Why the Lewes Pound matters – A personal investigation and cartoon

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Post by Patrick Crawford, director of Lewes Pound CiC

On the first Saturday of every month the Lewes Pound has a stand at the Farmers’ Market.  This is a rich and rewarding opportunity to engage in a wide variety of fascinating conversations – about the purpose of the Lewes Pound and why people use the local currency.  Understanding money is difficult because money means so many different things to each of us.  So what are these reasons? And what really matters to me?

At the start this seemed a simple task to articulate why a local currency was a good thing.  However, I soon realised how difficult it was both to collate the views of others alongside the academic arguments; and also how to present my thoughts and feelings in an easy to understand way.  I realised the starting point had to be my personal view, a view that the Lewes Pound was more than just money.  I decided that a cartoon format could use words and images so adding feelings to the logic of words.

Once I had the first draft I shared this with friends and at the Lewes Pound stall.  This was to test my views knowing that I was unable to reflect everybody’s individual reasons.  Further, it was a joy to discover that the Lewes Pound notes reflected the three main strands of a sustainable life:

• LP10 The Linklater Pavilion represents the environment and planet.
• LP5 The myriad of cultural skills, artists and fun drawn by Michael Munday represent the social and people aspect of our lives.  (As does the bonfire scene on LP21 but that goes without saying.)
• LP1 Harveys Brewery represents the economic and profit need – and the social one too.

All these seemed to be encompassed by the blessing of Health, Wealth and Happiness!

The result is the attached cartoon, knowing that there is room for improvement.  The faults are mine but grateful thanks to everyone who provided their feedback.  The cartoon ends with the title of Tom Paine’s book It’s Common Sense.  And it is: our choices matter, so let’s choose wisely.