Posted by matslats on June 14, 2010 at 2:11pm
Greetings,
I want to bring to your attention the Complementary Currencies module for Drupal, and my organisation, Community Forge which is hosting 12 sites for CC communities, and growing.
If this group wants to offer transition initiatives web sites based on a design, then I have experience of building and hosting such a service. You can have the installation profile for the demo site, if you want it as a starting point.
If there is interest in offering a hosted service for TT then Community Forge is open to collaboration, though our spare capacity is negligible.
Here is my report on the TT conference 2010
http://matslats.net/transition-town-conference-2010
Comments
Fabulous!
Hi, Matthew. I had no idea this module existed. Thanks for bringing it to our attention.
Do you have a writeup handy on the most successful of the communities using your module?
Andre Angelantoni
Founder, PostPeakLiving.com
users
I just made this today:
http://communityforge.net/registration.php
the stats don't seem right, but the list is good.
It seems not to include since the registration is voluntary and depends on cron! So I know of these too.
http://www.thesharehood.org/
http://www.madisonhours.org/
http://richours.org/
http://marden.villagebarter.co.uk/
What great data
It looks like Afro Online is doing well as is Le BeauSel and SEL Waterloo.
But even smaller communities (like SELduLac) may just be ramping up and could be on their way to doing very well (of course I have no idea how large each community is so perhaps it is already doing well, relatively speaking).
Are you happy with how communities are rolling out the module?
Andre Angelantoni
Founder, PostPeakLiving.com
Sel Du Lac is the first
Sel Du Lac is the first implementor actually and the chairman is my partner in Community Forge. Many of the SEL groups are hosted by community Forge. They have become little cliques in some cases and expansion is not a high priority. They have been stuck for years at the same size because the paper accounting burden was too much. They are growing now, but slowly. Afro Online have never contacted me.
I have been very happy to see my module simply in different themes, but it's also gratifying to see slightly different approached to layout of the use page and the transaction options being used. Most of these implementers have very limited resources / skills though which is why they should be banding together. Of course I want to see much more innovation with the UI, and there's lots of scope for supplementary modules.
Excellent idea
Hi Matt,
I'm gutted I didn't get to meet you at the TT conference - I remember seeing you but wasn't able to stay until the Monday. Paul and I met with Ed for drinks last night and he told us we both missed you on Monday!
I have a question relating to implementing your module, based on the disclaimer sitting on the module's page - how much governance is required in order for such a scheme to be successful? Put another way, should we make your module a standard feature of TransitionDrupal or should it be something which comes as an optional extra once a TT feels it has enough governance and certain other requirements in place?
I love the idea of offering something like this "out of the box" as it were for TransitionDrupal but wonder if there are pitfalls to avoid...?
governance
It's a piece of cake to set up the web/accounting for a complementary currency system now, which is a huge obstacle out of the way. But governance is the real reason that schemes fail. Community forge is taking an approach that says, yes, we'll give you this free software, and you can start trading right away, but be aware that much more is required if your currency is going to have any impact. Then we are looking at how to support the implementors through the process of getting support, spreading usage, gaining credibility, resolving disputes, and all the other issues they are likely to face.
TT could include the CC accounting as part of the default install, and include a page of instructions on it, then leave the implementor to push it or not. Or it could be an option which comes with its own programme and support-group membership or whatever.
Community Forge is interested in working with Transition Towns on such questions. The time we can give for free though is quite limited as we have hundreds of dependents already. If any funding can be secured for this project, we would jump at the chance of sharing server & software resources, cloning our setup, training. Likewise, we need Drupal expertise because it's all on me at the moment! In fact we need a full time Drupal Geek but donations are far from covering the cost of that.