With the Skills Exchange going from strength to strengh it has been a great way to see and experience what happens if a currency stays in the community. It is much easier to find out in a closed financial community to track where the 'money' goes. See journey of a gem.
Having set up several local groups in the UK and abroad where a group of people come together and tap into eachother's skills, services and goods, it encouraged me to have a look at our local shopping street and try and do the same with them.
Unfortunately our high street is full of banks, building societies, charity shops, international coffee shop chains and large companies like, Iceland, Boots, M&S, the Co-op. All of which are good companies but are not local independent businesses, which means that your money spent there, will go to their head office and shareholders. Not much stays in our local community. May be a little if they employ West Bridgford staff (however,that is not always the case either).
Fortunately, we have another great shopping street on the Melton Road where there is a huge variety of shops as well as many local independent retailers. I feel,that this street could be perfect to show what would happen if we used it like a closed system. It would give us employment, if we are local suppliers ourselves and we have good quality goods, it gives us customers, we reduce our transport costs as we can walk to work, walk to the shops and only have short distances to cover to deliver our produce (if we are suppliers). The shops will pay their taxes to the local council, which again would be put back into the local economy, making it a more balanced way to run an economy. I know it can be tempting to go to a large supermarket and buy everything under one roof (and there is nothing wrong about that) but if we can try to reduce our dependence on the supermarket and buy from our local shops a little more. In the end it will benefit your social, financial and physical wellbeing. Give it a go and visit your local independent retails a little more regularly.
