Birthday Party Madness!

On Friday, November 30th, the Time Bank celebrated its First Birthday at Contois Auditorium! Over fifty people attended the bash, including 19 non-members who signed up to join! There was food (delicious soups, pasta, bread, and of course birthday cake), live music and games! Woot woot!

The party was a great way to connect new members to old members as well as to spark interest in the community about the Time Bank. I'm excited to see what services these "newbies" will be offering!

MOVIE MANIA!

This Wednesday, November 7 at 6:30 PM the Burlington Time Banks will be showing the movie Money As Debt. Please click on the link to learn more about this amazing (also short--47 minutes) movie that discusses economics, US currency and other relevant topics.

After the movie there will be a short discussion.

This movie will NOT be shown on TV...if you'd like to see it please come to CCTV at 294 North Winooski Avenue! And this is NOT a time bank members only thing....so please feel free to bring your friends!

Questions about Joining the Time Bank

Is there a membership fee?

There is no membership fee; however, we do encourage members to make a one-time donation of $25. Your donation helps to cover the cost of the time banking software, other modest overhead costs (such as printing), and staff such as an AmeriCorps*VISTA. If you cannot afford $25 at one time you can make multiple smaller donations.

There is also an annual membership fee of 4 Time Dollars. Every three months 1 Time Dollar is charged to your account. Why? Because it takes A LOT of Time Dollars to run the Time Bank. We have some amazing members who earn Time Dollars by providing services for the Time Bank (and you could be one of them!).

How do I use the site once I’ve signed up?

For some brief instructions click here. To view the 25 page User Manual click here. If you ever get stuck just send your coordinator a question at burlington.timebanks@gmail.com.

What if I (or someone I know) doesn’t normally have computer access?

The Fletcher Free Library has public computers available which people can use to search and utilize the Time Bank website. Also, collaborating organizations, such as Mercy Connections, have computer labs which are open to Time Bank Member use. For more information, email burlington.timebanks@gmail.com.

What if I (or someone I know) doesn’t even have access to public computer services? Can I still be part of the bank?

Yes, you can still be a part of the Time Bank! We have a buddy system set-up to give access to those members of the community who do not or cannot use the Internet. If you know someone in this situation who is interested in joining, please email burlington.timebanks@gmailcom to get a list of those who are willing to act as a liaison for them and Time Bank. These 'buddies' will search the site for you and help you make connections. If you are interested in being a buddy, let us know!

What if I don't live in the Old North End?
You can still join! We have members from Winooski, Williston, even Vergennes. Most of our members are from Burlington and many do live in the Old North End.

Burlington Time Banks has one pilot project - the Old North End Time Bank. This time bank is designed to bring together people who primarily live in the Old North End to take care of each other and make their own lives easier and more meaningful. We have dreams of South End and New North End Time Banks. Time Banks in Winooski, South Burlington, and Williston.

Once we have created a vibrant Time Bank in the Old North End we will create other neighborhood Time Banks in the Burlington Area.

Already a Member? How to Use the O.N.E. Time Bank Website

To sign-In:
1. Go to community.timebanks.org
2. Enter your full email address and Password
3. Click Sign In

Placing an offer or request:
1. Click the give and receive tab.
2. Click the category in which you would like to post an offer or request
3. Click the add request or add offer on the top right hand side of the window.

Locate an offer or request:
1. Click the Give and Receive tab
2. Click a specific category, or click view all requests or view all offers
3. When an ad interests you, click see more
4. To reply to a message, click reply now. You will be able to edit a message & send it.
5. Click preview message and check it over before sending

Set up an exchange:
1. When someone is sent a message in response to their service ad or request, they will get an email notification. In the email there will be a link to click on. Once you sign in to the timebanks site you will be brought directly to the message.
2. See if there is a certain date or time to make the exchange. And always feel comfortable asking to meet the person first, especially if they will be providing childcare or transportation. You have the right to exchange with whomever you feel comfortable with, so feel free to decline a request for service.

View member profiles
1. Click Community tab, then on Members
2. Click anywhere in a row to see a member’s profile

Look up community events:
1. Click community tab
2. Click the Events listed on the right to see a fuller description

Recording your hours:
1. Click the my account tab
2. If there has been a conversation going through the site around an exchange, click the record hours button on the right side of the conversation box.
3. If no messages were exchanged for a given service, go to my hours and add time, and enter the appropriate fields.
4. Once the exchange is submitted, the number of time dollars entered will be added to the person’s account that performed the service and deducted from the person’s account who received the service.

To edit or stop a request or offer:
1. Click the my account tab, then my services, then my offers or my requests
2. Find the ad you want to change, and then click edit or stop

View your account status:
1. Click my account tab, then my hours, then view activity
2. To change the date range, use the view transactions pull down menu, and click view

How Many Time Dollars Have Been Exchanged?

The Old North End Timebank started on November 30th, 2006.

Between November 30th, 2006 and December 31st, 2006
8 hours were exchanged between four people.

Between January 1st, 2007 and February 22nd, 2007
113.75 Time Dollars were exchanged.

In the last 30 days
93.75 Time Dollars were exchanged.

Diversity Creates Community

When I was twenty I studied fine arts in Tasmania, Australia. While there, I was able to spend two and a half months traveling the countryside WWOOFing (willing workers on organic farms). I visited a handful of intentional communities - groups of people who come together to intentionally live in community with each other. While intentional communities vary widely in philosophies and structures, most of the people who live in an intentional community share a set of values and ideals.

I learned something truly remarkable living among these various communities. The more homogenous a community was in values and viewpoints - no matter how lofty, ideal, or well intentioned those values - the more imbalance, disharmony and lack of community abounded. It is only within a diverse community that we can find health and balance. No matter how messy and uncomfortable it may be to have your viewpoints challenged and to connect with and comingle with people who are very different from you - to miss out on this opportunity provides you with a half life, an unbalanced perspective, and infinite missed opportunities to expand the possibilities of who you are and what is possible in your community. We are all human. We all share common ground. It is in the struggle to find that common ground, to understand each other, and to accomodate our varied needs, desires, dreams, and passions that we become fully alive.

So many of us march into the world hoping to find community. We have visions for how the world should be and we wish we could mold it to fit our sensibilities. But the goal is not to press our vision upon the world. The goal is to bring people together and through the dance that is human forgiveness and suffering and desire and compromise to create a world that each of us alone could never have dreamed possible.

We are living in a world where a handful of people impose their vision of society on us. Money is concentrated in the hands of the few. Money is an instrument of desire - a tool to make our wishes real. We all have the power to co-create the world we want to live in. However, we have been convinced that we have to be smart enough, professional enough, pretty enough, wealthy enough to do so. That power belongs to a privelaged few. We have been stripped of the tools to come together and exchange with each other to create the world we want to build. Time Dollars is a tool to bring people together. A way to co-create the community we want to live in.

The Five Core Values of Time Banking

Assets
We are all assets, and we all have something unique to give. Every human being has the capacity to be a builder and contributor.

Redefining Work
Work must be redefined to include whatever it takes to rear healthy children, make neighborhoods safe and vibrant, and care for the frail and vulnerable.

Reciprocity
Helping works better as a two-way street because those who receive help earn that help giving in return to another. "You need me" becomes "We need each other."

Social Capital
Being together means being stronger. People earning Time Dollars are joined by their helping actions into a network of support, strength, and trust.

Respect
Respect underlies freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and everything we value. Respect supplies the heart and soul of democracy. When respect is denied to anyone, we are all injured. We must respect where people are in the moment, not where we hope they will be at some future point.

The Geography of Timebanking

Edgar Cahn, the founder of Time Dollars, believes that neighborhoods are the ecological niche of our species. Without safe, vibrant neighborhoods we cannot thrive. Time Dollars are a tool to bring people together to help each other and to help create the kind of neighborhood they want to live in.

Burlington Time Banks seeks to help community members access and create their own timebanks. We have dreams of South End and Old North End Timebanks. New North End Timebanks. Timebanks in Winooski. Middlebury. Rutland.

Burlington Time Banks has one timebank so far - the Old North End Timebank. This timebank is designed to bring together people who primarily live in the Old North End to take care of each other and make their own lives easier and more meaningful.

We are encouraging individuals who live in the Old North End to join. However, as we are a very young community project (the Old North End Timebank launched on November 30th 2006) and a very inclusive bunch of people, individuals who are passionate about the idea are welcome to join the Old North End Timebank to get firsthand experience Timebanking. Then, when a timebank starts in your neighborhood you will be able to join that timebank and hopefully, will be excited about helping getting it up and running.

The Gift of Community

It's late and you are tired. You realize that you forgot to buy milk and without it your fettucini alfredo will be ruined. You throw on your coat and go outside. Your neighbor is sitting on her porch holding a mug close to her face. The steam from her cup swirls into the night as she smiles and wonders where you are going. To the store, you say, for milk. She says, I have plenty of milk. How much do you need? You want to argue, you don't want to impose, but she's already rising, insisting you take her gift.

The beauty of that simple gift is it's open ended, full of possibility. Had you gone to the store, you would have paid the cashier and your exchange would be over. You don't owe the cashier anything and she doesn't owe you. But a gift? A gift promises the possibility of relationship. After that gift of milk, you will be more likely to say hi when you see your neighbor in a store or on the street. And if she ever needs anything in the future, you will be more likely to reach out and give back to her in turn.

In the Timebank, when you have a need, someone gifts you with their time in order to satisfy that need. When you spend a Time Dollar with someone, your debt of one Time Dollar is a promise to give back to someone in your community. Those promises are the heart of community. They are open ended. Full of possibility. You are participating in a gift economy. Anthropologists say that gift exchange is the central feature of any community.

What is Timebanking?

A Time Bank is a community of people and organizations who agree to spend and earn Time Dollars. A Time Dollar is something you earn when you help a neighbor for one hour. You can spend that Time Dollar to meet your needs.

Right now there are 40 Old North End Timebank members offering everything from teaching you how to tie a bow tie to green housecleaning to changing your oil to expressive art classes to basic plumbing.

Time Dollars rebuild community.
They bring neighbors together to help each other.
They make it okay to ask for help when you need it and offer it when you can.

The ONE Timebank is run through an on-line website but it is open to everyone regardless of whether or not you have a computer or are comfortable on the internet. There is a $5 annual membership fee to cover the cost of the website. You are welcome to join the Timebank now and pay your $5 Membership fee later. You can mail a check to:

Burlington Currency Project
1 Steele St., Suite 109
Burlington VT 05401

SIGNING UP:

Go to:

community.timebanks.org

At the top right you will see a button that says, "find time banks". Click on it.

Scroll down until you see "The Old North End Timebank" (it's alphabetically listed under "T"). Click on "Join Now".

If you have any difficulties signing up, feel free to email melissa@burlingtoncurrency.org. Or, if you would like some support in person, we can arrange a time to do that.

Cheers,
Melissa

Invisible World

Our Media Intern made us this sweet little blog to share the story of an unfolding social change movement. Thanks Joanna!

Timebanking is all about valuing and strengthening the invisible economy that sustains our world. Without mamas and papas and aunts and uncles raising children, without all of the investment it takes to keep neighborhoods safe, to look after each other, the fast paced competitive harrowing world of the market economy would fall apart. Everyday we each take care of each other and the corner of the world we live in. Some of us are so busy from stressful jobs and cluttered lives that it is very difficult to care for ourselves and each other. Most of us have few people to turn to when we fall ill, when we need last minute childcare or transportation to buy groceries! We've lost our communities, our extended networks of friends and family and neighbors who are there to support us, watch out for us, and step in when we need a couple of extra hands to ease the daily stress of our lives and make living more meaningful and fun.

Timebanking reaffirms that every human being is a valuable and essential part of community; that all work deserves to be acknowledged and honored; and that people are stronger and happier when they work together.

For more information about Timebanking check out www.timebanks.org or email melissa@burlingtoncurrency.org.