled by the allocation of credit to one another in proportion to the value of their input (sales) to the association, and other pertinent determinants of trust.
Prototypical examples include WIR, LETS and commercial "barter" exchanges.

Of course mutual credit means something - sloppy language on my part.
What I intended was a call for mutual credit networks to develop an unmissable economic impact - of the order, say, of 1% of GDP in some sub-continental region.

I will argue elsewhere that the good thing about mutual credit is that it does NOT imply endless growth or reward aggressive attempts to achieve monopoly positions - but that this condition has strong implications for those of us who see the urgent need for such modes to begin to challenge the hegemony of debt-based money.

Right on.

Within each of these types, there will be a 'Foundation' network type that will have some human scale (ie typically no larger than a Dunbar number of humans).

The Foundational networks are:

• Physical: Neighbourhood: max 5 mins walk across, max 150 people, physically identifiable. Typical trades - DIY and care services, spare/unused goods, surplus produce. Also, social solidarity credit fund.
• Conventional: Voluntary Association: Clearly stated membership conditions (inc ethics), definition of network purpose and scope (inc scale ambitions/limits), governance structure etc. Typical trades - time-bank, services, swaps and trades.
• Sectoral: Trade vertical, regional: Effectively a free-lancers' co-op or guild - Clearly stated membership conditions (inc ethics), definition of network purpose and scope (inc scale ambitions/limits), governance structure etc. Typical trades - time-bank (perhaps with skill level recognition), equipment hire/sale (prob denominated in hours). Also perhaps a mutual insurance fund.
• Purposive: Co-operative: members recognise each other as collaborators. Ideally no more than a Dunbar number in one group. Typical trades - 1/ time-bank - in a workers co-op, this could relate to pay, and would certainly be used to allocate credits earned by the co-op in a second-tier 'Conventional' b2b network (this is an important example of cross-type interchange, something which needs serious consideration elsewhere), 2/ p2p type trades as with 'Neighbourhood'. Also perhaps a mutual insurance fund.

These foundation networks will not all be large enough to be dynamic economic marketplaces - but they are considered vital (by me) as human-scale solidarity associations which take the decision to engage with the MC economy. They also form the basis of the democratic polities which can govern the MC economy.
To form economically viable units, they will need to be federated together, or linked via cross-type interchanges. as described in relation to co-op workplaces.

Individuals would be members of one or more types of 'Foundation' networks (in a fully developed MC system a person might easily be a member of 6 or more such networks - eg Neighbourhood, Allotment association, Local Land Trust, workplace co-op, Professional network, volunteering group, holiday club, enthusiast group).
Even with their time-bank level economies, these have potential to be strong social entities, but to become economically meaningful would need to federate with other equivalent groups together to form wider networks with more viable market potential. Such wider networks might in turn federate to give more market variety. In the end, if we wish to imagine MC being able to provide the levels of market and supply-chain complexity necessary to deliver goods like the laptop I'm writing this on , these networks have to be considered from day one on the premise that they will one day span the globe.
Imagined tiering for each 'type':