The LETSaholic
Twist This is the information James Taris shared with LETS groups all over the world on his international LETS tours between 2002-2004.
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HERE for EDITORIALS 2001-2003 16 Aug 2009 ZERO-BUDGET FILMS It's not quite LETS, but this year I formed a group that makes films without money. Zero-Budget Films (Z-BF) is a film production group dedicated to offering acting and production opportunities to Shanghai residents. Z-BF aims to produce 2-4 feature-length films per year. This idea developed once I realised I'd travelled to 18 countries without money, published 18 books without money, and performed my play in 10 countries without money. Then why not make a feature-length film without money! The first project for Z-BF is called Everything is Possible, which is based on my stage play, The Glory of Athens. Even though I started shooting it on July 16 and expect to have it finished by the end of August, it's really a 12-month project, as I began writing the screenplay in January and don't expect to have it ready for screening until December - the film editing will probably take about 3 months. Anyway, take a quick look at the Z-BF web site. Both of these web pages have photos of the production in progress. You'll find me looking very different in each scene as I'm acting in 9 different roles. Z-BF
homepage Hope
you have a good laugh! Everything
is possible James JOKE OF THE MONTH Kids in Church 3-year-old
Reese: A
little boy was overheard praying: After
the christening of his baby brother in church, Jason sobbed all the
way home in the back seat of the car. His father asked him three times
what was wrong. Finally, the boy replied, 'That preacher said he wanted
us brought up in a Christian home, and I wanted to stay with you guys.'
One
particular four-year-old prayed, 'And forgive us our trash baskets as
we forgive those who put trash in our baskets.' A
Sunday school teacher asked her children as they were on the way to
church service, 'And why is it necessary to be quiet in church?' One
bright little girl replied, 'Because people are sleeping.' A
mother was preparing pancakes for her sons, Kevin 5, and Ryan 3. The
boys began to argue over who would get the first pancake. Their mother
saw the opportunity for a moral lesson. 'If Jesus were sitting here,
He would say, 'Let my brother have the first pancake, I can wait.' Kevin
turned to his younger brother and said, ' Ryan , you be Jesus !' A
father was at the beach with his children when the four-year-old son
ran up to him, grabbed his hand, and led him to the shore where a seagull
lay dead in the sand. 'Daddy, what happened to him?' the son asked.
'He died and went to Heaven,' the Dad replied. The boy thought a moment
and then said, 'Did God throw him back down?' A
wife invited some people to dinner. At the table, she turned to their
six-year-old daughter and said, 'Would you like to say the blessing?'
'I wouldn't know what to say,' the girl replied. 'Just say what you
hear Mommy say,' the wife answered. The daughter bowed her head and
said, 'Lord, why on earth did I invite all these people to dinner?'
2 Apr 2009 LETS FAVOURS [exerpt
taken from Chapter 2 I SEE THE LIGHT I had only produced the LETS newsletter for a couple of months when I noticed the account balance of one of our members was over a thousand LETS points in debit. That rang warning bells in my head. All the literature I had read about LETS warned of such situations and how ‘the wealth of the local community’ was being sapped by such members who took from the system without giving back. With those thoughts in mind I rushed to the LETS co-ordinator to let her know my discovery. “Sue, one of our LETS members is now over a thousand LETS points in debit. Do we have a debit limit? … Do you want me to freeze her trading account?” “Whose account is it, James?” “It’s Helen’s. She’s over twelve hundred points in debit now.” The next few minutes forever changed my outlook on LETS and had an unparalleled impact on me and my LETS life. “Ah … Helen. Let me tell you a little about Helen, James, but let me precede that with a small observation I’ve made. LETS attracts lots of different people, but they primarily fall into two groups: those who like to help people, and those who really need help. We have a small membership, and most of them are mature-aged. They are our best helpers because they are fairly comfortable with their lives, and if LETS did not exist, they would still be inclined to help others: it is typical of what their generation is used to doing. On the contrary, Helen is a single mother with an eight-year-old child and she recently purchased a house in Brunswick. It is an old run-down house with much need for renovating. These debits are a result of members helping to make her house more livable – turning it from a house into a home. Helen is the other half of the LETS equation: right now she really needs our help.” Sue noticed I needed a little more persuasion, so she continued. “Debit balances can be a real problem in a LETS group when it becomes apparent that a member is abusing the system by taking without any intention of giving back. Now let us take a look at Helen’s offers. First of all she has a piano, and although she does not teach piano lessons, she is offering the use of her piano for anyone who wants to take piano lessons in her home. Secondly, she is offering gardening, which is a high-demand service in our group. When she gets settled in her home, I am sure she will be pleased to help other LETS members improve their gardens. And finally, she is the only member we have who is offering holiday accommodation. She has a little country house near Ballarat that she is happy to make available to our LETS members for a couple of days or even a couple of weeks at a time. I have already been there myself, and it is a lovely place to go and just relax for a while. Helen is not a freeloader. She is currently a mother with a child who needs our help, and once she has settled in, you will see, she will become one of our most active traders.” Then Sue concluded with a revelation that I have since adopted as my own: “James, LETS points are not dollars. They are more like favours. And when you can accept these LETS points as just being “favours” from one member to another, you will not be concerned about the balances on their accounts; either in debit or in credit. And really, what does it matter if Helen is not able to bring her account balance back to zero. I am sure most of our members, especially our helpers, will take pride in knowing they have helped one of ‘us’. These members, you will notice, have credit balances – some quite high – and most have never asked other members for any help, and never intend to. They are Givers and do not really want anything back in return. They are just as excited about giving to our members, as those that are helped are excited about receiving. In their minds, they are simply doing favours for our LETS members, just as they would for their neighbours, families and friends.” From that moment on, I knew exactly what LETS was … at least to Sue and to me and to our LETS members. That LETS philosophy has stayed with me for ten years and it is the key motivation that drives me to be such an active participant in ‘all things LETS’. My understanding of what Sue shared with me in such a caring way was that the LETS account balances were just a record of how much each member was giving to, or receiving from, the LETS group. It was necessary to keep record of each member’s trading activity so they could then strive to bring their balances back to zero, thereby keeping the system as fair as possible for all. By far, the biggest improvements I have seen in LETS groups have come about after members changed their concept of the group’s purpose from that of being a local ‘employment’ or ‘barter’ system to that of being a ‘self-help’ group. Along with that comes a new understanding of what a LETS point really represents: changing it from being an alternative to cold, hard, ‘cash’ … to a much warmer, ‘favour’. (Many
more LETS ideas Happy trading in 2009! JOKE OF THE MONTH Goldfish Burial Little Nancy was in the garden filling in a hole when her neighbour peered over the fence. Interested in what the little girl was up to, he politely asked, "What are you up to there, Nancy?" "My goldfish died," replied Nancy tearfully, without looking up, "and I've just buried him." The neighbour was concerned, "That's an awfully big hole for a goldfish, isn't it?" Nancy patted down the last heap of earth and then replied, "That's because he's inside your stupid cat." 9 Feb 2009 RECRUITING It's the beginning of a new year ... the perfect time to concentrate on recruiting new LETS members. [exerpt
taken from NORMAL ATTRITION I knew that, due to various reasons, losing members was a normal occurrence experienced by any membership organisation. I found that, as it applied to LETS; some members simply moved out of the area making trading difficult, if not impossible; other members got new, or additional, jobs that robbed them of any free time they may have had for LETS trading; and the members who never traded at all – usually thirty percent of the members – did not renew their membership because they did not believe that LETS ‘worked’. So, recruiting new members had to be an ongoing group activity to ensure the growth and survival of the group. Various recruiting methods were used by LETS groups to attract members from their local community. Here are a few that worked well: LOCAL NEWSPAPERS WHAT’S ON SECTION There was usually a Public Notices or What’s On section in our local newspapers. As LETS was only of interest to local people, it was a waste of time and effort to promote our group nationally, statewide or even citywide. We felt that people who read our local newspaper were excellent prospects for our LETS group; they were interested in their local community and would occasionally notice anything unusual – like a group of people in their area who traded with each other without the need for cash! By promoting our LETS trading days regularly in the What’s On section of the local newspaper, we attracted a small, but steady, stream of interested prospects to attend out trading days. They just about always became members before leaving the event. The temptation to join was too great when we told them, “Feel free to browse through the stalls. If you like something, you can become a member today and get it without paying any cash”. Apart from including all the relevant information in our What’s On ads - day, date, time, address, contact name, phone number – including a ‘hook’, that is, something to tempt the reader to want to follow-up on our notice, helped increase the number of responses. Helen
Dew always promoted her trading days [see ‘LETS trading
days’ in chapter 5] in her local newspaper. On Friday, April 4,
2003, she placed the following ad in the WHAT IS ON section of the Wairarapa
Times-Age newspaper, promoting her Monster Garage Sale and my LETS presentation.
[Saturday,
April 5] FEATURE ARTICLE Whenever I was shown a newspaper article featuring a LETS story, I wondered why more LETS groups did not take advantage of that option. It was only natural that the longer we were in LETS, the more likely it was for us to take LETS for granted. LETS, however, was still a very newsworthy topic – as I noticed on my travels around the world. In fact, I made it a standard practise to encourage LETS groups to approach their local newspapers to write a special feature article about LETS while I was in their area; this resulted in a published article most of the time. The approach I preferred was to write a PR article and submit it to the local newspaper encouraging them to print it ‘as is’. Occasionally, my article was accepted. On other occasions it triggered an interest in the LETS group resulting in an interview being arranged with a journalist, and sometimes a photographer as well. The articles usually included reference to the group’s most active LETS member, or a special LETS visitor, or an exceptional LETS trade. Journalists were constantly looking for something … anything! … that would be of interest to their readers. Stories about LETS did that. My articles were about how LETS benefited its members, then I encouraged readers to find out more about the LETS group. A crucial part of the submission was to include a contact name and phone number at the end of the article. The story was then – almost always – published in the next issue of the newspaper. (Many
more recruiting ideas are described in The LETSahoilc Twist.
Happy trading in 2009! JOKE OF THE MONTH Art of Recruiting One day while walking down the street a highly successful executive woman was tragically hit by a bus and died. Her soul arrived up in heaven where she was met at the pearly gates by St. Peter himself. “Welcome to Heaven,” said St. Peter. “Before you get settled in though, it seems we have a problem. You see, strangely enough, we’ve never once had an executive make it this far, and we’re not really sure what to do with you.” “No problem, just let me in.” said the woman. “Well, I’d like to, but I have higher orders. What we’re going to do is let you have a day in Hell and a day in Heaven and then you can choose whichever one you want, to spend an eternity in.” “Actually, I think I’ve made up my mind; I prefer to stay in Heaven”, said the woman. “Sorry, we have rules…” And with that, St. Peter put the executive in an elevator and it went down-down-down to hell. The doors opened and she found herself stepping out onto the putting green of a beautiful golf course. In the distance was a country club and standing in front of her were all her friends - fellow executives whom she had worked with, and they were all dressed in evening gowns and cheering for her. They ran up and kissed her on both cheeks and they talked about old times. They played an excellent round of golf and at night went to the country club where she enjoyed an excellent steak and lobster dinner. She met the Devil who was actually a really nice guy (kinda cute) and she had a great time telling jokes and dancing. She was having such a good time that before she knew it, it was time to leave. Everybody shook her hand and waved good bye as she got on the elevator. The elevator went up-up-up and opened back up at the Pearly Gates and she found St. Peter waiting for her. “Now it’s time to spend a day in Heaven,” he said. So she spent the next 24 hours lounging around on clouds and playing the harp and singing. She had a great time and before she knew it her 24 hours were up and St. Peter came and got her. “So, you’ve spent a day in Hell and you’ve spent a day in Heaven. Now you must choose your eternity,” he said. The woman paused for a second and then replied, “Well, I never thought I’d say this, I mean, Heaven has been really great and all, but I think I had a better time in Hell.” So
St. Peter escorted her to the elevator and again she went She saw her friends were dressed in rags and were picking up the garbage and putting it in sacks. The Devil came up to her and put his arm around her. “I don’t understand,” stammered the woman, “yesterday I was here and there was a golf course and a country club and we ate lobster and we danced and had a great time. Now all there is, is a wasteland of garbage and all my friends look miserable.” The Devil looked at her and smiled. “Yesterday we were recruiting you. Today, you’re STAFF.” 
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