How LETS Works

Cathy joins LETS by filling in a membership form and paying her joining fee. She is allocated a membership number for trading and entered into the on-line trading system so she can access her account details and list her offers and wants.
Cathy checks the Offers and Wants of other members and notices that Joe is offering to supply firewood. She phones Joe and agrees to pay him 70 units for supplying a load of firewood.
On delivery of the wood Cathy fills in a transaction slip and gives it to Joe. Joe enters the transaction into the on-line trading system. 70 units are deducted from Cathy’s account and credited to Joe’s account.
Joe needs to unwind so he arranges to get a massage from Erica. Joe agrees to pay Erica 30 units for the massage.
Erica does not have a computer to enter her transactions so she asks Lorna to do it for her. She negotiates with Lorna a fee for her services and Lorna enters it into the computer along with Erica’s transactions. She also prints out a trading account so that Lorna has a record of her activity in LETS.
The SISLETS market is on next week so Lorna books a stall and plans to sell some of her sewing and advertise her sewing & mending services. The stall will enable her to earn units as well as purchase items from other members.
MARKET DAY! This is an important occasion for LETS members to trade and meet other members of the group. Some members have stalls with goods and others use the opportunity to promote their services. All stall holders (sellers) have a trading sheet. Buyers enter their details on the sheet so that the transactions can be entered into the LETS on-line trading system.

LETS is a system run by members for members. It is the seller’s responsibility to enter transactions into the trading system. It is the responsibility of members to list their offers and wants in the on-line system and keep them up to date so that all members are informed about what’s on offer. AND SO IT CONTINUES ON ...

VALUE OF A ‘UNIT’: A 'Unit' is not necessarily the same value as a 'dollar' - a 'Unit' value is negotiable via the two parties concerned. Sometimes a transaction may be agreed upon in part cash (dollars) and part Units - it all depends on the agreement made between the two parties or the value established by the seller.

LETS is not about profit, wealth accumulation and greed, but about trading between members, sharing of resources and community strength. Your contribution, no matter how small or large, is therefore essential to the system and valuable.

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