CRY 2013

About CRY 2013 (Community Reinvestment Year 2013)

==== Some of us have been feeling a bit like the picture above so we decided to put our heads (and hearts) together. Some of us started with ideas about moving our money from the big banks to some of our local cooperative banks and credit unions. Some of us had been working for months on finding local businesses with whom we really wanted to be doing business. Some of us wanted to do more work on developing "The Commons." Someone came up with the CRY acronym; someone else with the idea of making a calendar for 2013; someone knew about a good picture for the cover; someone suggested we use the wiki, and here we are with the Community Reinvestment Year 2013 on the OccupyBoston.org/wiki. Please participate by reading, editing, discussing, sharing, researching, adding new ideas, coming up with new ways to participate, and most of all doing what it is that you want to do to reinvest in your community in 2013. Below are the main sections of CRY 2013. Pick one and explore!

Heading text

[CALENDAR FOR 2013]]THE COMMONSRESOURCES

==

February 2013  Invent and come up with original ideas.

How about starting with the basics of moving your money, which may include any or all of the following?

1. Moving your checking account to a better bank (coop, credit unions, etc.)
2. Moving your savings account to a better bank (coop, credit unions, etc.)
3. Finding a greener credit card and/or sending your mega bank cards back to the bank with a note of explanation
4. Investing in more responsible/sustainable/community oriented mutual funds, bonds, or microloan organizations, RSF Social Finance or Community Investment Notes from nonprofit Calvert fund or kiva.org, for example.
5. Buying shares in local coop utility, food stores or a direct offering.
6. Moving your debt from the big banks (car, house, credit card) to better banks, credit unions etc.
7. Shortening your debts as much as possible.

March 2013  Indulge in Music Art, Dance, Painting, Poetry, Meditation, Yoga, or just read a good book.

• Sharing these on the wiki to get everyone's right brain etc. really involved in the creative process.
  

April 2013    Hoarding Hall of Shame Month! 

1. Publicly expose banks and corporations that are the worst hoarders.
2. Encourage enforcement of IRS regulations against hoarding.
3. Develop legislation to encourage more investment in local communities.
4. Clean-out your closets, cupboards, bookshelves, garage, and donate to your local food bank, thrift store, friends 7 neighbors.
5. Have an exchange or gift party (cloths, books, jewelry, white elephant.)
6. Commons ... (Please see comments in last section on "commons.")

May 2013 Start a long term project that will have a big effect in the long run

1. Develop a public bank on the state level.
2. Develop other models for local credit unions, community interdependence funds etc. 
3. Start a community garden, yearly (or more often) seed exchange, book swap, canned food swap. 
4. Other examples:

• cascadia,
• Invest Local Ohio,
• The NH community Loan Fund, 
• MtBizworks NC,
• Calvert Fund,
• kiva.org
• local coop utility,
• food stores
• direct offering
  

June 2013 Sponsor Lectures and/or workshops teaching folks how to help guide any organization they are in contact to invest its money more responsibly. Don't forget to do it yourself with any of the following:

1. Your place of worship
2. Your town, state or federal government
3. Your Alma Mater and local schools
4. Your union
5. Your pension fund
6. Your state government
7. Any other organization you are in contact with

July 2013 - Reinvest your Home

1. Pay off your mortgage or remortgage with a better bank
2. Buy a second property and rent it out
3. Buy a home for your children
4. Invest in energy efficiency and /or alternative energy
5. Start or upgrade your vegetable/herb garden
6. Make better use of your land and any other resources associated with your home.
   

August 2013 Organize Festivities, Celebrations, Banquets, fiestas....

1. Have a big party and invite everyone you know who is doing anything connected to community reinvestment to come and share/network/celebrate!
2. Serve local food, include information about your farmers, chefs and farmers market or coop.
3. Host a celebratory book, clothes, tool, or toys swap.

September 2013  Attend to details - tidy up.  

Think about all the changes you want to make toward community reinvestment this year and finish up what you can this month.

October 2013  This is a good month to begin new relationships

1. Have a yard sale and meet your neighbors. Tell them you are engaging in an alternative economy, handout info.
2. Shop local with folks you get to know and tell your friends about it.
3. Shop second hand.
4. Engage in alternate exchange (livelihood or trade) systems: time-share, local notes, gift economy. (time trade circle.org, Charles Eisenstein)
5. Find a green, socially responsible and 'outside the box' thinking financial adviser.

Ideas for Making Use of This Calendar

1. Structure this as a class, discussion, support or accountability group.
2. Urge solo practitioners to journal their experience, join a chat, or blog.
3. Overlay each month with a weekly gathering, for instance 4x/month meet and

• 1st week - Strategic Planning, create a to do list.
• 2nd week - Research & Network.
• 3rd week - Take Action on anything from your to do list that you haven't started, continue or discard all others.
• 4th week - Celebrate, share successes, recap.

Comments Yet to be Incorporated

• I have heard micro-credit loans have been dis-proven. Is that true ? I also hear Mondragon is actually a corporation now, not a cooperative. And I hear the time trade circle has been incorporated.
• commons is a way to 'copy write' stuff and 'open source' is commonly held soft ware ... see also, some medicines and windmills ...
• Boston is full of Victorian easements ... the common paths, as well as town greens (grazing land) ...
• Commons is the concept of certain things being "common property"...that which can NOT be taken for private property. It runs back to Roman law and before, Old Testament, MiddleEastern/Asian law, etc, and is now becoming a huge part of the environmental battle and battles for heritage protection, etc. If we can establish a "strong commons" that includes things like "the eco-system" or things more obscure things like "healthcare" or "a healthy food supply", what happens is that we establish our "right" to things. And then if people want to make profit on them, they can be "granted" a permit for whatever, which we can revoke, if we're not happy. So if someone pollutes the water, they have "taken" our water...that "taking" has more rights legally than someone simply releasing some pollutants against a regulation. Our current system of law is based on colonies being carved out and given away to governments who were/are put in place to enforce the rights of those colonial corporations to extract resources. Colonists took over the country and gave away the "right to commerce". That is illegal, by the way, in a country with a strong commons, and many consider the entire US to be an illegal government, accordingly. Latin American countries are falling over themselves adopting Commons language, by the way...to keep the capitalists at bay. Anyway, count on me to fill in that part. I'll probably link it to the wiki page that we started working on Commons on. I thought I'd already installed that link. I'll check again.
• Ah, commons.... "Land" and "money" are the only two common goods. You may want to read my "The economics of jubilation' that you can find at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=856905