Support your local Community Centre
When I was in the RAF I became friends with an elderly London chap, and, although it seems like stereotyping (what can you do when the stereotype is true?), he was a very sharp, chirpy, cocky Cockney but he knew his stuff, certain things anyway. He told me of what he and his group of friends had done a few years previously to raise money to buy a new roof for their local community centre in the East End of London, a place he went to as a child and was still a vital amenity in the eternally poverty stricken area he was from. The building had been condemned because of the roof which was in a very bad state of repair, and the local council would not or could not pay to have it fixed; nor were frantic appeals to local and national government offices and even charities to any avail; it was condemned, that was that - or so it seemed. . . .
Jake (not his real name), heard that all was lost during his Christmas leave at home. Then he heard on the radio that a European financier and entrepreneur was making millions, bucking the global trend; the world was deep in recession yet this man was raking it in. ‘How?’ thought Jake. He listened to every news item on the man and his increasing fortune until it faded from the top spot, then he read up as much as he could on this person and then he sat in his room for one full week with only days to go before the final day before time ran out for any viable solutions. He finally emerged, pale and even sickly, but he had an idea. His next task was to make an appointment with a people friendly accountant; a man who helped the self employed of the area with taxes etc. Although he did not quite fit the bill as a global financial expert he nonetheless knew his stock-in-trade and the rudiments of major financial concerns, and as Jake trusted him implicitly he duly put his idea to him and asked if the idea was feasible and was it legal? Jake did not get quite the answer he wanted; it was not illegal but it was unlikely to work; however, in the accountant’s opinion nor was it likely to be disastrous for anyone involved. Jake, undeterred, decided to ‘go for it’.
Within a day he had an army of young volunteers willing to carry out his every instruction; he even ensured the group was of mixed race to add authenticity. Jake put up the ‘starter capital’ from his own money; this cost him a month’s pay of just under £135.00 at the time. Each person had a cut of this money.
Ok, we are getting there now. Each day of the ‘campaign’ started with Jake checking currency conversion rates, sometimes this was in a newspaper, other times at a well known Bureau de Change. He then advised each and every one of his team to buy a certain currency with their cut of the money, one simple transaction, but with each going to different branches of the companies, some banks too which were local-ish to them. They then met up at Jake’s home, where Jake gave them new instructions to go back, each one to a different company or different branch again (some as yet unvisited, others simply ‘swapped’ between the team).
To cut a slightly longish story short; as there was much repetition and occasional failures, Jake and his friends bought and sold different currencies repeatedly as per Jake’s instructions; Jake had studied the currency market inside out every day and knew or at least gambled (nothing is certain in this game, not by the second), that he could use this unorthodox method of making money, or at least he hoped this would be the case.
One thing which went unexpectedly in Jake’s favour; one company in question suddenly and unexpectedly had a commission free sale, this was in the middle of the campaign which had not quite worked to date, although neither had much been lost. But the commission free offer soon put them ahead of the game and they stayed there.
They did have some problems. Although it was neither illegal nor unknown to those selling foreign currencies at that time, the requests to buy one currency and pay with another and not with Sterling, did raise eyebrows more than once; this was due to the ‘cut’ of the person making this request. The era of ordinary people travelling almost at will to all points on the globe was, although not far off, still not quite the norm at that point and such transactions which were requested were often carried out while the cravated or dicky-bowed cigar smoking Terry Thomas style lounge lizard sat in the back office with the branch manager, chewing the fat over a brandy. To have someone in a duffel coat and National Health glasses with one lens broken and patched up with a sticking plaster asking for Roubles while brandishing Punts was very very unusual.
Some of the team members, as well as Jake, were occasionally caught on the hop. Not all bureaus or even banks held the full range of currencies in stock, there and then (this is still true to a lesser degree today). Snap decisions had to be made; order and accept the waiting time or just leave it and walk out rather quickly. Two of the transactions caused an irreversable loss, in a way; the currency being purchased would not be ready until the last day for the community centre to be saved had passed. The two team members were so nervous they just agreed and paid up.
One branch manager became suspicious. Time and other considerations meant one single branch was used more than Jake had wanted to or envisaged and so the police were called in. They wanted to know why a Turkish Cypriot was buying Greek Drachmas and paying for them with French Francs. (The Francs aside for a moment) – this was unusual at that time although not unknown, but what made it more so was the manager knew that more than was allowed of a foreign currency in cash to be taken abroad at that time, had been accrued, seemingly by the same person. Quite luckily no charges were brought as the lad managed to convince the police and the branch manager that it was like Romeo and Juliet; he couldn’t help it if he loved a Greek Cypriot girl; he further convinced them that the excess of cash was to help finance two trips not just one, and that he was so besotted he borrowed the Francs off a French student, (there was one such person in the team). The police had to admit that even if they had not believed these explanations, the only proof of a crime was the excess foreign currency and this went on all the time unchecked anyway.
They did it. Jake, with the help of his team, had made enough to then pay a local builder a retainer; the builder then went with Jake to see the local council officer in charge of these issues and informed him he could fix the roof quite easily. The council agreed, the builder fixed the roof and was then paid in full. The community centre was saved and is probably still going today, many years later. Jake also got his initial investment back and there was still enough to pay for a full night’s celebration for the team at a local pub.
So there you have it, one way to keep your local community centre open. Sadly though, it is but a rare success story. The global financier mentioned earlier may have managed to make millions (later, billions) but using the more conventional money markets and not the High Street Bureaus de Change, and an inspired Jake may have followed in his footsteps in a micro-cosmic fashion; but I am sure there have been many similar attempts at this, for good and not so good reasons; (and most probably valiant failures), which do not make the news nor passed on by word of mouth.
Finally, using the currencies involved that are still extant or perhaps replaced by the Euro, I replicated the ‘campaign’ as far as I could, online, three times in all. My best effort of the three saw my pretend / cyber £135.00 become a cyber debt of £0.00024p - and this was with making it commission free!
Hats off to you, Jake, you worked a miracle.
