A: We’re a group of people who want to help build a commons economy in Stroud.

A: It’s an economy in which the essentials, like housing, energy, water etc. are owned by the community itself.

A: To provide jobs, affordable housing (with secure tenancies) and utilities, and to keep wealth in the community, rather than have it siphoned out by shareholders, banks or absentee landlords.

A: It’s an old concept, but with new ideas around obtaining infrastructure without debt, strong asset locks to keep assets in the commons, reducing the need for bank-issued money, and federation to achieve scale. More information here.

A: Think of them as ‘future-use vouchers’, that allow infrastructure to be brought into the commons without incurring debt, by issuing vouchers sold at a discount. Imagine a community energy group wanting to put up a wind turbine. At the moment, to get the funds, they need to go into debt or give away equity (which means the infrastructure will belong to investors or banks before long). Instead, they issue energy-credit obligations – vouchers denominated in kWh, not £ (which makes them inflation-proof). People will want them because they’re sold at a discount, and they provide a store of value – security for old age or sickness. UCOs can work in every sector of the economy (starting with housing commons, because everyone needs housing, and the housing market is so broken). More here.

A: It’s a way for small businesses to trade without needing money or banks. Members get an account, set at zero. When they sell, they get credits, when they buy, they get debits. There are limits to how far anyone can go into credit or debit. It’s really just a way of accounting for who’s done what for whom, not (like money) something that’s extracted from communities and concentrated. More here. A credit clearing scheme can be the precursor to a local mutual credit network.

A: It’s something the banks do, to reduce the need for money to pay debts. But we can do it too. Imagine A owes B £10; B owes C £10; C owes A £10. If everyone has all the information, it can just clear, without needing money to pay debts. For networks of trading small businesses, this can be done with algorithms, covering larger and larger areas. It reduces the need for fiat money and banks. More here.

A: We’re organising a sociocratic network of ‘circles’ for people interested in various sectors of the economy. Specialists in those sectors and in the commons will come to Stroud to run co-design sessions with the people in the circles to get them up and running.

A: It’s a governance / decision-making system. The basic idea is to create small groups (or ‘circles’), that are able to have deep and meaningful conversations. Ideally, those circles will contain 4-7 people – small enough that people can really listen to each other. Circles are linked together to provide governance for all sizes of organisation. More here.

A: Similar principles, yes; but co-ops need to go into debt with banks to be able to obtain infrastructure in the first place – for example, a housing co-op would need to go to banks / mortgage providers to be able to buy housing to co-operativise. These new commons ideas mean that we don’t have to be in hock to banks to bring infrastructure into the commons. More here.

A: It’s started already. There’s a housing commons group, a climbing commons group, a land commons group, an energy commons group; we’re launching a ‘commons lab’ to design commons models and produce educational materials; and there will be a Festival of Commoning in Stroud in September (More here).

A: Subscribe to the blog, and we’ll let you know when there are new developments. Right now, we’re looking for: volunteers for various commons sectors, including housing, land, climbing and energy; potential tenants and investors for housing commons; investors for climbing commmons; members of business networks who might be interested in a credit clearing / mutual credit scheme. When commons groups are up and running, there will be paid jobs – managing the schemes / maintaining houses and infrastructure etc. More here.