Fernanda Powers
Executive Director
I was born in Belgium and raised in Michigan but have lived in Colorado since 1999 and consider it my home. I have been active in various causes since I was a teenager and now firmly believe building community is foundational to all forms of improving our world. I became interested in community currencies several years ago when I was made more aware of the hidden costs of national and global businesses outcompeting the small local businesses. Learning about the US monetary system convinced me that an effective community currency needs to be intrinsically valuable. I am happily married and mother to three children.
Blog Posts by Fernanda Powers
Upcoming Barter Networking Meetings
Here’s the heads up on upcoming barter networking meetings. The next one will be this coming Wednesday, April 25, at the North Fort Collins Dazbog Coffee Shop (401 Mason Ct #105, Fort Collins, CO) We will meet in the downstairs conference room. More information about this meetup can be found here: http://www.meetup.com/
The May meetings will be held on May 9 and May 23 at the South Fort Collins Dazbog Coffee Shop (2733 Council Tree Ave., Fort Collins, CO). We will meet in the conference room.
The June meetings will be back at the North Fort Collins Dazbog on June 13 and June 27. Again we will be in the downstairs conference room.
Please join our Meetup Group for the fastest way to keep up to date on our gatherings.
Come prepared to learn more about Northern Colorado Community Barter, connect with other likeminded people in our community, and if you own a business, you can tell us about it.
Please mark your calendars and I look forward to seeing you all there.
Networking meeting!
Learn how Northern Colorado Community Barter can work for you and your business or charity.
We are piloting an application that will allow you to automatically turn customer sales into silver barter tokens.
When: Wednesday, March 14 at 7pm
Where: Dazbog Coffee Shop 401 Mason Ct. #105, Fort Collins
Bring your ideas, promote your business, purchase barter tokens and more.
See you there!
The Northern Colorado Community Barter Team
PS. Networking meetings will be held on the 2nd and 4th Wednesday of each month at 7pm, location varies. Mark your calendars and we look forward to seeing you!
Meet and Greet Wednesday, February 15
Come meet others in your community who want to trade good and services with barter tokens made out of fine silver–and intrisically valuable currency that stays in our community.
Learn how Northern Colorado Community Barter can work for you and your business or charity.
We are piloting an application that will allow you to automatically turn customer sales into silver.
Announcing our first monthly meet and greet.
When: Wednesday, February 15 at 7pm
Where: Dazbog Coffee Shop 2733 Council Tree Avenue Suite 125
Bring your ideas, promote your business, purchase barter tokens and more.
See you there!
The Northern Colorado Community Barter Team
Tenth ounce barter tokens now available
You can now pick up tenth ounce silver barter tokens at Copoco’s Honey. These tokens are worth ten and work well for smaller purchases. A number of our merchants, including Copoco’s Honey, Lyric Cinema Cafe, and Womb for Growth now accept them in trade for product.
Unbelievable Advertising Rates at the Lyric!
At Northern Colorado Community Barter, we are all about providing value to our member businesses and partner charities. One way to deliver that value is through local advertisers.
Northern Colorado Community Barter has partnered with the Lyric Cinema Cafe to offer an incredible monthly rate to member businesses and partner charities.
Could your business or charity benefit from increased local exposure?
The Lyric big screen may be the perfect place for you to promote it. You can run a billboard style ad or a thirty second to one minute long video commercial. Your ads will show up to eight times a day for an entire month.
Northern Colorado Community Barter business members and charity partners get an unbelievable 34% off the regular price for the package. Not only that, you can pay for most of it with a couple half ounce barter tokens!
To take advantage of the Lyric Advertising Special, contact Ben Mozer at the Lyric Cinema Cafe.
Value of barter tokens has doubled!
Those of you paying attention to the precious metals market know that the bulk price of silver has climbed to 31 year record highs just in the past few weeks. How does this meteoric price increase affect your participation in Northern Colorado Community Barter?
We understand that no business owner or customer wants to have to pay attention to the ever fluctuating spot price of silver, and you don’t. The only thing to remember is that the value of the barter token in the Northern Colorado Community Barter network just doubled. The tokens that say twenty-five will now trade for fifty instead.
This moveup will become official once the 30 day moving average of silver has been at or above $41.50 for 60 days. At this point, all half ounce barter tokens produced will actually say “fifty” instead of “twenty-five” on the back. When I saw that at least one of our participating businesses, Go West T-shirt Company, already values the token at fifty, I decided to go ahead and declare the value to be fifty throughout the network. This allows us to gracefully handle the increased cost of purchasing the tokens from our supplier while still offering a discount to our customers and a donation to designated charities.
Business owners, please begin to offer your products in exchange for the barter tokens at a value of fifty even though they will continue to say “twenty-five” for several more months (or years). Just double the face value you see until you start seeing the same size token with the new value. The good news is that all the tokens you accepted at twenty-five have just doubled in value–an added bonus for getting in early!
Customers, as always you can purchase the half ounce barter tokens at Copoco’s Honey. We now have two partner charities you can choose to support through your purchase.
Are you concerned about having to spend an equivalent of $50.00 all in one place?
Northern Colorado Community Barter is about to introduce a new barter token. It will be a 1/10 ounce of silver with a value of ten in the network.
Businesses can offer products in exchange for the tenth ounce token. These tokens are now available to purchase from Copoco’s Honey.
Just in: Some accounting basics
We on the Northern Colorado Community Barter team have been asked about the accounting side of using the barter tokens for conducting business. We now have some answers for you, thanks to Jill Kuchenski of NoCo Tax and Accounting Service.
Please read her article Bartering – Effects on Bookkeeping and Taxes to get the basic answers. Please post any further questions you have as a comment or contact Jill directly. Your feedback will help us to develop follow up articles.
New Website!
You may have noticed that Northern Colorado Community Barter has a new look. The website got a serious makeover.
The main reason for the new website was that I needed a platform that was easier to work with and easier to promote online.
If you need a website for your business or organization I can tell you with great authority (from some tough experience) that WordPress is the way to go.
I got a lot more than I even thought possible in the new website. The feature I am most excited about is the ability for premium business members and charities to contribute to the blog and event calendar.
Yes, you can share articles, announcements, and helpful tips relevant to your organization right here on the Northern Colorado Community Barter website.
Of course, you will need to register first. If you have not yet added your business to the new site, please take a few moments to begin the process. This will allow you to create your own username (and have the password sent to you by email). An NCCB team member will need to manually approve your record for listing in the directory, but you can immediately begin completing your profile.
If you have never registered with NCCB as a business, you are welcome to register now. NCCB has two membership levels which you can read about here.
If you are interested in partnering with NCCB as a charity, please apply for partnership here.
Be sure to read these three articles that help explain how you can make the most of your Northern Colorado Community Barter membership:
Advertising Through Northern Colorado Community Barter
Search Engine Optimization 101
Additional Advertising Resources for your Business or Charity
I have a lot of exciting updates to share with you in upcoming blog posts. This is an exciting time to be part of Northern Colorado Community Barter. Welcome aboard!
Computer Repair on Barter
Are computer problems getting you down? I am pleased to announce that we now have a computer repair business participating in Northern Colorado Community Barter.
Jerry Patterson, owner of Uncrash PC, can handle just about any type of computer problem you can throw at him. He recently resolved a rather mysterious issue with one of my computers that ended up being caused by a hard drive failure. Not only was he extremely thorough in diagnosing and repairing the problem, he also did an excellent job of keeping me informed during the process and following up with me afterwards.
You can get in touch with Jerry by phone (970-219-8932) or email (sales@uncrashpc.com). He will take silver and copper for his services and cash for parts. You can learn more by checking Uncrash PC’s listing in the Directory.
You can purchase silver barter tokens On Display at (324 Walnut) or Copoco’s Honey (2020 N. College). If you want 20 ounces or more you can contact me directly.
Get Your Oil Change on Barter at Hawker’s Automotive
Hawker’s Automotive located at 1726 E. Mulberry in Fort Collins is offering an oil filter and change for $25.00 or one half ounce silver barter token.
Bill Hawker has over 30 years experience, 19 right here in Northern Colorado, taking care of your auto repair needs.
Purchase your barter tokens at a discount at On Display (324 Walnut) and Copoco’s Honey (2020 N. College) in Fort Collins.
