Welcome! Please introduce yourself

Hello world, my name is Bob! Im here to discover if the faircoop ecosystem can be used to build a fair and sustainable ecosystem. A member of Worth Cooperating and Fairmondo UK.

Hi. I've been involved albeit loosely in FairCoop and FairCoin for a few years. Currently running what I think is the most northerly CVN (cooperatively validated node) on the FairCoin network, making blocks on the chain. The FairCoop vision is broad and deep. Can it be realised? I really don't know, but there is clearly so much to be learned on the journey that it hardly matters whether the destination is achievable.

At a local level I think that what makes sense, and what is achievable is implementation of a community wealth building approach along the lines of Cleveland or Preston. That's what I'm working on in Kirklees. Local government is in crisis, and the simple ideas around community wealth building offer an attractive option. Any local council in the UK would be daft not to be thinking along these lines currently. Relocalisation of procurement by anchor institutions coupled with cooperative development.

I can see the potential for a local complementary currency as part of this mix, but whether that is FairCoin, or integrated with FairCoin, I don't know. I can't see the benefit of Faircoin right now, other than as an internal development currency to spin up the FairCoop economy. Once you get out into the real world it rapidly loses its shine. Happy to be convinced otherwise.

I like that we have someone with greater technical knowledge in the node. I've started up a conversation with LETS national body - they must have tonnes of experience! I'm hoping we can get a video conference with them to explore digital and community currency possibilities and projects. Like you I'm not entirely sure what problem faircoin aims to solve but there is a certain amount of appetite creating relocalised economic agency and faircoin may have a role - just need to discover that through experimentation.

I'm Cath from Cornerstone Housing Coop in Leeds and the Radical Routes federation of radical coops. I'm away from Yorkshire til the late autumn 2018, but trying to keep abreast of things from a distance. I echo @graham2 's opinion about the current and potential usefulness of FairCoop and of FairCoin and alternative currencies in general.

I'm aiming for a more collective, more DIY, more ecologically self-sufficient, less local authority-based goal than the Preston/Cleveland models, but that's so far into the future that we'll be travelling on the same path together for a good long while, i should think.

When taking strategic decisions about the development of FYLN, I'd like us to consider which futures are being made more possible - my utopia (and what i think creates the most community resilience) is a gift economy and I see local and alternative currencies as steps on a path which gets us closer to that possibility. I think it would be great if we take decisions that value decentralisation, participation and accountability/transparency. I also think we need to think about the kind of culture we're creating and what kinds of processes/ means of communication/ language we use to reproduce that culture (training, reflective time, action learning-type stuff, using inspiring names for things)

I like your destination. I guess we're trying to find out if the cooperative movement in this case faircoop can create some of the "digital means of production, distribution and exchange" that might make the future more possible. I think municipalities are part of the solution but they need root and branch change to become beacons of inclusive participatory democracy.