The dangerous money mirror

I have been asked to write more frequently on our activities at always possible, as well as interesting things we've been reading or listening to. I will do my best!

On Wednesday, I spent a lot of time thinking and talking about money. This isn't completely unusual, but I was *really* thinking about money. What is money? Who creates it? What actual value does it have?

Three reasons why this was consuming me:

1. always possible are developing a range of interactive workshops for schools and colleges in partnership with the brilliant social enterprise, Goodmoney. 

The workshops examine the philosophy of economics and ask 'what is money?' In just 90 minutes, mathematician Dr Mick Taylor deconstructs the idea of an economy and economism; gamifies the mechanisms of trade (with playing cards) until most of the room are in debt and a small number are very rich without even noticing - and enables discussion around the fact that only 3% of the world's money actually exists.  

Our willing and able guinea pigs were the lunchtime Economic Society at Cardinal Newman VI Form College in Hove, but the sessions are being piloted  with a range of different ability and different level groups across Sussex in the next two weeks.

Our aim is to create a really exciting workshop and resource programme that uses applied maths, philosophy and economics to enable some critical thinking skills about some of the realities of debt, interest and credit.

Dr Mick uses the analogy of a mirror. You can look into a mirror, and what it shows us back depends on what we project into it. Some mornings, it's not too bad - the mirror tells us that it's going to be a good day, you don't look as grotesque as you have done. Other days, the mirror tells us to go back to bed - it wouldn't be fair to allow your face to go public today. It is a horrorshow. The mirror is obsequious or mean - it can never be objective.

OR - before we look *at* it, we can remind ourselves that it is a piece of glass, backed by some reflective foil. It was invented to be functional and it can never influence what it reflects - whatever I *feel* is down to my own brain.

Why do we allow money to have a personality? When was the last time you only considered it to be what it is - rather than a relief, a burden, safety, luxury, pressure, power or access to pleasure?

We've got things to tweak, but feedback has been great so far.

Fantastic workshop thoroughly engaging, challenging and interesting. Could have been longer.

The best aspect of the workshop in my opinion was Dr Mick's ability to combine deep thought and fun into a short 90 minutes workshop.

2. Following this workshop, I walked over the hill to 'The Hatchery', my current co-working space which is full of start-ups and entrepreneurs getting their businesses off the ground. It was Event Night and we had talks and debates on small business finance, legal business structures and cashflow. 

My mind was constantly disappearing back to the afternoon:
At what point in recent history did debt - or the transference of ownership to the money-lenders - become normal and expected? Debt is now how we gain a degree, start a business and how we buy a laptop, let alone a house. 

I have personal debt, but I am keen to avoid getting my business into debt until that is the most sensible way to grow it - but the language of debt is so normal. To gamble on one's potential, at a price, is what we now normalise for our children. What does this do to us culturally? Does this change how we consider our future actions? 

The banks can create and destroy money like a conjourer without having to print a thing. Most people are taught in schools that money is finite - does that help us understand it better?

3. I get home at around 8pm to find a letter from The Arts Council offering a 5-figure grant towards the running costs of our big Summer project, Starboard - the UK's first open air children's theatre festival. 

I am absolutely thrilled. A grin from ear to ear.

The mirror has sucked me in again. 

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.

Projects

Pretty hectic here at always possible towers over the last few weeks, so less time to write anything. Will get back on it.

The company has now been registered with Companies House for just over a month, moving it from a frenzy* of freelancers into a more structured legal entity.

*I am confident this is the correct collective noun.

In the past few weeks, some wonderful connections have been made and new ideas taking shape. 

I have been working closely to develop the Talent Match youth enterprise programme delivery with Dv8 Sussex and Prince's Trust - including leading an intensive day workshop on coaching skills for some leading creative entrepreneurs from across Sussex.

We continue to support The Original Theatre Company on their 5 year strategic plan, audience connections and fundraising. Their current show, Flare Path, has just launched its UK tour so do try and catch if it is coming near you. I went to see it in Eastbourne, but ended up drinking too long with the cast and missed my last train home. I recommend that you don't do that.

I have been dallying with the Digital Catapult Centre, looking at how the dots are being joined up in the world of tech and digital in Brighton - finding more about the ways in which data analysis is meeting creative design. Some interesting collaborations between the universities, LEPs and tech industry on the horizon, but still early days. A big 'digital exchange' site has been built at the bottom of Brighton's New England House so that the media companies can benefit from cheap and fast broadband without having to rely on the usual channels. At a networking event, I met and talked mentoring with a software engineer from American Express.

I went along to my first Atoms Collide event this week, an informal round-table ideas exchange, which was friendly and welcoming. I made a faux pas by giving out my business card (it is not a networking event), but still explored other people's interesting projects - which included solving a famous Icelandic crime mystery through writing and photography and hosting a series of events in October with people whose job is to make others terrified (think horror film effects artists etc).

As well as organisational consultancy, the main thrust of my company is project development, and brokering relationships between people, ideas and positive outcomes. Some key partnerships are being created to make the ideal become the pragmatic and to share skillsets and experience. will formalise this slightly more on the website, but here is a list of current always possible projects, either quite far developed or very early stages:

• A leadership development programme for emerging executives in the FE & skills sector - focused on values-led leadership, emotional intelligence and organisational cultures.

Partner: Youthforce

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• A creative financial literacy project, initially aimed at KS4 students with low maths attainment. Exploring the 'value' and projection of money, and how we use can truly understand the concepts of debt, credit and interest as mathematical ideas - but all social and personal ones.

Partner: Goodmoney

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• A youth social action project, developing a Cultural Manifesto with young people living in rural areas in order to influence local authority and LEP decisions on cultural and investment in creative opportunity and skills.

Partner: Culture Shift

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• A long-form mentoring project for 16-29 year olds in key areas of socio-economic disadvantage in Sussex and Surrey + a re-thinking of employability development through regular innovative Job Clubs for young people facing long-term unemployment.

Partners: Dv8 Sussex, The Girls' Network, A Band of Brothers, Catch 22, Youthforce

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• An enterprise coaching programme for unemployed 18-24 year olds in Bexhill, Hastings & Eastbourne who want to explore self-employment or a business start-up idea.

Partners: Dv8 Sussex, The Prince's Trust, Tomorrow's People

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• A digital resource pilot, developing models of blended learning of digital/classroom engagement with vocational skills tutors across Sussex.

Partners: Sussex Council of Training Providers, Sussex Learning Network

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• A theatre crowd-funding and audience development project to take a piece of experimental new writing on a major regional UK tour in late 2016. 

Partner: The Original Theatre Company 

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• A resilience skills project for 14-19 year olds in coastal West Sussex towns, incorporating sea (surfing), forest (woodland skills) and sky (creating supersized tall outdoor sculpture). 

Partner: TBC

If you're interested to find out more, or have funding for a project and need some assistance getting it off the ground, please give us a call

Happy Talk

The single best thing about my freelance role is the range of fascinating and interesting people I get to meet.

I'm aware that I'm doing a lot of ideas and concept building at the moment, which is always much more romantic than keeping the supporting pillars steady - but it's damn exciting.

Today, after lunch, I met with Mick Taylor. A Geordie mathematician, educator and businessman who is involved in setting up Goodmoney, a social enterprise concerned with the radical re-invention of how money works. A gift voucher that supports local businesses, a credit union that offers fair loans and a structured time bank that offers Sussex volunteers the chance to trade time/services for tickets/goods/services. I'll be hopefully playing around with them as an advisor, consultant and volunteer for the foreseeable and will see what happens; the connectivity and values-led experimenting of it all is appealing.

Then I moved straight, from hipster coffeehouse to a Costa 50 yards away, into a meeting with an account manger from JISC - the agency that supports the development of education technology in FE and HE. A great discussion that circumnavigated challenges and opportunities in the sector and how I might be able to facilitate the greatest impact with providers to test and analyse the impact of products on the market. The change of coffee shop tone is no accident.

For night-time connectivity, I took always possible associate James Turbull to London, meeting with with the great and good of charity/non-profit fundraising at a drinks reception in Farringdon. Hosted by the great James Newell of Kingston Smith, it was a good opportunity to discuss ideas of leadership, values and business with some intriguing and dynamic people; key players I enjoyed  boring with my whims were Mandy Johnson, Director of Partnerships at change.org; Paul Nott, Charity Recruitment Specialist; a freelance fundraiser called Sarah (who had kept her Minneapolis accent despite 10 years in Birmingham); Leanne from KS who partied with us near the samosas and many other warm and interesting people. 

It was quirky to have a summer party on a hot day in a windowless basement boardroom, but the beer was cool and the smiles were big.

More people, more connections, more joining up thoughts. I like this bit.