Promote your event here.... Size A colour 50€ ttc includes: ad design, ‘What’s On’ listing + coverage on Facebook
American Show 13 & 14th May At La Commanderie, Ensigné Organised by American vehicle club USRIDERS 79, the show gathers American vehicles and vintage cars (Cadillac, Buick, Chevrolet, Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Renault, Peugeot, Simca, Mercedes, Alfa Roméo Porsche, Rolls Royce, Ferrari, Lotus, Austin, Plymouth, trikes, Harley), plus westerners, pinup, rock concert, country music and more. Show closes with a concert by Eddy Mitchell on Sunday afternoon.
24th-27th May - Festival de la Deferlante For 23 years, 10 seaside resorts on the Atlantic coast have agreed to host an original and free cultural and artistic program in spring (La Déferlante de Printemps) and in summer (La Déferlante): Saint-Brevin-les-Pins, Pornic , Saint-Hilaire-de-Riez, Saint-Gilles Croix-de-Vie, Les Sables d’Olonne and Notre Dame de Monts 2016). In the past these events have covered artists in the fields of Street Arts, Circus Arts, Theatre, Dance, Song, World and Current Music. This cultural festival begins on the weekend of the Ascension (24/25th May): La Deferlante de Printemps is dedicated solely to Street Arts. Programme available at www.ladeferlante.com
by Fran Ashworth
The Local Currency is in Circulation!
H
ave you seen it? Used it? I’m really impressed, thought it would be Micky Mouse money but it has a watermark, metal strip, hologram and serial number. The main difference is it has an expiry date but you just swap out-of-date for new. If you can’t read your date it’s probably my fault as after the first few thousand my wrist was aching! Yes I’m one of those daft people who volunteered to sort and stamp the notes! The members of Gatin’émois, the association behind the idea, are predominantly French. This is not through any feeling against other nationalities but because they haven’t really known how to get others onboard. It struck me that many British people over here are running small businesses and might profit from being part of the local money system. What’s it for? Well it’s to encourage local small enterprises (I was really surprised to learn how many other little areas in Europe have started their own currency). I get very discouraged to find small shops opening and then disappearing again within a couple of years, and I expect it is the same with many small workshops and trades too. If you become part of this you agree to take the currency, called ‘Gatinelles’, instead of Euros in payment for your days work or your produce. Then you use the Gatinelles to buy things and services which you need from other small businesses who have joined. So you can see that at the start (and that is definitely where we are!) we need to get a lot of people involved, spread as widely as possible across the area. Otherwise there are going to be folk with the new notes but nowhere to spend them!! If you become the most popular business in the area and have too many to spend you can change them back to Euros at head office (small transaction fee) and the association is negotiating with the treasury people to enable businesses to pay their local taxes in Gatinelles (not finalised yet). It costs 50€ to join but several businesses have already noticed new customers who have come to them because they accept the currency. There are other benefits of membership like discounts on GatineBox and GatineMarché products and occasional social functions with free drinks and food. You’re not a business but you like the idea? Great! You can still join in by buying Gatinelles at a Bureau de Change, usually a shop which has agreed to perform this extra job (click the link to see where these are). They are sold in prepacked envelopes (guess who helped stuff envelopes?) and if you decide to buy a 100€’s worth you will find 105 Gatinelles in your envelope... nice little extra.... and if you have a Credit Agricole card, which shows you are a ‘societaire’, then you get 107€ because CA is backing the scheme. You have to buy a temporary membership card for 1€. This is meant to encourage tourists to buy them and spend them during their holidays (temporary members can’t change them back to Euros again) but it also appeals to me... who could argue with getting 105 or 107 worth for your hundred! You have probably realised that I rashly volunteer for things! Well my last mistake, when they were talking about how expensive it would be to translate the website into English, was (you guessed!) to offer to do it myself. I have since been shown the new site and it is huge.... and I do have other things to do, like run two gîtes. So is there anyone out there who wouldn’t mind giving up a bit of their time to help me? Either in the translation or just typing (I can translate reasonably quickly but my typing is very slow) Please? Anyway, if you want to help, join, or just have questions you can email me on franashworth79@gmail.com. I probably won’t know the answers to financial detail questions but I can find out and then maybe I could put together a FAQs sheet to add to the website. www.gatinemois.com/la-gatinelle-monnaie-locale/ The Deux-Sèvres Monthly, May 2017 | 9