Table of Contents

Brief update on the Sheffield group

presenter: Peter Verity, coordinator of the Sheffield group of Positive Money supporters

Peter's slides can be downloaded here > Peter - New year new challenges.ppt

After welcoming our visitors, Peter showed a few slides to illustrate how the local group has attempted to ATTRACT and INFORM understanding-seekers during 2014.

Are we attracting and informing as well as we could? Is there anything new we should be doing (and anyone to do it?)

New Year, new challenges

presenter: Dora Meade, national network coordinator

Dora's slides can be downloaded here > Dora - New year new challenges.pptx

Dora started her talk with the questions "how did you come to care?" or "why did you come this evening?"

Those present introduced themselves, and entered discussion. There was interaction throughout Dora's talk, and in the brainstorming session at the end. For clarity in what follows, audience contributions are in italics.

Introduction

• Dora explained the origins of Positive Money, and explained how 97% of money is created.
• Lending is principally to the housing (40%) and financial (37%) sectors
• We are trying to mobilise people around quite a complex issue. Only 1 in 10 MPs know the reality of where money comes from
• do we know the breakdown by party? It's on the website
• https://www.positivemoney.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Positive-Money-Dods-Monitoring-Poll-of-MPs.pdf  
• Change will come when expert opinion and public opinion coincide

Progress in 2014

A lot has happened in the 'expert opinion' area

• Bank of England documents support PM's position on how money is created when banks make loans (and destroyed when loans are repaid)
• Martin Wolf - supportive articles in the Financial Times
• Adair Turner - speeches and articles
• Debate on 'money creation and society' in Parliament

and in the 'public opinion' area:

• now 30 local supporters groups, holding over 200 meetups during the year
• International Movement for Monetary Reform
•  In  the Netherlands, a play about money led to demands for a debate in Parliament
• http://www.positivemoney.org/2015/01/dutch-parliament-will-debate-money-creation/ 
• No group yet in Greece! 

How do we engage more people?

• we need to push at the door of our MPs, lots of personal contacts, letters and emails.
• there was some dissent on whether there was any value in engaging the public -
• it's the MPs we need to influence, not ordinary members of the public.
• no -  we need the groundswell, the more their constituents talk to them, the more notice MPs take 
• marketing - we need to boil the messages down to concepts a child can understand 

Plans for 2015

• Online platform (Lumen) for activists, over 200 registered so far
• All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) to be set up
• Manifesto from 11 organisations demanding changes the next Parliament needs to take
• http://www.positivemoney.org/2015/01/transforming-finance-priorities-next-parliament/
• possible inclusion in Occupy Democracy's demands
• http://www.positivemoney.org/2015/01/occupy-democratise-money/  

Brainstorming

• Can the Dutch play be translated into English please?
• Islamic banking - quite a bit of interest in getting a speaker on this
• There are lots of issues - such as climate change - which people are concerned about, but they haven't yet made the link back to money. Changes in these areas won't happen without monetary reform
• Form alliances with these other groups, put on joint events 
• We need PM to produce more specific briefing papers on these issues (eg. "Climate Change and Positive Money", or "Food Banks and Positive Money" - not the other way round!). We need to find the right language, the message needs to be kept simple
• Links with church groups (eg Methodists, Quakers) 
• Street stalls at food banks?
• There are 12,000 bank employees in Sheffield, can we get to them?
• Engage with MPs - imperative

Next steps

• We need to turn these ideas into actions but we ran out of time. The 'core team' will arrange a follow-up session (possibly at our March meetup)

Postscript from Dora

"Thank you to those of you who came to the local group meeting last night, and to the core team and Peter for organising the event. We managed to get stuck into brainstorming some great ideas about what Sheffield Positive Money should do in 2015, unfortunately we ran out of time. 

An event in Sheffield in the run up to the election, presenting Positive Money alongside a prominent local issue, would be an amazing way of getting new people engaging with these ideas. 

I am very happy to support anyone who is interested in organising an event or taking on a new initiative. 

To continue the discussion - here are some questions to consider: 

• Issues - What are the key issues mobilising people in Sheffield right now? How can we highlight the link between these issues and the monetary system? 
• Networks - What groups, networks or associations are you part of? What other groups are active in Sheffield and would be good to collaborate with on an event, meet up or project?
• Messaging - How do we make our message real and exciting for people? How do we link it to the 'everyday' so it doesn't feel abstract and daunting to people?

Dora Meade
Network Coordinator
Positive Money

W: 0207 253 3235

 E:  dora@positivemoney.org
W: www.positivemoney.org
T:  @dorameade