Time Bank Hurunui

At the start of this month, I attended a meeting at the Amberley Library about setting up a Time Bank for our area.

The presenter had been involved in The Lyttelton Time Bank and missed the sense of community since she'd moved to Amberley and wanted to start one up out here.

The concept is simple but exciting.  With the Time Bank, you are trading time - literally. I do an hour's baby-sitting for you, you spend an hour weeding that person's garden, they spend an hour stacking firewood for someone else and somewhere in there, someone will come and spend an hour doing something for me.  The Time Bank is set up so that the hours are recorded somewhere - so that there is a way of knowing who has spent hours and who has earned them.  It also is a valuable place for learning who and what is available locally.

In that first meeting, as an exercise we had a mock Time Bank exchange.  We wrote down 5 skills we have - what we could offer and went around others at the meeting seeing what they offered and where we could do trades.  In exchange for baby-sitting, preserving fruit and tarot readings, I was getting Freeview set up, Reiki, a singing lesson and the dog walked - although I got the feeling from her that I'd be doing her a favour by having her walk the dog.

A community's greatest asset is it's people and the different skills they have.  Many of those skills are underestimated in their importance and undervalued for their true worth.  There was an elderly chap at that meeting.  He was interested in the concept, but could only see physical labour type scenarios, but as it turned out, his depth of knowledge with plants and gardening is extensive so he could spend an hour teaching others how to propagate plants - just as one example.  How many jobs are there that just take time?  If I had a few more hours in the day, I could get so much more achieved and here is the way to do it.

We also get a bit hung up on returning favours, on giving back to someone who has been generous to us, paying them back.  My neighbour has been tremendous, I am so immensely grateful to him for his time, experience and willingness to come and help me with things that I don't fully understand, or have the facilities for (like cattle yards).  I've said to him, repeatedly, if there is anything at all that I can help you with, don't be shy, sing out.  He (and his wonderful wife) just laugh at me and I haven't had any kind of request for help with anything yet.

The Time Bank is a way for me to pay that favour forward.  So I put my name down for being involved in setting ours up.  Our first meeting was this morning.  Mostly this was the initial getting to know each other, who is willing to be a part of what aspect of the organisation and the first steps towards making it a legal entity.

It will take some time for Time Bank Hurunui to be fully functioning, but the ideas, experience and motivation of the people who were at the meeting was inspiring.  I'm glad that I did put my name down and attend this meeting.

For more information on Time Banks, or to see if there is one operating near you, check out Timebank Aotearoa.  From there are links to various groups, explanations of how it all works as well as many resources that are useful for any groups of this sort.