Well, I can’t say my experience with GFRF so far has been a runaway success, but it hasn’t been a resounding failure either.  All in all it has been close to business as usual.  It will be interesting to see how things develop as I continue on with using GFRF in my clinical work.  I have some ideas to spark things up a bit there which I will look at implementing in the next couple of weeks.

In the meantime though I am ready to embark on phase II of my experiment.  I am going to expand my GFRF offering to include the next set of workshops I will be teaching.

I have three workshops scheduled in August, one on qigong, one on self defence, and one on breathing.  They will be listed on an online events directory, so this should expose a reasonable number of people to them and also to the GFRF concept.

I am a little concerned about the outcome, as I have put a huge amount of work into preparing the material for these workshops, and quite a bit of work goes into delivering each one.  For me to re-coup the opportunity cost, or the time cost of having spent so much time on these which has meant I have not been working on other things that would pay me, I really need to be paid quite well for them every time I deliver them over the course of several years.

Will people pay/contribute enough when attending these workshops to make them viable for me?  I don’t know.  There is a tendency here in New Zealand to contribute minimally to things that are perceived as ‘free’ or ‘community’ events, or even some idea that somehow someone else is paying for them (which is often the case through grants etc), so therefore the attendees don’t need to.  Of course I’m trying to get past this idea into having people understand that the value of something is not determined by the price, but they themselves can determine the value to them, and they should exchange based on that value – within what they can afford.  This would mean that people pay different amounts for something according to how useful it is to them and according to their financial situation.  It also means that they are realistic about the cost of provision of whatever it is that they are receiving and understand that for that thing to continue to be offered those costs need to be met.  Quite simply if those who use the service or whatever it is offered don’t collectively contribute enough to meet those costs, then it will no longer be able to be offered (as the person or people offering it will run out of resources).  This is the case with these workshops.  I am not wealthy (far from it) and able to do all this work as a fancy.  I have bills to pay just like everyone else.  If I am not able to receive enough money for delivering them, then I simply won’t be able to continue to offer them on a GFRF basis.  Either I will have to stop offering the workshops or go back to charging a set price to bring in enough money.

Operating in a GFRF way makes the individual very powerful, they essentially vote with their money (or other resources).  If they want something to continue – they contribute a reasonable amount so that it can continue or even grow.  If they do no want something to continue, they just pay less or nothing for it and it will quickly shrink or cease.  You might think this is the same as a conventional economic arrangement, but there are some significant differences which I believe makes the GFRF concept a much more effective way for people to shape what goes on in their society than a set price approach.  I’ll discuss these differences and there implications in future blog posts.

I believe that what I offer in these workshops is valuable to people.  The feedback I have received about them has always been universally positive.  But will people contribute enough on a GFRF basis?  There are a number of ways this could happen.  Either the average amount paid could come out close to what I would usually charge ($100 per workshop, which I think is good value, I know of other people who charge about $300 for similar workshops).  Or seeing as people can pay whatever they like for the workshop I could have more people attend – which would mean that a lower average contribution would add up to me still receiving about the same amount of money.  This would maybe happen if people attended who previously would not have been able to afford to attend, but take the opportunity to make the most of the GFRF system.

I would be happy with either of these scenarios.  I’m still a bit nervous about it though.  It is a radically different way of doing things than people are used to.  I also realize that some people who might have attended may not attend if they are uncomfortable with paying this way.  I expect to a large degree the success of the workshops will come down to how well I communicate about GFRF to those who are interested.

Well nothing ventured nothing gained.  I am sure I will learn a lot from this experience.  I really want to be able to offer as much of what I do as possible through GFRF as I feel good about working in this way, as it makes what I offer affordable to everyone, and I believe it can do this while also providing me with what I need.  In a way it is a great natural leveler, and naturally creates a type of social equity which is sadly lacking in our current environment.  But it is hard when this concept is so different to what people are familiar with.

I will report back!

Also if you are interested in these workshops there are basic details here: http://longwhitecloudqigong.com/calendar/

I will also put links to more comprehensive details in the comments to this post once I have listed the workshops on the online events directory.