What is Furzedown LETS?

  • Furzedown LETS is a non-profit making organisation set up by local residents and launched at the Furzedown Festival in June 2006. It is run by members for the benefit of members.
  • Furzedown LETS puts people in touch with others helping to match what one person wants with what another person can offer.
  • A group of people get together to exchange goods and services amongst themselves, using a local currency known as the Furze, rather than cash. By joining the LETS scheme you can get things you need or want, do favours for people and make friends along the way. All kinds of skills are both needed and valued.

Who can join?

  • Anyone who lives or works in or near Furzedown. (For information about Furzedown, see the Furzedown Community Network.)
  • All individuals – skilled, unskilled, professional, old and young – are welcome.
  • Businesses, schools and charities are also eligible to join.

Benefits of LETS

  • The chance to make use of a wide range of goods and services usually without spending any cash.
  • Recognition that your skills are valuable whether you are trained, experienced, doing something as a hobby or out of interest or are just naturally talented.
  • Ideas on how to save money and stretch your budget.
  • The opportunity to ask for things you want rather than just those you need.
  • The chance to offer your skills without needing to specialise, allowing you to make use of your creative abilities.
  • Training opportunities - it enables you to try out new ideas, gain new skills or refresh old ones and increase your confidence.
  • And perhaps most importantly, a Lets scheme can awaken a community spirit - it allows people to recreate the kind of communities in which everyone knows and can assist each other in all kinds of practical ways.

The Essentials

  • A Directory of skills, services or goods offered and wanted is available to members online.
  • Members contact each other directly to organise trades / exchanges.
  • Unlike a barter system, you do not have to trade one-to-one for example, you do not have to find someone who needs your services in order for you to use theirs.
  • Every time you trade, you issue a Furze credit note to the person providing the service.
  • No interest is charged on 'debts' or 'credits' and there is no stigma attached to being in debit (within reason).
  • Account transactions are kept and members' balances are available upon request and published periodically.
  • Accounts are updated monthly.
  • If you pay partly in cash and partly in Furze credits, only the Furze part is recorded for the accounts.
  • Members may charge solely in Furze credits or part cash and part Furze. For example a professional may choose to accept a percentage cash to cover their tax, others may charge part cash to cover materials or additional costs such travel expenses etc. You should always agree the actual costs before confirming the exchange.
  • Pricing your goods or services should be fair and reasonable. Bear in mind that over-pricing may deter members from trading with you. 1 Furze equates to £1 approximately. If you cannot establish a suitable rate, you may prefer just to charge a standard 5-7 Furze per hour.
  • Minimum and maximum charges tend to be less extreme in a LETS system than in the sterling economy.
  • Your wants are just as important as your offers in LETS.
  • There is an annual membership fee, which is a bare minimum of just a few pounds, in order to make the scheme accessible to everyone.
  • All credits and debits in the Furze units are interest-free.
  • For a limited period, everyone who joins as a full member will automatically be credited with 5 furzes.
  • Only the account holder can issue the Furze currency from their account.  
  • Members do not have to take up any particular request to trade.

Why do I need to pay to join?

  • There is a small annual fee of £5 per person or £10 per household (concession rates are £2.50 and £5, respectively).
  • This fee covers the essential costs of running the scheme, such as the printing of leaflets, etc.
  • Members organising the scheme are not paid a cash salary for their time and efforts.
  • We do not charge additional fees per transaction, so no matter how many times you trade, you pay just the annual membership fee.
  • The membership fee entitles you to access the directory and trade with other members using the LETS Furze units rather than cash (although sometimes members may ask for part payment in cash in order to cover materials and tax liabilities).

Tax in a Nutshell

  • The vast majority of LETS trades are non-regular activities of different kinds (gardening, babysitting, fixing a bike, etc.)
  • When the total personal turnover of these is small (below any tax thresholds) they are not of concern to the taxman and are considered favours for friends.
  • As a general rule, individuals may be liable for tax on profits if they are providing in volume regular commercial services (for example, a self-employed plumber). Generally these people ask for trading partners to pay a proportion in sterling to cover the tax requirements. People in this position might want to join in a personal capacity as well as a commercial capacity.
  • Furzedown LETS does not take responsibility for a member's tax - each member must take responsibility for his or her own tax position.

Issues still to be resolved

  • We need to work out a way for people who do not have access to a computer to use the scheme.
  • There is a system for trading with members in other London-based schemes, which we need to look into.

History

  • Setting up the scheme developed from an idea of a Furzedown resident who wanted to start something that could help promote the kind of mutual support and neighbourliness that was common 50 years ago, but seems to have become rarer with the pace and upheavals of modern life. We looked into joining Wandle LETS, but concluded that a locally-based scheme would be more effective.
  • The term LETS was coined by Michael Linton, British man living in Canada in the 1970s but the idea has been around for 200 years or more.
  • In the UK, the first schemes started in the 1980s. As a result of recessions and crashes in the 80s and 90s, interest in these Local Exchange Trading Schemes grew.  By the mid 1990s, there were several hundred active LETS groups with a total membership of over 20,000 people.

Guidelines

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