Hello Everyone,

This letter is an update of the community currencies project and community way. It is also a letter of appreciation for all of the people who are involved in making this project work, new and old.

Things are moving along nicely with the ccp. Partially due to the very successful SCAN conference last weekend, but also because it seems that people in the community are beginning to pay attention to the `cc' project and seeing the value a local money system in our community will have.

Michael was in town last week. Part of the reason he came to Santa Cruz was for the SCAN conference. He gave two workshops on Sunday, as well as speaking at the plenary on Sunday morning along with Bill Monning. The attendance in the community currencies workshops both Sunday morning and afternoon was impressive (if I do say so myself). Out of those workshops we now have a few more people involved in our working group, very dynamic people. These new folks are quite anxious to get going and, I must say, speed has picked up considerably in this past week.

As our group has grown, and will continue to grow, our sporadic meetings have now become weekly. We've decided to meet every Monday evening at 7:30pm. As of now we meet in a private home. We will need to find a public space to meet very soon, hopefully one that is not too expensive. I will see about regular availability at Louden Nelson. If any one has other suggestions please let me know. We would like to keep the meeting on Mondays 7:30-9:00pm.

The community currencies project (ccp) working group has grown to about a dozen people. The ever- growing list is as follows:

• Tom Shaver - will be soliciting businesses. This is the job that no one really wants to do, it's the toughest job in the project and most people don't have the time or inclination to do it. Tom WANTS to do it. Bless his heart. And thanks a million.
• Steve Orsolini - is interested in marketing and presentation. Possibly dealing with media. Very exciting.
• Savanah - presentation, finding backers, maybe fronters? Possibly maintaining the `cc' web page on the Sustainable Quality Alliance web site.
• Kate Hitt - local small business owner, a very exciting addition to our group.

The old stalwarts:

• Charlotte Spitzer - in from the beginning with nothing but wonderful support, from allowing us to use her home for ALL of our meetings to being the first financial backer of this project.
• David Ratcliffe - utterly enthusiastic support, another financial backer, and may help us with our web site.
• Carl Wilson - has been working hard with us from the beginning doing technical writing, he is also a financial backer. Carl suggested we be involved in the SCAN conference and did everything he needed to do to make it happen. But, this is just the short list of his endless contributions.
• Andrea Wilson - financial backer, and a fine artiste.
• Dave Koresel - in from the beginning. Dave was involved in `cc' when he lived in Tucson. He's helping with the budget and introduced Community Action Board (he works there) to the idea of `community way' as a method of fundraising. They like the idea. And we like that.
• Joe Barbara - another from the beginning supporter.
• Vic Desotelle - in from the beginning, is finding ways that Sustainable Quality Alliance can help support cc.
• Monica McGuire - in from the beginning, continuous support
• Michael Linton - well, what can we say about Michael.
• Eva Brunner - coordinator and all `round girl Friday

Other supporters include:

• David Sweet financial backer, project support Darrell Darling - financial backer, project support
• Peter Dittler - financial backer, project support
• Don Weiss - invaluable advice, support (and we hope to lure him into the working group one of these days). Don was involved in the currently postponed Time Dollars project with Paul Lee.

(A note: Michael and I attended the community currencies conference in Chicago early June. We met Edgar Cahn, the grandfather of Time Dollars. Edgar is a wonderful man who is very willing to come to Santa Cruz to work with us when we (or someone else) are ready to get TD rolling.)

Other exciting things that came out of the SCAN conference: An upcoming article in the Sentinel. A reporter from the Sentinel interviewed several people at the conference including Michael and myself. These were brief interviews to get the gist of what was going on at the conference. The following Monday there was a short article in the Sentinel about the conference, with a couple of sentences at the end about community currencies. Later on that day, the reporter called and spoke to Michael and myself for quite a long time and several times about the cc project. There should be a fairly lengthy article coming out in the paper sometime soon. This will go a long way in getting the word out to the public. Also, it opens up the opportunity for letters to the editor and op/ed pieces. And, we have a community television show scheduled with Charlie Phillips - Voices of the Village - for July 29; this is a live, call in show. And possibly a radio interview with John Laird around that same time. (This is yet to be confirmed.)

Other items:

We have a web site, www.communityway.org. It is currently under construction, but it does have links to other appropriate sites. We are working on it. Check it out.

The current list of Community Service Organizations (cso's) includes the Resource Center for Non- Violence, Youth for Environmental Sanity, and The Santa Cruz Green Party. Yet to be confirmed are Community Action Board, Santa Cruz Y2K Task Force. We will be talking to others as well.

We have opened a bank account at the Santa Cruz Community Credit Union.

We will be sending along financial statements soon, and the budget. And regular updates.

If things seem too quiet or you have questions, need information, are wondering what's going on, please feel free to call me any time. Things are moving along quite nicely, thanks to our dynamic and fun group. Before you know it you will be spending those $cw and having fun and feeling great about it. I can't wait!

Thanks to everyone for making this happen.

Eva