Worknow_Aotearoa_NZ

It’s great to see the people sharing their talents

“…Talent is always conscious of its own abundance, and does not object to sharing…”Alexander Solzhenitsyn

Whether you need help around the home,  at work, in business or you’re just looking to expand your repertoire of skills there’s a growing range of time and talent on offer.

Creating opportunities for others to help

Now, everyone likes to be able to help other people because it’s a good thing. Yet apparently we are not so willing to give others the opportunity to help us.

True fact though people; every single one of us has something to learn from others.  If you aspire at all to helping other people please consider this.

One of the kindest things you could do for another person may simply be to help them feel needed by allowing them the opportunity to help you.

With time trade one’s own motivation to help others comes second. It’s about putting the needs of others before myself by focusing less on the need to be needed – who can I help?, how can I help? – and more on outcomes that can only be secured by enlisting the time and talents of others – how can another persons talents, skills and time help me and others?

It would be great to see every member contribute at least one Time Request in an effort to provide others the opportunity to help.

Thanks to your feedback

And on that note I have to say again a big thanks to everyone that has offered feedback on the beta site. I’ve added all your thoughts to the user voice forum We are working on implementing you’re suggestions so keep them coming. This week thanks to your feedback:-

• The loop hole that allowed people to create multiple responses on a single trade has been closed. Now when you view a trade in the Marketplace that you have offered or accepted time on you will have a link to “view open trade”.
• We have added a “My Posts” page to your Workspace to make it easy to view and edit all the trades that you have posted. It’s pretty basic right now but it’s the basis for an evolving history of all your trades.

Changes to Work Flow

• Where as before you could begin trading simply by hitting the “offer time” or “accept offer” buttons we think it makes sense to begin by starting a conversation, right? So you now create a message before you hit the button.
• By default trades remain visible in the marketplace but you can now hide or display listings instead of deleting and creating new ones. There’s now a link in the right hand column visible on your trades and posts.

“…Every great man is always being helped by everybody; for his gift is to get good out of all things and all persons…” John Ruskin.

What goes around comes around

Reciprocity is integral in Time Trade but it’s a pretty simple philosophy akin to the ever popular concepts of Karma or the “Golden Rule” of : do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

At the most basic level it’s about giving and helping others without the expectation of receiving anything in return.Yet, reciprocity also describes the sense of “obligation” we often feel to return in kind the gifts or favours we receive from people.

“Reciprocity obliges a recipient of service to contribute…[while] free services can send an uninteded message: if you have no money, you have nothing I need, want, or value” Edgar Cahn

While it’s not always so easy to match favour for favour, gift for gift, dollar for dollar, under a system of Time Trade, we are all capable of matching one hour of time with one hour of time. Cahn, the inventor of Time Banking aka Time Trade, also talks about reciprocity as a tool that can:-

• empower those we help
• reinforce self esteem
• bridge the gulf between market ($) and non market ($0) activities
• generate greater generosity

Our Time Trade system is based around communities of people that are willing to support, collaborate and work with each other.

Time Trade is much more than simply a means to motivate, recognise or reward peoples contribution. In an world still dominted by the monetary market ($ valuations) Time Trade establishes a very important, universal measure of the value we contribute to our society. A measure of the trust and love, caring and community that we build each day by helping others and causes greater than ourselves.

By exchanging time credits with others in exchange for their time and talents – i.e. music, craft or companionship – the circle of giving grows ever larger helping to build stronger communities through reciprocity.

Register with Worknow to Start Trading your Time, Today.

Earn Time Credits by:-

• Trade your talent and time with community members that have credits to exchange.
• Be gifted or nominated Time Credits for past contributions to your community.
• You can request Time Credits for time that you have recently volunteered.

For more information read about time trade here

How to Help Others

If asked “what did you want to be when you were a kid?”, I know the answer is – to help people. While I’m not alone in aspiring to help others am I just trying to compensate for my failings? or feel better about myself? Am I really just trying to help myself?

With time trade one’s own motivation to help others comes second. It’s about putting the needs of others before yourself by focusing less on the need to be needed – who can I help?, how can I help? – and more on outcomes that can only be secured by enlisting the time and talents of those we are trying to help – how can this persons talents, skills and time help others?

“…If we want to fulfill our own commitments to make a difference in the lives of others, we need to find a way to use our ability to unleash the capacity of the person we are helping…” Edgar Cahn

People are Assets

Every single person is gifted with talents that are of value in a Time Trade community.

“…it recognises the whole person, that your life experiences, your knowledge, is an asset – everything you are, what you know and what you don’t is valuable…”

For organisations with networks of people that they already help there’s the potential to vastly expand the work accomplished by employing the time and talents of the people they help. This in turn empowers the recipients and moves them away from dependence and potential helplessness towards a sense of contributing value to one’s own community.

For example enlisting university alumni to mentor upcoming graduates about work life and career paths and those graduates, in turn, tutoring fellow students who in turn help volunteer in their community, and build valuable work skills.

“…We have to find news ways, or very old ways, of putting people to use doing things for each other…finding ways for people who don’t think they have skills to discover their own strengths…” Edgar Cahn

Time Trade is simply about spending an hour doing something for somebody in your community.

In recognition for your contribution you receive one Time Credit which you can then gift or trade, with other members of the community, in exchange for their talent and time. It’s a simple idea, but it has powerful ripple effects in building community connections.

Here at Worknow we are building an online system to automate the transfer of time credits between Community Members. Our Time Trade system comes online August 2009 please register your interest today.

The concept of Time Trade is a social change movement active in 22 countries and across six continents.

It began in the 1980’s ,invented by Edgar Cahn, a former legal advisor to Robert Kennedy, as a way to make up for the cutback of social services. While each time bank may state a different focus the system of trade is facilitated in order to help communities meet unmet needs with untapped resources.

“…To develop a sustainable community centered and supported network that will utilise available and untapped assets through a complimentary economy. Our ultimate goal is to help to bring about meaningful social change for the betterment of humanity…”

The following examples are the mission statements of various time banks as listed in the international Time Bank Community Directory

Time Trade is about Helping Others

• Bringing People Together to Help Each Other
• To provide access to services and high quality volunteer opportunities by serving our community with passion and commitment.
• To support and expand our volunteer programs

Time Trade is about strengthening communities

• To build a stronger, more unified community which supports, includes and honors persons of all ages, abilities, and backgrounds.
• Building a stronger community one hour at a time.
• To strengthen friendships, families, neighborhoods and communities.

Time Trade is about connecting communities

• Working together as a sustainable community of families to nurture quality time, talent and fun
• To nurture, inspire, and motivate the building of a network of neighbors to come together to create a sharing and caring community.
• To connect diverse neighborhoods, service organizations, food producers, businesses, and individuals in ways that promote resource exchange, cooperation, and community-building while increasing access to local services and goods.

Time Trade encompasses both broad and specific goals

• To help mobilize social capital to fight poverty and build community in Lewis County.
• To meet unmet needs of home schoolers with untapped resources.
• To assist the senior and youth population in relationship building and tapping into valuable resources

Time Trade is about Respect Recognition and Empowering People

• To invite all people in the community to join in a supportive, reciprocal network where all members are respected and valued for their time and talents, through the sharing of our needs and gifts.
• To Empower the Disenfranchised and to do this with Compassion!

Time Trade is about awareness of alternatives

• To experiment with innovative approaches to social welfare
• By facilitating the exchange of services we redefine how people interact with each other
• A network of members sharing their time and skills without the need for money.

Time Trade is about resilience

• Helping our beautiful small community become closer and more self reliant.
• Strengthening local economy in this time of hardship.
• Inform the community of resources that will enable the community to become more knowledgeable through the circle of life, resulting in people always needing people.

We facilitate Time Trade as a means of recognition for the work contributed by volunteers in our community.

We hope to encourage more young people to volunteer because we believe volunteer work develops a service orientated work ethic and skills that assist the study to work transition. Some of the skills volunteers can develop include:-

• Leadership & team building skills
• Relationship building skills
• Communication skills
• Negotiation skills
• Creative thinking skills
• Organisation & time management skills

If you know a cause that could benefit from additional volunteer support or wish to volunteer your time and talent please contact us