The Credit Commons: Bridging the Gap
Join Matthew Slater, Ross Gentleman and Tammy Lea Meyer as we explore the Credit Commons. Matthew Slater presents a proposed system of economic exchange for people in the solidarity economy. Based on the principles of reciprocal trade, it proposes a scalable, bottom up approach to money creation. The foundations are already laid for these commons based practices through business barter systems, LETS and Timebanks.
Matthew Slater has been building free open source software for Community Exchange and living as a digital nomad since 2008. In 2009 he co-founded a Swiss nonprofit, Community Forge, which hosts that software for 150 community exchange systems. In 2013 he co-created a trading floor game with Sybille Saint Girons and in 2014 he built the timebanking site for New South Wales government in Australia. Since 2015, he has been hosting the Money and Society MOOC, co-authored by professor Jem Bendell. Intakes for the free and fantastic course are in February and August. Check out ‘matslats’ blog right here.
Ross Gentleman is the GM and CEO of CCEC Credit Union, Canada’s activist Credit Union. Ross has been involved in CCEC since their first annual general meeting in 1977, where he was invited to join the Board. He has played many roles in the organization over the years, most recently as General Manager. Ross has also served in the regulatory environment, having worked for the Financial Institutions Commission, and has rich knowledge and experience in governance, regulation, operations and leadership.
Tammy Lea Meyer is a advocate for social and economic change. She sits as co-chair of the board of directors for CCEC Credit Union, and helped organize Living the New Economy in Vancouver in 2013. She was a participant in the Next Edge Festival in Montreal, and at the Impact Economy Summit in Whistler, BC, where leading thinkers from all over the world came together to collaborate towards economic empowerment of the commons. Tammy thinks about the space where media, democracy and the economy meets, and seeks to empower changemakers through peer to peer conversations ‘for the record’.
Welcome to our exploration of the Credit Commons.
You can check out the white paper on the Credit Commons here.
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