On the side Blue text = a clickable link. To highlight pictures please click them When writing about the movie Ascension last week, I referred, on the side, to the website 'reasons to be cheerful'. Later, I searched that site's 'About' and found the site to be a non-profit on line magazine founded by David Byrne of Talking Heads. It "....tells stories that reveal that there are, in fact, a surprising number of reasons to feel cheerful." I liked that, so I signed up for their regular newsletter My first one came yesterday. It's about Time Banking. An explanationI didn't know the term 'Time Banking' but then I read this defining paragraph from the newsletter. 'In brief, a time bank does with time what other banks do with money: It stores and trades it. “Time banking means that for every hour you give to your community, you receive an hour credit,” explains Krista Wyatt, executive director of the DC-based nonprofit TimeBanks.Org, which helps volunteers establish local time banks all over the world.Nobody keeps track of the exact number, but thousands of time banks with several hundred thousand members have been established in at least 37 countries, including China, Malaysia, Japan, Senegal, Argentina, Brazil and in Europe, with over 3.2 million exchanges. There are probably more than 40,000 members in over 500 time banks in the US.' And in New Zealand
However, in answer to the question 'What is Timebanking' the site is more explicit: 'A Timebank is a reciprocity-based work trading system in which hours are the currency. With time banking, a person with one skill set can bank and trade hours of work for equal hours of work in another skill set instead of paying or being paid for services.' And in answer to the question: 'Isn’t it just the same as volunteering?' the Auckland site says: 'Not entirely. It is kind of reciprocal informal volunteering, where each person's hours spent helping is not just recorded but these hours become a way to ask for help in the future. This changes the nature of the exchange as the recipient of the service can then help another person or group in the future. Timebanking can create a more empowering model than the more usual way we volunteer.' Have a look at thisOn YouTube there are a number of Timebank videos. This one from Sheffield, England, is short, perky and effective. Founding principles
PrecursorThough I didn't know what Timebanking was when I received the 'reasons to be cheerful' newsletter, I realised as I read, that Marion and I experienced something similar in the 1970s when we first came to Ngaio, the Wellington suburb where we still live, though in a different house. We took part in a baby sitting scheme. If one of us spent 3 hours looking after another couples's children we got 3 hours credit. Then when we needed a baby sitter, we rang around the group to see who was free for the day, time and hours we needed and reserved them. Either the father or the mother did the job and booked as credit the hours they spent. They then used them to cover some free time of their own with some other group member. The scheme worked really well. Surely that was very close to Timebanking. Perhaps we'd call it restricted sphere Timebanking. NowLinked and run by computer I see how appropriate a Timebank could be in my neighbourhood – and in neighbourhoods everywhere. Some neighbours already help each other but a Timebank would coordinate and systematise. Indeed it would promote more connection and friendliness. Maybe it would also prompt self worthiness by showing individuals they have skills and knowledge others value. Maybe someone would even want me to show them something really useful, like how to play trills on a tambourine! The Timebank might start with 20 members and could grow to 100, 200, 300, 400 – who knows. Would it tend to kill the tendency to monetise everything? Well in these days of tight money and high expense that would be a good thing wouldn't it? □ John McInnes Friday 19 January 2024 ##########
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