Group of Positive Money supporters in Newcastle had been offered space at the Green Festival in Leazes Park on 2 and 3 June 2012.
We set up our stall in one of the marquees, with Ralph’s big banner planted outside the most prominent entrance.
Despite the rival attractions of street parties and Jubilee events on the telly, the festival was very busy, especially on Sunday, when even the sun put in a surprise appearance. We went through a lot of leaflets (only offered to those who showed an interest) and we were particularly happy to be asked to come and give talks to several groups – including the Quakers at Newcastle Meeting House, and a group in Hexham. It seems that a good many people are now becoming aware of the money issue, sometimes in a confused way, but sometimes having a pretty good grasp of the fundamentals.
Several people returned to the stall for a second discussion, after taking information away and mulling it over. One man came back particularly to look at the graph showing comparative levels of money creation by the BoE and commercial banks over the past forty or so years.He just couldn’t believe the enormity of the present system, with even quantitative easing only showing up as a little upward twitch on the tail end of the chart, and kept chortling to himself as he viewed the damning evidence of our national insolvency. (We agreed with him that you have to laugh, or you’d cry.)
This particular graph was a very useful addition to our table-top display, as it illustrates our present impasse with shocking clarity.
A high spot for us was Saturday afternoon when Richard (who fortunately has no problems with sitting cross-legged) gave a talk on the basics of money reform in the Permaculture tent. Among the group he spoke to was a student going up to Durham University in September who was keen for Joe to give a follow-up talk there next term. We have a couple of events coming up in Durham over the summer, so it would be good if all this resulted in a new group emerging there.
Anyway, it was a really worthwhile two days – lots of fun, as well as an opportunity to meet all sorts of lovely people, and to swap and share ideas with them.
We are so lucky, too, to have Ralph, with his industrial-class printer, providing us with a supply of leaflets, not to mention the eye-catching banners; and Gerard, who is great at finding out about different events where we can air the money-reform issue.
