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LETS is a Local Energy Trading System. Members trade goods and services with each other, paying with LETS units. It is an alternative currency system, and is very good for the community. The word barter is usually reserved for one-to-one exchanges
LETS establishes networks so that local skills and talents become much more accessable to the community. The range of resources available is unlimited. All forms of personal skills from hobbies, life experiences and formal training, can readily be used to earn LETS Units. Members use these Units to purchase goods and services from other members.
The system keeps a record of the Units that members earn and spend. To record transactions, members complete transaction slips detailing their expenditure. These slips are something like cheques, and are sent to the transaction bookkeeper for processing. Members receive a transaction statement in the mail, every two months. It is something like a bank statement.
Unlike a cheque account at a bank, there is no need at all to keep a credit balance. It does not matter at all. LETS Units differ from money in that they earn no interest and have no value until they are used. In fact, they don't even exist.
This means that approximately half of the members at any time have a negative balance. This is fine, and LETS couldn't work otherwise. As long as the Units keep circulating, all is well.
LETS operates a bit like a community bank, with totally interest-free credit. LETS Units can never be lost or stolen. We trust our members not to quit while owing Units to the community, and experience has shown this trust to be justified.
Suppose Alice bakes a casserole and Betty gives her a BrisLETS cheque, or trading slip if you prefer, for that fine dish, in the amount of 9 Units. Alice sends that cheque in to the bookkeeper, and is credited by 9 Units. Betty is now “in commitment”, we like to say, and acknowledges that she will some day perform some service to a fellow member. In fact, a month later she is asked to provide counselling to the teenage son of another member, Chris, who gives her twenty units for this. Chris will do something for somebody else one day.
Betty would now be eleven Units in credit, but that's not important to anyone. It doesn't really matter whether she's in credit or in commitment. Units are very different from dollars.
What if Betty didn't feel comfortable counselling Chris's son, and declined to help? No problem, because one day Betty will be able to do something for another member, when she is ready. There is no pressure.
For that fine casserole, Betty might also give Alice a further $3 in money for the ingredients. That will be separate from
the Units transaction, and there is no point in telling that detail to the bookkeeper. It's the same for travelling expenses
or building materials, etc.
That wouldn't be very fair to your fellow members, would it? A delicate subject. The limit for negative balances is
presently 500 Units. If a member seems to be approaching this limit steadily, he or she can expect a friendly call from a
committee member asking about the situation. There's usually an explanation, and the member might be asked to refrain
from spending any more until there's some earning activity. The system is large, and can accommodate some minor swings.
An individual member will never have to bear the cost of a bad trade; the system as a whole absorbs it.
No, family memberships are fine. The present policy is flexible. One entity signs up, and all their friends and family can hang off that. By entity, we mean a name like Anne/Peter or just Anne, or perhaps the Homes at Possum Gully.
So you can buy services for your friends, and you can offer services performed by your family/household, according to your own definition of household or family. Some cohabiters choose to maintain individual memberships, but other households combine.
LETS was developed by a man called Michael Linton, in a town called Comax on Vancouver Island, Canada, in 1982. Michael is still
very active in LETS and answers email politely. In November 2000 he wrote that the word LETS was not originally
conceived as an acronym! He refers to some original documents and philosophies and that email, with links, is available
here.
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