Time for Time banking?

[SoCalDem]

http://www.timebanks.org/how-it-works.htm

What It Is
What is Time Banking All About?

At its most basic level, Time banking is simply about spending an hour doing something for somebody in your community. That hour goes into the Time Bank as a Time Dollar. Then you have a Time dollar to spend on having someone doing something for you. It's a simple idea, but it has powerful ripple effects in building community connections.

Each Time Bank has a website where you list what you would like to do for other members. You look up Time Bank services online or call a community coordinator to do it for you. You earn Time Dollars after each service you perform and then you get to spend it on whatever you want from the listings.

With Time Banking, you will be working with a small group of committed individuals who are joined together for a common good. It connects you to the best in people because it creates a system that connects unmet needs with untapped resources. To see what happens each week when you are part of Time Bank is deeply fulfilling, especially if you are helping to make it run.

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It's Basic Bartering 101, but if you are a tight community, and have people willing to keep track of the paperwork necessary, this is a great way to utilize people's skills and get things done...for free..

Back when I was a stay-at-home Mom, I started a babysitting co-op with about 35 Moms and always had a sitter when I needed one.. a sitter who was a capable Mom..and never paid a penny

[JNelson6563]

1. Great idea, in theory.

Perhaps if you can get people truly committed it works. When my kids were little I tried trading some sitting. Always got the very short end of the stick. Ended up with a "fuck that" attitude on the time trading thing.

Julie

[SoCalDem]

2. You have to have a cohesive group, and you have to keep impeccable records

We set ours up so that you called the "sec/treas" for ALL sitting needed. That Mom had "the book", and knew who needed to pay time, and they were always called first. We had a "max owed" limit, and that kept people interested in paying back..and we had tiers..daytime was 1-1..nighttime was 1-1.5, and weekends were 1-2..

Every took turns being sec/treas and for doing it got .5 hr credit from each member..

a simple notebook (no computers then) was sufficient..

Individuals never arranged their own "sit", so there were no bruised feelings when someone said no...but if they said no a LOT, and owed too much time, too often, they were just dropped.