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LETS has lots to offer: it generates local work, involves less commuting, encourages the re-use of materials and operates on a sustainable basis. Agenda 21 coordinators should join LETS themselves and see how much they could help out. eg with LETS development work.
The authority also should be invited to join. They could allow people to pay some of their rent on council property in LETS (this way the council should have less of a problem with arrears as people will always have the LETS to pay) and the other side of course is that people could pay their council tax in LETS. They could then pay council staff, librarians, teachers, park wardens etc. in part LETS. This process could happen gradually, but it is exciting.
Warwick District Council will be advertising for an Agenda 21 Coordinator at the end of September. I shall be applying. I hope to be a useful networking point to get the council into LETS, and to get the council to talk to other councils and businesses about LETS.
Ultimately this all helps LETS be bigger and stronger so that the government wont take action against LETS users who receive state benefits.
So keep in touch with actual and potential Agenda 21 coordinators.
Paul Baptie Leamington LETS
Recession hit this timber-exporting, rural area in the early 1980's and was soon exacerbated by the closure of a local military airbase. At that time Michael Linton, a Cambridge and Cranfield graduate, was running a small, complementary health practice, when he noticed that businesses were closing and clients were leaving.
He and others realised that nothing real had changed - people materials and the facilities were still available, jobs still needed doing - only the money was missing. Inspired by the already successful commercial 'barter' networks, they implemented a 'newmoney' system and traded $300,000 worth of goods and services in their first two years!
Previous use of the MRS server required assembly of input data using a text editor and use of MRS server output required a text browser. A client program has now been written to simplify this task. It provides an interface enabling existing stand-alone multiLETS software (MLETS and REGYMAN) to be used for acknowledgment entry. The client program is sent automatically in response to an email request.
The Multi-Registry Client program version 1.2 is now available. It will be sent to you within an email by the MRS server in response to the following email request:
START
HELP,send_mrsclient
END
sent to mrs@gn.apc.org
Changes at version 1.2 include autodetection of TRADING.EXP (REGYMAN) or ACKSTACK.EXP (MLETS) acknowledgement export formats, improved detection of invalid input data and some minor documentation improvements. The MRSC program is also protected by the GNU public license which helps protect the free distribution and ensures access to source code including that of improved or modified future versions.
MRSC is distributed in UUENCODED ZIP format. This contains source code in 'C', documentation and MSDOS executable. In order to install it you will need a copy of UUDECODE and either KNuIP or GNU ZIP. If you want to install it on a non DOS computer you will need a 'C' compiler for the target machine.
Anyone wishing to participate in the MRS development program or evaluate MRS software please contact me if you want to have test facilities for your LETS registry provided on the MRS server.
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