Work Group Meeting Notes-6/6/2010

[Judith Culver]

On Sunday, June 6, 2010 we had a wide-ranging discussion covering a variety of topics with six people present.

 

Laura brought information from the Green Fest in Seattle.  She spoke with a representative of Responsible Endowments Coalition about their work related to promoting social investment by colleges and universities.  She also spoke to Tim Crosby (?) of Slow Money Alliance’s Seattle group.  He would be willing to meet with us in Bellingham. Laura has also contacted Vicki Robin to discuss setting up personal loans.  

 

We want to promote small, easy steps people can take to improve their financial situation.

 

Topic:  Teenagers/students in debt; problems with lifestyles and credit cards.  Options:  Show films (such as Maxed Out) with open space conversation on campuses in cooperation with student groups.  “Get Your Mon(k)ey Off Your Back”, classes advertised by Sustainable Connections member.

 

Topic:  Local Banking Options, Move Your Money:  Interview local banks and credit unions to gather comparative information.  Provide this info to consumers at fairs, etc. to encourage local banking.  Build on foundation of Eat Local, Buy Local, now Bank Local. Have a Move Your Money Day. 

 

Topic:  Use many routes to communicate with people, not just Internet.  Include bulletin boards, Western Front, other newspapers.

 

Topic:  Local Investment.  “Bring your money where your values are.”  There is interest in creating a local “Transition Fund”.   Find a way to create a local fund to invest in transition work by making loans available to small transition-related businesses.  This could be for-profit or non-profit and would pay interest to investors. We would need to locate a financial institution that would sponsor this kind of a fund, vet borrowers and assume the risk. 

 

Topic:  Local Loans:  We again discussed local loans to help people end credit card debt, including borrowers’ collectives and lenders’ collectives.

 

Action:  We will interview local banks and credit unions to determine their investment policies and the extent of their support for the local community.  The results will be used to provide info to people about local banking options and, eventually, inform our Transition Fund project.  At this meeting we developed a list of questions. We made a list of banks/credit unions to start with and volunteered to conduct the interviews.

 

Laura will set up next meeting.  Note: This will be on Sunday, June 27, 1-3pm at the Co-op Connections Building.

[Laura J Sellens]

:)