Hello and welcome to the second edition of the FairCoop bulletin. As you can see we’ve kept true to our commitment to non-spammyness but now the time is right for another batch of updates and exciting news in the FairCoop universe.
1. Welcome, Bienvenido, Benvenue, Willkommen, benvenuto, Bem-vindo
We’ve made “Welcome” pages in different languages, to facilitate your introduction in the language that is easier for you and to make you feel right at home.
- Este es el enlace para informarse en castellano ->/groups/faircoop-community/welcome/forum/topic/bienvenida-en-castellano/
- Ce est le lien pour apprendre sur FairCoop in Francais ->
- Este é o link para aprender em FairCoop in Português -> /groups/faircoop-community/welcome/forum/topic/bem-vindo-em-portugues/
- Hier ist der Linkum sich auf deutsch zu informieren -> /groups/faircoop-community/welcome/forum/topic/willkommen-auf-deutsch/
2. Winter solstice summit
FairCoop members having a Fair dinner!
To kick off, we’re very excited to tell you about our Winter Solstice Summit, where a bunch of the FairCoop gang got together to talk about the current state of the project as well as what’s in store for the coming year.
The get-together was very fruitful. We started by talking about what we’ve achieved so far, while determining our weaknesses and strengths. This led to a series of discussions on Communication, FairCoin, FairMarket, and Reputation and Trust, among other things. Click on the following link to get a general overview of the summit: /groups/faircoop-community/forum/topic/winter-summit-overview/
3. Getfaircoin.net
January 13th marks the launch of GetFaircoin.net
This new website provides an easy way to buy Faircoins using different national currencies, like EUR / USD / CNY / RUB / GBP / INR / NGN / BRL / MXN as well as with other popular payment methods such as wire transfer, credit card, Paypal. Eventually, you’ll also be able to buy and exchange Faircoins in the physical spaces which will be established by FairCoop’s local node network.
Getfaircoin is backed and managed by FairCoop. Getfaircoin will charge 1% for every transaction, and this same amount – in Faircoin – will go to the Pooled fund of FairCoop’s ecosystem to cover operational running expenses. In the case of the physical exchanges in local nodes, this charge will go straight to the nodes themselves.
Get involved, and don’t forget to get your first Faircoins! They’ll come in handy for when we launch the FairMarket!!
4. FairMarket
FairMarket is currently in development and we are considering ideas about how to manage this important resource for the FairCoop ecosystem. See this summary -> /groups/fairmarket/forum/topic/fairmarket-meeting-summary/
FairMarket will use the tool #exchange from Wezer – a specific distribution of Odoo for coops and collaborative communities created by the collective Valeureux. This is the first step of the ongoing partnership agreement between Wezer and FairCoop which we hope that will make further collaborations possible in the near future.
In order to advance the process of setting up FairMarket, we are putting out a call for people that want to be involved in some necessary tasks like: Python development, admin management, beta testing, graphic design and others. If you want to be involved please write to coop@fair.coop
5. FAQ
FairCoop is, by nature, a complex project. It’s ambitious and far-reaching by nature but, hey, if you really want to change the world, why be coy about it?
Nevertheless, we want to be able to communicate what the project entails in the clearest way possible and, to that end, we’ve compiled a series of recurrent questions we’ve come across, along with the pertinent answers. We want the FAQ to be an ongoing project so, if you’d like to add any questions or expand on the answers already featured, please contribute to this thread in FairNetwork.
Here is the first published version of the FAQ -> /questions-and-answers-a-faircoop-faq/
6. Roar Magazine and Commons Transition
Reflections on a Revolution stands out as one of the best independent journalism platforms of our time. Focusing on the development and growth of the radical democracy movements which have arisen from the 2011 protests, ROAR features in-depth content and quality writing that frequently surpasses most contemporary coverage of these issues.
We were honoured to be asked to write an article about FairCoop for them. You can see the results here, follow this link: https://roarmag.org/2015/01/faircoop-cooperation-new-economy/
Commons Transition is a database of practical experiences and policy proposals aimed toward achieving a more humane and environmentally grounded mode of societal organization. Created by our partners at the P2P Foundation, it features both FairCoop and the Catalan Integral Cooperative as partner projects.
Additionally, they have just published an exciting new interview with Enric Duran, talking about FairCoop, P2P ventures and the Commons. You can read the full interview here: https://commonstransition.org/fairness-and-the-commons-an-interview-with-enric-duran/
7. Ecosystemic council
Bram Crevits
Given the lack of debate on the document called “Ecosystemic Decision Process”, the Ecosystemic Council has decided to test it as a useful provisional document, before it receives enough attention to make voting on it democratically viable.
The document remains open for discussion by whomever would be interested in contributing to this debate:
/groups/faircoop-community/forum/topic/methodological-document-from-the-ecosystemic-council/
– Bram Crevits has recently joined the Ecosystemic Council. See his bio here in the Ecosystem Council site.
8. TASKS specifically needed to continue improving FairCoop
- Communication, specially with FairCoop frontpage
- Web designer
- Web admin & community manager
- Graphic designer (familiar with WordPress)
- Development: php and Python
- Project managers: organisational skills
Contact us at coop at fair.coop or in the FairNetwork, if you think that you could help!
9. Survey
In FairCoop, community comes first. If you check the links for the summit, you’ll see that we’ve repeatedly discussed participation and user experience. Rather than make assumptions, we want to ask you directly about your experience with FairCoop. To do so, we’ve created the following survey:
/faircoop-survey-january-2015/
Please answer the questions as best as you can, so we can all make FairCoop as user-friendly as possible. Thanks!
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