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.
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.
