RE~INVENTING THE NETWORK

Let’s put the lessons we have learned from our six-year RiverHOURS movement to work for us!

by Karen Harding

You might think that the RiverHOURS in your hand are a paper currency, but you would only be partly right. Or you might think that the real RiverHOURS are the flow of services and goods that they represent, but you are still only partly right. The most important part of RiverHOURS is actually the network of people who create and use that flow. Now that our Trade Directory has moved online, we have an opportune time to review, renew, and enhance our ‘network of people’ connections.

Our goal back in 2004 was to have 100 members in order to launch the RiverHOURS system, by printing the money and a quarterly Trade Directory. Over the years 176 individuals and businesses have joined the Gorge Local Currency Cooperative (GLCC); but never all at the same time!

We did not intend to, but by starting so close to the paradigm of ‘money’ as our culture knows it, with a paper currency and advertising listings, we brought along many of the assumptions and habit patterns that are part of our modern money system. Let’s face it, our general money culture is ME thinking rather than WE thinking. Folks who joined the GLCC for RiverHOURS no doubt had the good intention of wanting to change some of those patterns, but old habits can be hard to shake.

Webster’s defines a network as an association of individuals having a common interest and often providing mutual assistance, information, etc. Many folks joined GLCC assuming that our local currency network’s common interest was enhancing our individual incomes as a viable addition to the Federal Reserve Notes (FRN) system. Some joined assuming that this new, relatively inexpensive, avenue for advertising their goods and services would enhance their businesses. Many people with those expectations have been disappointed. Perhaps in examining those ‘failures’ we may come to refine our assumptions to be more realistic, yet still positively worth the effort to sustain this network.

Our most oft heard complaint is:

Public: ”There are not enough places to spend RiverHOURS.”
GLCC: “Oh, so we need more members.”

Public: ”But they need to be members offering goods and services that we actually need!”
GLCC: “Oh, so we need better members, with more basic goods and services.”

Our second most oft heard complaint is:

Public: ”No one is spending RH with me for my goods and services. I got no calls on my listings.”
GLCC: “Oh, so we need better members willing to spend RH on non-basic goods and services.

Contradictory, eh?

Our third most oft heard complaint:

Public: ”I am receiving too many RH, and it is too much trouble to spend them.”
GLCC: “Oh, so we need more members that are willing to make some effort to make the system work.”

How do we nurture a different pattern in our network?

We need practice in using a currency with a larger goal than obtaining the barest necessities for ourselves. What if we took a year practicing trading RH for more than the basics? What if our goal was to make a connection with as many people in the network as possible, trying new goods and services that we had never considered in our oh-so- practical, money grubbing economy? What if our own non-basic goods and service offerings were thereby honed to be more valuable through expanded trading and feedback?

Suggestions

• Get on the RiverHOURS website often, start to see the network for what it is, the energy and creativity of your neighbors through the Columbia Gorge.
• Keep up to date on currency issues, reviewing our articles and reprints on the RiverHours website.
• Seriously consider for yourself or your family, new possibilities from among the network’s current listings.
• Ask businesses throughout the Gorge if they take RiverHOURS, or if they will give you change in RH.
• Make a list of places where you would like to spend RH and approach them yourself on behalf of our network
  (do this more than once to get them acquainted with the concept), thereby creating your own spending loops.
• Limit your intake of RH at first until you develop your own spending loops.
• Above all, do not hoard RH in your drawer out of circulation.
• Challenge yourself or your business with a two week turnaround time from receiving to spending RH.

In exchange for this burst of energy from our members,

• GLCC will lower the annual membership fee to $24 FRN (Federal Reserve Notes) or 2.4 RH. ($2 a month!)
• You will receive 2RH with each membership to issue into the community through spending it on local goods and services
• All memberships will be set to renew in March for the current year
• All RiverHOURS issued to work for our communities in the Gorge are debt free.

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