This evening, 4 Nov 2010, we held a meeting of the incipient depositors association to which we had invited all the people who had signed up as depositors in the previous system or who had signed up in the new system or had indicated a willingness to join as founding members.  20 people attended and Rick said he had me print the Agenda on card stock because it would be an historic document.  Everyone signed the back of one of the agenda's and Rick assured us it would someday be quite valuable. 

The purpose of the meeting was to get a sense for what a meeting of the trusted persons would be like and after Rick described 100% participation, proxies and trusted persons, and after John gave a short talk on spiritual economics we assumed the role of trusted persons and heard 3 not for profit projects present their case. 

The first one was Paul Delauriers and the old Great Barrington Firehouse, which the town is offering to Co-Act for $1 if they decide that we can manage to repair and maintain it.  Paul presented the need for a community space, for the local food pantry to relocate, for artists space and gallery, for community meetings, for dancing, and education, and a home for the South Berkshire Community Division of the Common Good Bank, all of which the Firehouse has ample room to host.  In the question and answer period we spoke about the need for a truly community space, not restricted to a particular not for profit mission, but available to all, and that such a place would become the center of the South Berkshire Community.  This is urgently needed if Great Barrington is to avoid becoming increasingly like Aspen, CO  – Souless, commercial, but pretty and well presented.

Anaelisa presented Manos Unidas, a social and cooperative organization creating a multicultural community for immigrants, and all underheard, underrepresented peoples.  Manos Unidas is a mutual help and resource for people to improve their situation.  Manos Unidas Multicultural Educational Cooperative, Inc.  is in the process of buying a 100 year old house in Pittsfield to provide coop housing for low income people and a communit space and commercial kitchen for its members.  She also passed out the bi-lingual news paper they published, which includes lots of art and articles generated by the members.  Incubating cooperative ventures to empower its members would also be a function of the Common Earth House and Mother Garden.

Nick Stanton described the need to come up with proposals for our local brownfields site, right next to the Housatonic River.  The EPA is currently remediating the site and it is owned by the Great Barrington Community Development Council and he was proposing a commercial kitchen which caterers and food processors could rent to prepare catering meals or small scale food processing.

After asking if there were any others that should be mentioned, we invited Tom Pecarraro to talk about his Wyomonock Center, and he told us about the educational possibilities for sustainable living and organic agriculture and about the West Side Farm Project which he started in Pittsfield's west side.

After each presentation we asked the group if they thought it should be on the penny vote  ballot for the first year's profit distribution, and all 4 projects made it onto the list.

We chose the NRDC and Social Forum as the national charities, and Doctors without Borders and Heifer International as the international charities which would be on the penny vote ballot.

We then went on to lending priorities with the aim of coming up with a ranked choice ballot to guide the CGB.  After making it clear that this was only advisory and that the bank would still need to be a normal bank, I made an impassioned plea that we not do mortgages or car loans so that we could concentrate on import replacement.  We then voted on proposals for inclusion, such as sustainable agriculture and alternative energy, etc.  We also talked about what to exclude, such as speculation (money making money) and anything to do with war making. 

Rick and I had agreed that we would not overburden the meeting with the mutual credit ideas and replacing the existing government system, but they crept in and will be the main topoic of the next meeting.

We ended the meeting with Rick describing our current campaign, and I believe everyone who was not already a founding member signed up or promised they would.  There was also general approval for the way the meeting went – it wasn't boring – and many agreed that it gave a sense for the potential of the Common Good Bank to transform society.

As people were leaving some of us began to formulate a press release and strategized about getting press coverage for this meeting and our ongoing development. 

Rick and I will formulate the ballot and in a week or two submit it to all elligible members for their consideration.

Thus was the South Berkshire Depositors Association inaugurated.