Meet Brixton

After the success of the first Meet Brixton event in December, we’ve organised a second with the Brixton Bugle team on 18 January at the Dogstar. It’s a meet up/tweet up for the people of Brixton to come together to have a beer and share their love of the place where they live, work or simply admire. Very laid back – and everyone is welcome! Come for 7.30pm. More details here.

Meet Brixton

We are organising a meet-up/tweet-up with the Brixton Bugle team for Brixton-based twitterers, facebookers, blog readers and any others who fancy it. It’ll be on Dec 7 at Mango Landin. Check out details here, but most importantly, come and say hello!

Brixton Pound e-currency

The Brixton Pound Community Interest Company launches an e-currency today called the ‘B£e’, which will allow people to pay by text or online using the local currency. Customers buying B£e will do so via an online bank transfer and can set up a standing order so that they always have money in their Brixton Pound accounts. As an incentive to use the e-currency, they will receive a 10% bonus when they sign up. They can then pay Brixton businesses via text message. The aim is to make it easier to spend Brixton pounds, thereby strengthening the network of local independent businesses signed up to the Pound.

How does it work exactly? If I wanted to pay with B£e at Mango Landin, for example, I would simply have to send a text to the e-bank with details of the payment included. The format of the text runs: ‘pay’ + customer pin + the business username + amount to pay. Both the customer and the business would then receive texts confirming the payment and their new account balances.

Alternatively, the business itself can send a text to the e-bank requesting a payment from the customer. The customer then receives a message asking them to confirm payment with a temporary password and their own pin number.

The online account is password protected and texts and payments are encrypted using SSL (Secure Sockets Layer), with a transaction limit of B£e1000.

By introducing the paperless scheme, the Brixton Pound CIC hope to bolster the circulation of Brixton pounds. For businesses, it means a secure, low cost way of accepting electronic payment, especially if they don’t have a credit/debit card machine. And they can now accept higher transactions in Brixton pounds than might previously have been possible, since most people are unlikely to carry large amounts of the paper currency on their person.

Businesses can either change their B£e back to sterling for a 10% exchange fee or avoid the fee by re-spending their Brixton pound with other Brixton businesses, thus consolidating the network of local companies trading with each other.

The paper currency – which is 2 years old today – will continue to run in its usual way. Almost 200 business are now signed up to the Brixton Pound and B£35,000 are in circulation. The notes are being reissued at the launch party tonight with a new design.

The launch party is taking place tonight at Electric Brixton – you can get your free tickets here

Go here for more information and to register for the e-currency

For any local businesses interested in signing up to the Brixton Pound e-currency, there will be training days provided. Email business@brixtonpound.org for more information.

The Weekend Ahead in Brixton

Thursday: The weekend starts early (as usual) in Brixton with the Open Decks night at Mango Landin’. Bring four of your favourite records and compete to win. Or just go and dance to someone else’s favourite tracks.

Friday: Plan B is hosting the warm-up party for the World B-Boy Championships, which will be taking place at Brixton Academy on Sunday. Some of the event’s DJs are on the line-up tonight, including DJ Renegade, Skeme Richards and Shortee Blitz.

Saturday: OxJam take over Windrush Square with a host of local businesses, market stalls and music to prepare us for their real ‘takeover’ of Brixton’s music venues on 23 October. For food: Now it’s no longer summer, it’s back to hot curries, plantain and lots of rice at Negril for the evening.

Sunday: All that partying/eating/more partying. It’s time for something a little more sedate. Ruth Miller of the London Mural Preservation Society is leading a Brixton Mural Walk with a pub stop along the way. Meet at 1pm at Stockwell Tube Station. She’s written some lovely blog posts about the murals here.

If you’re still in party mode, then head to Brixton Academy for the actual B-Boy Championships from 2pm-9pm.

And, in a weird musical fusion moment, end the day at Ritzy Upstairs with some country music from Ryan Carr and guests.

Urban Green Fair, Brockwell Park, 5 September

Some photos from the Urban Green Fair last weekend…

Not massively busy this year...but that's Mango Landin's bar under the tree

Cafe Cairo

The Brockwell Bake

Mango Landin's rum and mango

The week ahead

Top tips for this upcoming Brixton week:

All week: Take a look at the ‘In Public’ exhibition at Photofusion Gallery. An exhibition of street photography celebrating the 10 year birthday of the In Public photography collective.

Tuesday 8: Open Mic night at Ritzy Upstairs – sing, tell jokes and perform poetry to your heart’s content. Or just listen to others do it.

Thursday 10: Late night opening at the ‘Brixton Village’ in Granville Arcade. This week’s event is hosted by the School of Everything, a website that matches people who want to learn a skill with people who can teach it. So go expand your minds – who knows, you could learn anything from karate to beekeeping. And there’s fantastic food in the various new restaurants to boot.

Friday 11: The legendary Top Cats and DJ Natty Bo return to Hootananny (and for free too)

Saturday 12: Globoloco take their world music beats to their monthly party at Mango Landin. Reggae, ska, boogaloo, Latino hiphop – it’s all there.