Future needs of LETS

[George McNamara]

I am administrator of the Mole Valley LETS http://www.lets-mole-valley.org.uk/ - we currently do all our transactions on paper, mostly at a monthly trading morning

We are getting a lot of interest from local Transition Groups (our area covers one well advanced TG, and 4 recent start-ups), and they are all (in theory) going to want to join, but it's not quite easy enough for them, especially as our new members have to pay £5 to join.

So, I'm trying to imagine what we will need in say 3 years time.

It seems to me that the thing of the future will be an integrated Ning / Facebook site where the people can switch immediately to a CES online system that does the trading. People would use the Ning site to advertise their immediate offers and needs, and do networking, but the CES site would have the permanent "directory of services" and do the accounting.

Does anyone have a working system set up like this, integrating a Ning site and a CES site (so that there is one password) ?

Could this also integrate with a "Transition Towns" site ?

Some of our LETS members are never going to go to internet and email, so what is the best way forward with this - primary CES site, printout of accounts and input of paper transactions by admin ? What about money - there will be "real money" expenses - how can these be met ?

I am most concerned about the integration of Ning and CES - hope someone can advise on this (is something planned ? a Ning plugin for CES or an CES plugin for Ning ????)

Many thanks, George McNamara

[Dawn Pilatowicz]

HARD CURRENCY
We have a new feature available now in the CTTE which integrates the fiat currency and the CES currency:
- we can trade in CES currency
- we can trade in 'virtual' failt currency - here we have to have hard currency deposited into the CES bank account
- the trades happen as per the CES currency - the only stipulation being that the bank balance has to contain some currency (like a debit card). There are no transaction fees, so it is free banking
- this is a stepping stone to using only CES currency

So an example:
- the members all deposit their subs into the CES bank account
- their 'virtual' pound account gets credited
- subs get raised against these funds
- if there are insufficient funds there is an option to bill them in CES currency instead

NING and FACEBOOK
This is an idea we've been looking at - any programmers out there who can do this? In CES currency?
This would also allow the people who still want to trade in hard currency to trade via the CES using the feature above.

TRANSITION
Most of the Transition groups are now using NING so once the interface above is developed then this would solve the issue

INTERNET and EMAIL
Most users have mobile phones - so they could use the cell.ces.org.za interface via their cell phones
If we're serious about saving the planet - we should avoid the printing of the long offerings lists.

Sounds like we're all on the same track - and with ning now offering 3rd party plug-ins we just need a good programmer.