Have you always wanted to give something back to your community through volunteering but simply haven’t got the time to spare? Or would you perhaps like to learn a new skill or get a little more exercise, but find that lack of time or money is barring your way? In both these cases, time banking could provide the answer.

Time banking is a simple yet ingenious form of volunteering where time is currency. People deposit credit in a time bank by donating their time to help others and withdraw time credits when they need help themselves. A time bank member might donate an hour of their time to, say, help an elderly person with their shopping, in exchange for an hour-long French lesson from someone else. It’s free to join and getting involved does not affect your tax position or entitlement to benefits.

According to Sarah Komnatskaya, Information Manager for the charity Time Banking UK, the value at the heart of time banking is interdependence – that we all need each other. Sarah, who when I spoke to her had just earned a Reiki session in exchange for fixing someone’s computer, explains: “Time banking gives you a sense of giving something back but differs from traditional volunteering because it is reciprocal.”

Time banking pioneer

The idea was first conceived in the 1980s by civil rights lawyer and activist, Dr Edgar Cahn, while studying at LSE in London. On his return to his native USA, Cahn pioneered the first time banking system, which was known as a ‘time dollar programme’. It wasn’t until 1998 that the idea made it back across the pond and the first time banks were established in the UK: Fair Shares Time Bank in Stonehouse in Gloucestershire and Rushey Green Time Bank at a GP surgery in South East London.

In 2000, Time Banking UK was set up to link and support time banks across the UK. Since then, time banking has achieved unprecedented success. However, in today’s tough economic climate it has become more popular and relevant than ever before.

Time banks are managed by a time broker who sits in the middle and acts like a spoke of a wheel. The time broker matches up individuals to different volunteering activities depending on their skills and availability, using Time Banking UK’s special Time Brokering Software.

So if a member has a leaky tap, for instance, they would contact the time broker who would get in touch with a plumber in the time bank and send them round to help. However, there’s no obligation to donate your time whenever asked; you are completely at liberty to say you’re too busy and the time broker will go on to the next suitable member.

“It works around the individual’s availability so there’s no danger of getting tied into doing something you don’t enjoy every Wednesday afternoon until the end of time,” reassures Sarah. Although being busy is not a good reason to avoid time banking because, as Sarah explains, “time banking is a great leveller. Everyone has 24 hours in a day and something to offer, even if it’s just popping round for a cup of tea with a housebound person. You donate your time to others, but time in other areas of your life is freed up, since there’s no need to waste time trying to find an electrician or babysitter at short notice, for example.”

Any group or community can set up a time bank. All they need to do is contact Time Banking UK who will provide information packs and DVDs on getting started and using the Time Brokering Software, which apparently is very simple. The charity also does Criminal Records Bureau checks free of charge on people who are going to be using their skills to care for children or vulnerable adults.

There’s no need for one person to take on the sole responsibility of time brokering. A group could perform the role, with one of them managing the software, while another handles the publicity and another contacts members.

There are currently 116 active time banks in the UK in which 8,549 individuals have traded 646,671 hours to date. But these figures are rising rapidly, fuelled by the credit crunch.

“We’ve seen a huge increase in the number of people setting up or joining time banks since the recession started,” says Sarah. “Whereas we previously saw two to three new time banks a month, the current rate is more like six a week!” It could be that more people have extra time on their hands or that the credit crunch has caused them to look for other solutions to problems rather than simply throwing money at them.

Non-market economy

But Sarah believes the secret behind the sudden explosion in time banks is our renewed interest in the non-market economy. While money makes the world go round as far as the market economy is concerned, the non-market economy depends on networks of support from family, friends, neighbours and the community. A time bank is one way of strengthening support networks and driving the nonmarket economy.

Other ways, which have also been on the increase lately, include bartering, clothes swapping or ‘swishing’ events, and food growing co-operatives. As well as saving money and helping to save the planet, these activities bring people together who may never otherwise have interacted.

Time banks are owned and run by communities who shape them according to their own needs and wishes. They consider everyone’s time and skills to be of equal value. So, no matter whether you are showing someone how to use the Internet, giving a piano lesson, driving someone to the shops, painting a house or feeding a cat, you’ll earn the same amount of time credits. The fact that it’s open to anyone of any age, background or ability ensures that a wide variety of skills are exchanged.

“Time banks value all the skills that are not valued by the market economy. They recognise things like looking after children, improving local green spaces and caring for marginalised people as deserving merit even though they may not bring money in,” Sarah explains. “Time banking builds social capital by giving our lives more meaning and building trust and understanding within neighbourhoods.”

Or as the founder of the time banking phenomenon, Dr Edgar Cahn, puts it: “Market economics values what is scarce – not the real work of society which is caring, loving, being a citizen, a neighbour and a human being.”

To find out more visit Time Banking UK at www.timebanking. org or tel: 01453 750952.