Brixton Pound launching Thursday 17th September!

[jryancol]

The Brixton Pound (B£), a local currency for independent traders in Brixton is launching in the Town Hall this Thursday 17th September from 7pm. The B£ will support independent businesses by encouraging residents to shop there, knowing that there money is more likely to circulate locally than leak out of Brixton to shareholders in the city, global supply chains or national contracts. Research shows that only about 15-20p of every pounds spent in a chain store stays in the local economy.

Affiliated Brixton businesses are offering special discounts to residents paying for goods and services with B£s.

You can find out more and join the B£ 1000 club by signing up at our website here: www.brixtonpound.org and receive information about the scheme and special offers from businesses.

We are also conducting a simple multiple choice survey to enable us to measure the impact of the B£. You can complete the survey online here:http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=XiAWcBH1vyc_2faZxZdycaYA_3d_3dand you will be entered in to a raffle to win free dinner at participating businesses Negrils and Opus Cafe.

Spread the word!

Josh, Brixton Pound Group

 

[the button]

2. No advertising of any kind. We are not interested in hearing about your company/website/club/product/new song/gig/glowing rave underpants. This is a non-profit, community discussion forum, not a free advertising resource and offenders will be booted off.

Unless it's been cleared by one of our hardworking, unpaid mods first, of course.

 

[claphamboy]

You should have posted this in the Brixton forum on here, but I am sure one of the mods will be along to move it soon.

I've read the scheme works well in Totnes and Lewes, so good luck.

 

[mrs quoad]

The only unfortunate side - IMO - is that the sign looks kinda like a massive B.S.

http://www.floridaventureblog.com/uploaded_images/nobs.jpg

 

[the button]

The only unfortunate side - IMO - is that the sign looks like a massive B.S.

It does a bit, yes.

 

[editor]

*Thread moved

 

[Brixton Hatter]

so is anyone gonna put their money where their mouth is and get involved in this?

i've signed up to buy some notes and i'm looking forward to thursday. hopefully some of you lot will get involved too, cos this needs lots of people telling their mates and spreading the word

 

[honto]

I live and work locally and like the idea of money circulated locally, so yes I've signed up for some ££ partly to encourage it, and partly for the novelty of it.

Whether it works in practice obviously depends on take up/publicity etc, but while the worst case scenario is having to spend it in Negril/Dogstar etc then it doesn't seem like there is a massive downside risk!

 

[Oswaldtwistle]

.

I've read the scheme works well in Totnes and Lewes, so good luck.

Very different places, so be interesting to see how it works out in Brixton.

 

[ovaltina]

It'd be nice to have something where traders could swap services using this instead of actual cash - for example a plumber does a job for 200 brixton pounds and then spends that money at a Brixton restaurant that is also part of teh scheme. Would take a lot of admin to get it working tho.

 

[HobgoblinMan]

Do you think the traders outside KFC in Brixton will accept the Brixton £???

 

[nick h.]

I'll be taking B£ for cock action in the KFC toilets.

 

[Pie 1]

Front page of the Guardian website this morning.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/sep/16/will-brixton-pound-work

 

[Sesquipedalian]

What Brixton needs is more £'s not it's own £.

 

[Kanda]

Am sure the guy from Transition Towns is gonna go far with comments like this:

We haven't reached the hair salons yet, though. There seems to be one salon for every two people in Brixton, so reaching that tipping point is crucial.

Prick.

 

[Sesquipedalian]

Am sure the guy from Transition Towns is gonna go far with comments like this:



Prick.

Yep.

I do like the comment from the guy in Brixton Wholefoods,referring to it as a "Bit League Of Gentlemen",

(It's a local £ for local people.)

 

[Kanda]

I spend 90% of my disposable income in Brixton as it is. I don't see how this is going to make a difference. Can't see it taking off tbh.

I wonder if the big Tesco or smaller Sainsburys are in on it...

 

[gaijingirl]

I think it will be tough to get on the ground and I do think that they will struggle not to have it be a sort of two tiered thing - "nice middle class" shops/bars/restaurants (albeit not Brixton Wholefoods...) V market traders and hair salons/nail bars etc... but it's an intriguing idea and I'll certainly be happy to get change in Brixton £s and spend them elsewhere - why not? Good luck to them.

 

[Sesquipedalian]

I spend 90% of my disposable income in Brixton as it is. I don't see how this is going to make a difference. Can't see it taking off tbh.

I wonder if the big Tesco or smaller Sainsburys are in on it...

Same here and i won't be getting involved in the scheme.
It's a gimmick.
The economic ideas behind it are fundamentally unsound.

The journalist seemed more concerned about whether "Jamacians" would get on board rather than Tesco/Sainsburys who would have no commercial interest in joining such a scheme other than PR.

 

[Pie 1]

It's a gimmick.

It does seem this way.
As the article says, fine for nice little WI market towns in Devon.
"twee" from the Wholefoods guy hit the nail IMO.

 

[ExtraRefined]

I was thinking about this when driving in this morning and I've realised that it could benefit businesses quite substantially, although for simple economic, rather than for the wishy washy ones given.

It all comes down to market segmentation. Outsiders coming to Brixton are generally willing to pay more, for various reasons, but mostly that they're likely to be better off. Therefore businesses can extract more money from them. Usually introducing a differential price for locals and outsiders would be difficult, but the Brixton Pound makes it easier, and the mechanism is hinted at on their website - give a discount for using B£.

Say you give a 20% discount for using the B£. You can then raise your prices by 20%, extracting more money from outsiders. Locals won't be paying any more so you won't lose their business. You're now trading the same volume for more profit.

The risk with any scheme like this, and indeed differential pricing in general is that people who can afford to pay the higher price still want to pay the lower one. This is reasonably easy to prevent if the criteria is, say being a student which you can easily check; the B£ could go this way by only exchanging £ to B£ (or better yet B£ to £) for locals, but this would probably kill its adoption). The other way is of course to introduce some sort of time or quality penalty to qualify for the discount; this is the theory behind discount coupons, and is also how the B£ will work. Changing money to and from B£ is an inconvenience, but less of one for locals, and one locals will be more willing to put up with since they're less well off.

Overall it's quite easy to see why the MD of Morleys would support this, as it should increase his profits a bit. Ultimately you'll know it's succeed when KFC start accepting them; there's not much you can do to stop them from doing so, and they're almost certainly clever enough to se the business advantages.

 

[Bob]

BBC website report here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/8245276.stm

 

[editor]

This thread gets mentioned on Sky News!

However, not all locals are sold on the idea.

"I spend 90% of my disposable income in Brixton as it is. I don't see how this is going to make a difference. Can't see it taking off," said one local resident on web forum Urban75.

Another added: "I do think that they will struggle not to have it be a sort of two tiered thing - "nice middle class" shops/bars/restaurants vs market traders and hair salons/nail bars etc."

http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/UK..._South_London_After_Similar_Schemes_Across_UK

 

[quimcunx]

I feel violated.

*pulls cardi over bosoms*

 

[Kanda]

Yay, I made Sky News

 

[Dan U]

RUPERT MURDOCH SUCKS BALLS!

@ Kanda being on Sky News

Will be interested to see how this goes, being serious for a minute, as i've read recently of a few more places looking at doing this, including Dorking which is very Surrey.

 

[Minnie_the_Minx]

Yay, I made Sky News

Congratulations Kanda

Have you seen the comments?

great idea, lets give an area not famed for it's ability or willingness to intergrate with the rest of Britain an extra excuse not to do so.
Lets now have the Muslim Radical Pound and then the BNP pound so they can only shop with like minded people and not even try to get along with the rest of the country.

Then we can return to fiefdoms and baronies.

Another example of political correctness rubbish.

 

[quimcunx]

I'm guessing that what they mean is brown people live here and are just assuming the rest as they've never been here.

 

[kabbes]

RUPERT MURDOCH SUCKS BALLS!

@ Kanda being on Sky News

Will be interested to see how this goes, being serious for a minute, as i've read recently of a few more places looking at doing this, including Dorking which is very Surrey.

Blimey. That's my neck of the woods.

The problem is that everything that the local shops do to try to encourage local trade is somewhat undone by the council's insistance on ever more ridiculous parking charges that chase all the trade away. They need to sort that out before they start looking at complicated things like local currencies!

 

[Dan U]

Blimey. That's my neck of the woods.

The problem is that everything that the local shops do to try to encourage local trade is somewhat undone by the council's insistance on ever more ridiculous parking charges that chase all the trade away. They need to sort that out before they start looking at complicated things like local currencies!

yeah mine as well, well i live in Reigate now

i should stop posting on the Brixton forum really.

The people of Reigate just won a battle with Morrissons to allow evening parking for free! people power!