Money Is Dead. Long Live Money.

always possible is a founding member of Goodmoney CIC, an ambitious social enterprise based in Brighton & Hove. Its main focus is on the reinvention of resilient local finance that does not rely on the conventional banking system. There will be many ways that it does this, with plans for a mutual credit system powered by independent businesses and charities, as well as a time bank that enables local individuals to exchange more of their time, skills, goods and services through a new concept of currency.

I first heard about the plans around 3 years ago, when one of the directors and I were having a conversation about apprenticeships, but it is truly remarkable to now be attending the launch of Goodmoney gift vouchers - as I was delighted to do last week. The gift voucher scheme currently involves 143 independent Brighton & Hove businesses, and is rising every day. 

They work in the same way as any other gift voucher, but with two substantial benefits: 

1. all of the businesses are independent SMEs or micro-businesses who would never otherwise be part of a multi-option gift voucher (a £5billion economy that shuts out everyone but the biggest retailers). Anyone given a voucher can spend it with a glorious range of places - coffee shops, art studios, bike repair shops, wedding DJs, cafes, printing companies, ice cream parlours, life coaches, IT support, watersports equipment hire, brewers etc etc.

2. statistically, 5% of all gift vouchers do not get redeemed - in the UK, that's around £250million per year that is counted as pure profit by big retailers. Any unspent Goodmoney vouchers will be used to fund community projects, education and health initiatives - making the impact of the vouchers infinitely more than the cash paid for them.

People can spend vouchers with my company on coaching or training in skills such as pitching ideas, writing funding applications, networking, facilitating a workshop, putting on an event, leadership and management skills or designing a project for young people (and much more). We can provide ‘critical friendship’ for people wanting to test ideas or products. 

The launch event was great fun, with many of the supporting businesses chipping in to keep costs down and entertainment high (free curry, craft beer and gramophone DJs). Brighton Pavilion MP Caroline Lucas is one of the board members overseeing the development of this scheme, and she came along to give a few words and award prizes to the children who had designed the gift cards in which the vouchers are presented - despite her party conference due to start in Bournemouth just a few hours later.

I am also working with the company on their education strategy, regularly meeting one of the directors, maths lecturer and teacher Dr Mick Taylor, on how we can use the values of the initiative to help school teachers reframe lessons on financial literacy. I am particularly interested in looking at the social impact of money and how that powers attitudes of children and young people - around their own confidence in using maths to manage every day monetary transactions, but also the consequences that social transactions like borrowing, lending, stealing, saving, spending have on an individual's concept of self worth. 

There are some complicated messages about money, debt, deficit, welfare and capital being put in and around children all the time at the moment - and I believe these might be a route in to giving practical application and context to mathematical problems so that some of the basics start to make sense.

The very small team have set themselves an extraordinary target of selling £100k of vouchers by Christmas, and £1m by 2020. If they do, they could well have something really exciting on their hands.

Sparks Flying About

I attended the first Spark Festival of Ideas in Brighton last year, when it was more of an idea itself, collecting a ragbag of digital and media industry entrepreneurs, educators and academics to decide whether such an event - where discussion>planning>doing is the key - had any use or value in shaping a new approach to creative learning.

What is quite remarkable, is how many pie-in-the-sky ideas generated at the 2014 gathering became transformational, tangible projects. The clearest example of which is the Maker Space on Brighton's London Rd, which is now a key part of the city's STEM learning offer and has seen 600 children through its doors making robots, using 3D printers, hacking computers and designing new games.

So, I was delighted to be invited back this year - especially as I have now gone independent and would not be representing any particular school, college or creative enterprise. 

The thought, care and attention to detail given to this event was palpable - as was the seamless mixing of 'grown-up' ideas workshops in the centre of the main hall at Brighton's Clarendon Centre, whilst 30 or so 6-16 year olds hacked, soldered, built, deconstructed and coded their hearts out at workstations around the edge of the space. 

The event is convened by Maker Club and Long Run Works, with some funding this year from the Arts Council, Brighton Digital Festival and City & Guilds. Volunteers told people where they needed to go and a bank of professional facilitators had been brought in to add some objectivity to the working groups - ensuring that local politics or delegate agendas didn't sway the discussion outcomes too much. It worked well.

The event is still in its genesis period, but the evolution of its intent and reach is quite exciting. 

The 60 or so delegates were trying to solve the following problems:

1. How do we inspire a new generation of inventors?

2. How do employers and educators join the dots?

3. How do we teach making a difference before making a margin?

4. Should we be creating ‘gender neutral’ industry cultures rather than campaigning to get more women into certain industries?

5. How do we make peace between nature and technology?

Were all the right people in the room? Of course not. But as the festival grows, it will become of more interest to young people, mainstream (head)teachers and funders/influencers - all of whom were under-represented.

And if concrete solutions were not found to each of the questions, some bloody good ideas were - one of which (for a targeted series of events that fund some facilitated time between schools/colleges and STEM businesses) will now be given £5k in research & development funding. A pretty hefty irony of the day was that, for a day of innovation centred around digital thinking, there were a ludicrous number of post-it notes in play.

I, personally, made some new and very interesting connections - with the Director of the Starr Trust and the Brighton Digital Festival Chair among others - with whom I can already see ideas for collaboration.

My wish is, in all honesty, that we can move on from a lot of these questions within the next couple of years, because they have been the same ever since I have been in this game. But something is changing, and it is not just the public and voluntary sector project workers grinding their teeth in a bid to make a difference - with often limited resources and available expertise, but the small businesses are coming forward. Small businesses with flexibility, without reliance on government funding, approaching the problem from a different angle. No single sector has a hope of answering these questions on its own - let alone do anything about it - but the cumulative and collaborative 'do-ing' and 'trying' is actually starting to shift the outcome. It does feel like the opportunity to make tangible change has just been given a new dimension - I don't know if thats just down here, or if it is just because some particular sorts of people are in the right place at the right time, but it certainly feels like this is a time to seize change.

And if I ever wake up in the middle of the night wondering what the hell I've done, and whether my ambitions to work across creative, education, small enterprise and community projects is too broad and undefined - I need to remind myself about events like this. I actually think it is vital for me to work with as many people who want to make a difference as possible, to bridge the sectors, to suggest unusual partnerships. I felt great when I left the Spark Festival - because something important is happening, and I have a small part to play in it.

Me, pitching an idea with Darren Abrahams from The Starr Trust