The number of visitors to our website has exploded from almost 2,000 in March 2009 unique visitors to 9,000 unique visitors in the month of May 2010! Very cool.

Here’s a look at all the countries that visit our site:

Our website visitors...It's a small world these days

TimeBank Leadership

Every group requires leadership which includes people like you offering time, talent and a terrific attitude. In order for you and your community to experience the best of TimeBanking each community needs their local leaders.

Many hands make light work and big impact. Leading your local TimeBank group is all about helping to plan, coordinate and put on introductory meetings, social events, training sessions and community projects. You can be a key to making TimeBanking a reality and a model for a better way of community life.

Contact us at info@LMTimeBank.org or call 778-232-5388 to get started on helping to grow a TimeBank group in your community.

Here’s an idea of what the leadership plan looks like for a TimeBank. You earn TimeCredits for every hour you contribute!

Become a Time Bank Coordinator
Are You a Community Weaver?

By now, you know that TimeBanks are like members of a family—they come in different shapes and sizes, but at the same time, they share the same genes. Basic TimeBanking is always the same: it’s about creating win-win exchanges using Time Credits where every hour you contribute always equals one Time Credit. All TimeBanks also share the need to coordinate those exchanges. More than anything else, TimeBank Coordinators are community weavers and networkers. They know how to draw people together, recruit new members, and get them started on sharing their talents with your group!
There are six main leadership roles in a TimeBank—and it is usually the Coordinator’s role is to make sure they all work. Here they are:

Role I: Time Bank Ambassador

• Member Recruitment

Role II. Membership Coordinator

• Member Orientation
• ‘Keeping in Touch’
• Making matches

Role III. Events Coordinator

• Focuses on all group activities of the TimeBank

Role IV. Webmaster

• Training New Members in On-Line TimeBanking
• Running the on-line community page

Role V. Administration

• Collecting dues
• Financials/Budgeting
• Fundraising

Role VI. Team Leader

• Makes sure that everyone is happily taking responsibility for their role.

These different leadership roles can be blended together. They may be taken on by two or three people. But as TimeBanks get bigger and more multifaceted, the roles separate out and need to be taken care of separately.

Being a Team Leader
If individuals to take on the different leadership roles and tasks, the load becomes lighter for everyone. We all know that working together calls for trust, acceptance and willingness to take responsibility. The trick is to be very, very clear about each individual role and what is involved, so that people know exactly what they are responsible for, and don’t accidentally step on each other’s toes! Each of the roles is designed to be light and not require much coordination between them.

No matter how many people are on your leadership team, it is a good idea to designate a support person or support team behind each leadership position. A person can be the leader in one role and the designated support person in another role. This way, if someone gets sick, busy or goes out of town, the work will still be covered. When it comes time to rotate the team roles, you will also have an understudy who is already familiar with your responsibilities.

A coordinator is just one person, and the different roles call for many different skills and personality types.

In truth, TimeBanking is all about mutual contribution, so creating a TimeBank where members are fully engaged and invested in its operations and management is vital to its success.

The Heart and Soul of a TimeBank
The Membership Coordinator is the heart and soul of a TimeBank. Membership Coordinators usually perform the team leader role as well. Here are some of the qualities a membership coordinator needs:
Above all, Membership Coordinators are warm, friendly and non-judgmental. You will also need:

• Good listening skills
• An ability to form accurate impressions of people
• The ability to draw people out and help members discover what skills they have that are valuable to your community
• To be very good at following up and making sure that everyone keeps their commitments

Knowing a lot of people in the community isn’t a core part of the membership coordinator role. What counts is that you know how to make people feel comfortable when you meet them. Coordinators are team players who know how to create an atmosphere that welcomes everyone—regardless of their race or background—into your TimeBank community.
More than anything else, though, membership coordinators know how to follow through and make sure that everyone keeps their commitments!

Make Sure You have a Full Team
When you look over the roles you’ll notice that many of them require quite different personalities.

• The TimeBank Ambassador know lots of people and loves to meet new people all the time, but not necessarily in depth.
• The Events Coordinator loves to throw parties.
• The Web Master is the one person in your TimeBank who actually read the manual.
• The Administrator loves to write and cross off lists.

No one is good at everything. Make sure you know your strengths and weaknesses. Strange to tell, but there is someone out there who loves to do the jobs that make you squirm. You’ll greatly increase the chance of success for your TimeBank if you can build a team of people who all love their role—and rotate them so they no one gets burned out.

Contact us to help us change your world for the better.  info@LMTimeBank.org or 778-232-5388

Come discover TimeBanking for you. Help create a neighbourhood network by bringing TimeBanking to your community. Find a meeting place and we will come to inform and educate on the why and how of TimeBanking.

Real People Real Benefits TimeBanking UK

no dollars here

There are often questions around whether or not TimeCredits are money (many TimeBanks use the term TimeDollars, LMTB and smoe other TimeBanks use the term TimeCredits, they are the same thing).

In my understanding and opinion it’s best to keep away from monetary words and concepts as much as possible. The short answer is NO TimeCredits are not money, but they allow you to do many of the same things money does.

To me TimeBanking is about helping your neighbour because you can, and you also know that someone will be there to help you when you need it. Kind of like barn raising or harvest time (way long ago), where neighbouring farmers came from all over to help each other build or harvest (sometimes followed by a big feeding “funfest”).

To use monetary words and concepts invokes the notion of “I’m owed something” and less about volunteering, pay it forward and gifting.

It should be about being free to give and receive and feeling good about both…the credits just help ensure you’re not too out of balance in either giving or receiving, for obvious reasons.

It shouldn’t be about getting equal “dollar value” (or greater) but about creating value and receiving value, freely and regularly. Abundance mentality versus scarcity mentality . Needing to get something in return is not paying to forward or volunteering.

I don’t like and don’t use the “dollar” term or “debt” (although I’ve resorted to using “credit” and “TimeBank” because they can have alternative meanings).

Monetary words and concepts, to me, are old world, limiting ideas that are due for a change. Most people are tied to their present ideas around the “money” words and it’s tough to change the ideas without using new words to describe new ideas.

TimeBanking is a new idea (for most people) that can relate to “moneylike” ideas but needs to be different and unique or else people don’t quite get it and struggle to make it like money, which it is not.

How many hangups do people have about money? Is it time for  change?

We’ve been seduced by the money game and forgot the “creating value for people game” which is FAR more rewarding. Yes we need money to live, but less than we think and even less when we work together OUTSIDE the money game.

It is a philosophical shift that requires new language to break free from monetary ideas.

I think sticking with money words and ideas makes TimeBanking harder to understand and invokes scarcity mentality in folks.

TimeCredits (or TimeDollars if you must) are not dollars in any way, shape or form. They never were and hopefully never will be.

Check out the new idea and see what you think.

1. as a way to get to know my neighbours,
2. feel connected in my community and make a positive difference,
3. have people in my life I could count on to ask for a helping hand
4. share my time and talents with people genuinely wanting my help.

TimeBanking is not designed to replace currency or bartering exchanges but to enhance the connection, understanding and appreciation for people in your community and all the ways we can help each other. Get to know your neighbours and help each other out. It begins by helping the TimeBank grow…

TimeBanking was started in order to revitalize small urban communites. TimeBanking in a large urban area used to be difficult. With the web based software it is far easier, but it still requires people stepping up and volunteering to help grow their local neighbourhood TimeBank group.

One of the goals of the Lower Mainland TimeBank is to empower any neighbourhood and small community to have their “local community connection” hosted on a central TimeBank serving a larger geographic area (the exchange website allows communities to identify themselves and their local members).

The benefit with the internet hosted TimeBank is that you can access and connect with all local communites via a single, common, exchange website instead of having multiple TimeBanks in neighbouring communities which would require joining multiple TimeBanks to access other areas.

Come join us, not just as a member, but as a builder of the TimeBank in your area. The  structure is here for anyone to use and benefit from. It does rely on individuals stepping forward and running with the TimeBank idea in their own neighborhood to really see it work.

Contact me to discuss what you can do to make TimeBanking a vibrant, community building tool for everyone’s benefit in your community.

Michael
Lower Mainland TimeBank, Founder/Director

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What is TimeBanking? Why would I want to know more about TimeBanking? and the popular… What’s in it for me?

All great questions that deserve an answer. If you’re reading this I hope you have had a read through the website www.LMTimeBank.org to learn a bit. If not I encourage you to do so AND come on down to the live and in person informative introduction to TimeBanking…. check our home page for dates, times and locations.

The meetings are free to attend usual time is: 7 pm to 8:15 pm and also on the weekends.

There will be a brief introduction of the ideas, principles and process of TimeBanking, followed by some discussion, Q & A and information on becoming a member.

Help change your world with one pay it forward volunteering effort at at time. Having fun, making friends.

People make the difference in life, come enjoy like minded folks looking to connect and build a fun, helping community. If you want to meet people in your community, love to help others, want to build friendships with your neighbours then come on out and learn about TimeBanking as a great way to achieve all that and more.  See you there!

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Should people sit at home and wait for the government to save them?

Should people complain to the big corporations that terminated their jobs due to bad management or poor market conditions?

Sure some people will, and others….well, they know that “if it’s to be, it’s up to me!” and they get going making things happen themselves.

TimeBanking is a great tool for good times and a life saver in tough times, it is a great idea any time.

Birthed out of the unfulfilled needs in big city USA where people had plenty of time but no money, TimeBanking is an ingenious way to discover and utilize, for everyone’s benefit, the vast personal gifts, talents, time and resources waiting to be given and wanting to be received from individual to individual…via TimeBanking!

A TimeBank is a web based data bank resource of catalogued skills, talents and desires available for members to “browse” and ask to receive as they are needed, what they need and exactly when they need it! Members “advertise” what they want to give to others in time and talent.

A TimeBank is also data bank resource of what help people need. Any member can post what they need or want to receive. Members “advertise” what they want to receive from others in time and talent.

Match a need with a talent or available time and you have TimeBanking. No money, just people helping people with exactly what they need.

The software keeps track of the time you give to others and you can use your time credits to receive from other members whatever it is you want to receive that they are offering to give.

Be a giver and a receiver of time and time talent. Meet and share with your community members the gifts of time and talent we ALL are capable of giving.

When the jobs are gone the skills remain and everyone WANTS to work, be productive and contribute. Everyone has needs and everyone loves to give.

TimeBanking creates an opportunity for the needs and the wants to be met and fulfilled.

Living costs money, but it costs a lot less if most of what you need you can get from your local TimeBank members and all you give back is your time, your way to any member that requests what you are willing to offer!

Check out TimeBanking as a way to revitalize, reconnect and really enjoy being a part of a friendly, caring neighbouthood, community or city.

The Lower Mainland TimeBank is also committed to help set-up TimeBanks anywhere in Canada….check it out!

http://www.LMTimeBank.org

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