Green Dollar Exchange offers currency option

Consider this.
The New Zealand Stock Exchange has crashed and the national economy is plummeting toward disaster.
Here in Wairarapa, it's a nightmare situation for everyone well, maybe everyone except Keith Sawyer and 80 others.
He and others in his online community could fall back on what he calls a "complimentary currency" the Wairarapa Green Dollar Exchange.
The system allows users to buy and sell goods and services on the exchange website with Green Dollars, a nationwide movement and alternative currency introduced to the region in 1990.
Some of the items currently posted on the site include a black full-length prom dress, native seedlings, firewood, sheepskin rugs, dolls, lounge chairs and advice on everything from horticulture to sales and marketing.
"When a user buys an item for, say, 10 Green Dollars, they receive an email that that amount has been debited from their account.
"You could say it's kind of like TradeMe, just not with Kiwi dollars," Mr Sawyer said.
Self-sustainability is a major strength of the concept.
"Whatever wealth is generated within the system stays within the system.
"Who can say when or if it might happen, but if the national or international system breaks down because of issues like peak oil, alternative economies like our Green Dollars would prove great fall-back positions."
Mr Sawyer, formerly a teacher at Wairarapa College, began co-ordinating the exchange four years ago.
"I didn't really know anything about it at the time.
"What first struck me was how friendly and committed the people involved in it were."
Based from an office at the Wairarapa Community Centre in Masterton, Mr Sawyer's role involves speaking in workshops, organising events and overseeing the exchange from his computer.
However, if two users had a disagreement, the exchange's three "guardians", each long-time members, would resolve the issue.
He said those viewing the exchange as a "magic button" to generate extra money for little effort should look elsewhere.
"You really get out what you put in. And it can be great if you put the work in."
He said membership has been stable recently, but could not speculate whether New Zealand's much-vaunted recession would bring more patrons.
"However, the conventional wisdom is that when economic times are good, people don't involve themselves with Green Dollars because they don't need to.
"But when belts tighten people begin to look at other options."
Some incorrectly saw the exchange as a bartering system, as a concept directly connected to the New Zealand Green Party and as something that sits on the "economic fringe".
"Really, it can be as mainstream as you want it to be."
n Wairarapa people can learn more about Green Dollars at two upcoming events.
The group will have stalls at Carterton's Daffodil Day event on Sunday, September 14, and have organised a talk at the Senior Citizens Hall from 7pm on Wednesday, September 17.
The website can be viewed at www.ces.org.za