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Let's Make a Deal - Part Two

© Donna Dunn

If you walked into the local branch of a national store and offered to pay for your groceries with the home-made soap you lovingly crafted, you'd probably be laughed off the premises. At the very least.

But if you took your soaps to a local gardener who had an appreciation and a need for your wares, you might very well walk away with a basket of fresh produce.

And that's the basis, and the beauty, of barter for the average consumer. The premise is simple: trade something you have, for something you want. And its practice can be simple, too.

For example, once a year I get involved with an organized barter system – 10 people are involved, and we exchange cookies. Dozens and dozens of cookies. Each person makes 10 dozen cookies or sweet treats; one dozen is used for sampling, and the remaining nine dozen are distributed to the other members of the exchange.

The exchange has many benefits: if you bake, you know it's generally easier to bake lots of one type of cookie, than to bake small amounts of many types. After the exchange, we each still end up with nine dozen cookies, but what a wonderful variety! When company comes by, I can treat them to an assortment of tasty sweets, something that would be unheard of if I had to bake all those different varieties myself. And when we get together to trade all of our cookies, we also enjoy a pleasant social evening together.

Of course, our cookie exchange is probably barter at its most basic. We trade cookies for cookies; no record-keeping is required, and as a group we just want to exchange with each other, so membership fees are not necessary to cover any costs of record-keeping or promotion.

But a growing number of consumers are re-discovering the benefits of barter with the more organized and diverse opportunities offered by local barter clubs. These groups generally have a few common characteristics:

• A specific local currency is often used to make trading and exchanging easier.
• A membership fee is usually required to cover costs.
• Although the clubs are consumer-based, their members benefit if local businesses can also join and accept the group's currency for at least partial payment for goods and services.

Where I live, the local Bow Chinook Barter Community charges a nominal fee that covers a newsletter, a local currency called Hours, and the group counts businesses as well as regular consumers among its membership. As well, members can choose to accept cash, as well as the group's local currency, in their barter transactions.

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