Seedstock – Currency for a more connected, sustainable and happier future
June 7th, 2012 | Currency, D.I.Y., community currency, local currency, seedstock, Vancouver
Dear allies for a more connected, sustainable and happier future,
It may not quite feel like it at the moment, but summer is inching closer by the day, and so too is the day when Vancouver will have it’s first community currency at last! The Seedstock team has been hard at work over the last few weeks, making great strides towards a summer launch of Seedstock. As you know, Seedstock is a community currency initiative for Vancouver and the Lower Mainland that is designed not only to help catalyse a more vibrant, connected and resilient local economy with greater opportunities for the talented people of this region to earn a livelihood by sharing their gifts, but will generate important community-supported resources for non-profit initiatives to boost our local food security, foster a vibrant and supported creative community, and improve health and wellness in this city.
We would like to provide you with a brief update on how we are making out ( Click here to watch our update from the Great Bear Rainforest Celebration):
On May 16th, we kicked off our crowdfunding campaign to raise the seed money we need to bring Seedstock to fruition with a fun-filled event at the HiVE, a space that in itself represents the kind of collaborative culture that Seedstock wants to help foster in this city. The response at this event was incredible – not only was the excitement among the participants palpable, but altogether nearly $4000 was pre-exchanged for Seedstock that evening, giving our campaign a terrific start! The people who pre-purchased their Seedstock at this event (including many of you reading this!) will be among the very first Vancouverites to get Seedstock to use after it launches this summer!
We are aiming to pre-exchange (or “predeem”, if you will 🙂 ) another $10,000 for Seedstock to help finance the next phase of the project (already begun) as we sign up the first participating businesses, advertise to the public and get the first run of Seedstock printed, and in order to facilitate this we have set up an Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign at www.indiegogo.com/seedstock. In addition to laying claim to the first Seedstock to come out and helping make it all happen, we have a number of great perks for you to check out as well! You can become an investor in this non-profit project for as little as $10, and if you are unable to contribute cash at this time you can still help by sharing our campaign with your friends and networks! But hurry – our campaign only has 11 days left to go!
We’re also happy to announce that our official website is now live! Please have a visit at www.seedstock.ca. The website will answer many of the questions you may still have about how Seedstock will work, and we haveset up a forum called SeedsTalk where you can ask further questions or start a conversation. We’ll be adding great new content regularly, so come back often!
We were happy to meet so many of you last Saturday at the Great Bear Rainforest Celebration at Trout Lake, where we handed out hundreds of seed bombs and planted the seeds of community currency in every conversation. In case any of you were wondering what a community currency like Seedstock has to do with protecting the Great Bear Rainforest, please check out this article – there’s more to it than may meet the eye!
What’s next? Well, we’re now starting to build up our list of businesses who are interested in participating in Seedstock, so you think that might include you or your business, please read more on our website, and be sure to let us know you’re interested!
With many thanks and much anticipation,
Jordan Bober, Andrew Perry, and the whole Seedstock team
P.S. Find us on Facebook!