Please RSVP at the MeetUp group: http://www.meetup.com/Sydney-Illawarra-LETS/events/63383952/

Come along to meet other traders and check out the fancy sign & colourful flyers we got with our grant from the City of Sydney’s Matching Grant program.

Randwick Sustainability Hub are hosting a National Permaculture Day Event. They have invited Sydney LETS to run a mini trading day to show Randwick locals how LETS works.

WHEN: 2:30pm to 4:30pm
Sunday 6 May 2012

WHERE: 26 Munda Street, Randwick.

RSVP at the MeetUp event:

http://www.meetup.com/Sydney-Illawarra-LETS/events/60101632/

Full event details:

http://reduceyourfootprint.com.au/events/permaculture-design-randwick-sustainabilty-hub/

As well as trading there will be:

• to tour our energy and water retrofitted Sustainability Education Hub, and talk with permaculture architect Terry Bail
• to tour the PIG (Permaculture Interpretive Garden) with permaculture landscape architect Terry Bail
• in planting out vegetables and herbs in our Permaculture Interpretive Garden
• for kids activities and listen to solar powered music

Why are we setting up an Australian version of the Community Exchange System?

The CES is growing fast
Up until now 409 trading groups have all been running from the same server. More and more groups sign up to use CES every year, so Tim decided it was time to set up a new sever. Australia has 85 groups signed up to the CES, so it makes sense to start with us. Sydney will be the first group to move to the new server.

Sharing the knowledge & responsibility
At the moment all CES admin and maintenance falls on Tim.  By training up an Australian CES team Tim will have some support, and the system will no longer be reliant on a single programmer. Tim will still be the head honcho, but the Australian team will be able to take care of the basics for Australian groups.

Option to trade with other systems in the future
CES is currently used by 409 groups around the world, but it is not the only software being used by groups like ours. Software such as cForge and Cyclos are being taken up by groups in Europe, South America, and beyond. So Tim has taken this opportunity to restructure the CES to allow for the possibility of connecting up with groups that use different types of software.

What will change?

The Australian version will have it’s own web address and new look front page.

Once you log in the CES  will look pretty much the same as it always has. The only thing missing will be the Offers & Wants listed in other groups. So we’ll be on our own for a few months, but as soon as other Australian groups join us on the new server we’ll be able to see their Offers & Wants again.

We can still trade with members from other groups, we just need to know the member’s number in order to enter the trade. So if you are currently trading with members in other groups you will be able to enter transactions as usual.

When is this going to happen?

We expect the Australian server will be ready in late May 2012. Sydney will be the first group to move over, then we will invite other groups to join.

Permaculture Sydney Institute is a member of Sydney LETS. Prices for some of these courses may be payable in a combination of Operas and dollars, please call or email Penny Pyett for details:

Penny Pyett
(02) 9888 2575
info@permaculturesydneyinstitute.org

Earthworks & Water
26th & 27th May 2012

This workshop will help you understand, design and implement earthworks on your property (large or small) to set up your system well from its foundations, getting the structure and framework right. It will prepare you for future scenarios such as drought; floods; food shortages; and climate change.
Read More…

Permaculture Design Certificate
2nd – 14th July 2012

The very best teachers come together to provide the ultimate Permaculture course experience. Covering the Permaculture Designers Manual it brings together science and the arts and many practical design principles and techniques for living a totally sustainable lifestyle. A must for those that want to work abroad, pursue a permaculture based profession or have a passion to live the ultimate sustainable lifestyle.

Read More…
Cheeses of the World
20th & 21st July 2012

This will be a fun packed hands-on two days thinking about, making and tasting and eating cheese. You will leave the course with the knowledge, skills and confidence to make lots of cheeses. Your home will never be the same again with fresh tasty and delicious cheese that will warm every heart.
Read More…

Heritage Fruit Trees & Pruning
Sunday 22nd July 2012

This workshop will help you understand the value of preserving heritage species; the different types of heritage species; suitability of species to differing sites and conditions; and how to grow them organically, maintain, propagate and plant them.
Read More…

Dates: Friday 26th – Sunday 28th October
Venue: Upper Plenty Conference Centre
Accom: 120 beds available at the venue (very reasonably priced)
Travel: 35 minutes drive from Melbourne Airport
12 minutes from Wallan Railway Station
60 minutes from Melbourne city centre. Car pooling will be arranged.

Set in 300 acres of mostly natural bush this tranquil setting is the perfect place to connect, share & create with one another. Meals are included at a very reasonable cost. Check out the venue at http://upcc.com.au/

Our program will follow shortly. Anybody wishing to talk about a topic at the conference please let us know.

LETS Conference 2012 Organising Committee
Susan Lloyd
ALSA0162

My family and I are currently living in outback Australia while my husband works as a teacher with the DET. Living “out back” of Australia has come with its own set of issues as well as charm and one of the issues is most obviously the distance we are from everything, a four hour round trip to the dentist, four hours drive to the nearest traffic lights and 12 very long hours to the coast. Our three young children have become very adept at travelling for long distances in the car and as a family we now think nothing of a one and a half hour drive to a neighbouring town for coffee!

Being a teacher my husband gets all the usual holidays one would expect and we generally stick around home catching up on things and spending time together during them……. except for the summer holidays, six weeks is a long time to be at home all together, but out in Bourke the summer holidays are seven weeks with the additional week referred to as a “heat week”, and put that along with the 40+++ degree heat we wanted to get away for some of the holiday season, but who can afford a seven week holiday on a teacher’s salary! lol

So with the school Christmas holidays fast approaching and the prospect of spending them in the outback a little overwhelming for this winter loving person I made a mad dash for my computer and searched LETS groups on the CES site.

Previous tries over the years at organising holidays through LETS have always fallen through for one reason or another so I actually didn’t hold out much hope but was pleasantly surprised when I found a B&B owner in Hervey Bay in Queensland happy to host our family of five for three weeks after Xmas with a partial LETS, partial cash deal. Unfortunately as fate would have it the owner had a bad fall and her plans had to be cancelled which of course dominoed to us and I found us back where we started with seven long weeks of hot hot outback summer holidays to contend with….. believe me when I say I was an unhappy camper (or not as the case was).

But I decided to give LETS another try and as luck would have it (thank you!) I found a lovely woman in Hinton, near Morpeth and Maitland, who was going away on holiday and was happy to have us house sit for her. I was pleasantly surprised to be honest as we are not a small family and we have young children (i.e. makers of mess and destruction at times!).

So I was doubly pleased when not long after another woman got in touch to say she was going away and would we like her house in Dungog, about 40 minutes from Maitland!

It was serendipitous.

So once again we were organised for our holiday….. one we could afford thanks to LETS.

So 11 nights in Dungog, a gorgeous little town I might add, and 12 nights in Hinton, another gorgeous little town, with the beautiful Morpeth five minutes away.

We had a wonderful time and I have come back so very relaxed and recharged thanks to my fellow LETS members.

I highly recommend holidaying through LETS and you will find that persistence and flexibility really are the keys. And taking total advantage of being back in a LETS area as there is not one in Bourke I organised some extra treats completely using LETS currency, the children had haircuts, I had a wonderful pedicure as well as a fantastically indulgent facial. We also took the children to a felting workshop through LETS, another great adventure that we all really enjoyed and look forward to doing more at home with our extra packs of felt.

We paid a minimal cash component to cover electricity etc and were welcomed into people’s homes. I feel so privileged to of been trusted with these women’s houses and to get messages and phone calls afterwards thanking me (!) was just the icing on the cake. Thank you to my LETS hosts, you made my family and I very happy, well rested and ready to face another year together as a family. I hope other LETS members are just as lucky as my family.

So go on – get out there and find your next holiday on LETS….. or better yet offer someone their next holiday on LETS.

Korina Ivatt
CCAU0141

OFFER: A holiday in Back O’ Bourke – four bedroom house, huge garden, views of Mount Oxley, 40,000 year old history. An absolute must see.

School holidays if wanting house, anytime if wanting to camp in the garden. Flexible with dates. Rates are negotiable.

(www.backobourke.com.au)

If you want to find out about… or maybe even ORGANISE… trading days, movie nights, clothes swaps, market promos and other activities, please join the group:

http://www.meetup.com/Sydney-Illawarra-LETS/

2011 Australian LETS Conference Report

Each difference LETS group has it’s own way of valuing trades. Some operate in a totally free-market style, some have suggested minimum and maximum rates per hour, others are time-banks which charge 60 units per hour.

Tim Jenkin has done a good job of calculating exchange rates between these sytems, but Sydney LETS is operating a little differently and has wound up being out of whack. In Sydney LETS we value our time equally, and when the system was started in 2003 members agreed to trade at 20 Operas per hour. At the time that was probably close to the average Australian wage, but over time the average Australia wage has increased.

Tim Jenkin advised us to increase our hourly rate to 25 Operas an hour to keep the price of services even with goods, and to ensure a fair deal when we trade with members in other Australian LETS groups.

In June 2011, Sydney & Illawarra LETS voted to increase our hourly rate to 25 Operas per hour from July 1st 2012.

Annette Loudon
SYCE0176