Help available - Free!!
If you would like help with gardening, cooking, bicycle repairs, lifts, decorating, looking after children or pets without having to pay for that help, a local group may be able to assist you. Also on offer is a huge range of possibilities like help with desk-top publishing, dog walking, Reiki massage, Shiatsu treatment, coaching, help with accounts: the list is almost endless.
The Local Exchange Trading Scheme - LETS for short - offers all of these and more and it is absolutely true that you can use any of them without parting with a single penny*. Of course there has to be a catch, but all you have to do is offer something in return, as LETS provides a non-profit, non-cash based way of swapping favours. For example; you might dig Bill's garden, Bill washes Harry's car, Harry gives Ann's daughter some maths coaching, and Ann supplies you with honey from her bees. *(There is an initial joining fee of £5.00).
As well as being an excellent way to get things done and to swap goods without money changing hands, the FOURSHIRES LETS group is a sociable crowd of people of all ages and from all walks of life, who meet monthly, mostly in private rooms of local pubs. There is also a quarterly newsletter, the Boulder Bartering News (BBN), and an annual programme of social activities including walks, picnic, Christmas party, BBQ, etc. These meetings and events are important to establish contact between members who are scattered over a very large area extending from near Banbury to Stratford-upon-Avon, from near Tewksbury to near Witney, with four main centres for meetings in Chipping Norton, Shipston-on-Stour, Charlbury and Moreton-in-Marsh.
To make the scheme work the trading (bartering) is organised and for this purpose we use our own unit of currency, a Stone (after the Fourshires Stone or the Rollright Stones), this has no defined monetary equivalent, its value is negotiable. Members are supplied with cheque books to pay for goods or services, except at meetings when a trading ‘tablet’ is used. Cheque counterfoils are sent to the Stones Treasurer who maintains an account of each member’s dealings; ‘Bank Statements’ are issued with each edition of the BBN. Members receive an annual Directory of Services Offered which is updated in each issue of the BBN, together with information on current offers and wants. Members are only identified in the Directory by their Membership Number; contact between members is through a regularly updated confidential membership list.
The group is keen to welcome new members. For further information please ring Heather, 01608 643691 Ann or David, 01608 676302, Tracy, 01608 676534 or Penny, 01295 680700.