Report on the British Meeting to Discuss The

Report on the British meeting to discuss the

European Time Banks Youth Project: Chris Moore

The launch meeting for young people in Britain interested in the Time Banks European Youth Project took place at Whaddon Youth Centre in Cheltenham on the 20th and 21st of October 2007, with 45 people (35 young people) from 16 different Time Banks & organisations. We had 6 visitors from Sweden and Germany.

Joanne Ellis from the Glyncoch project in South Wales summed up her thoughts of the day by saying, ‘it was really, really good to meet people from other areas and see what they thought about time banking, it was great.’

Starting with some ice breakers Sandie from Whaddon Youth Centre led us off with a quick session of people bingo, so we could get to know each other in a relaxed way. Chris outlined how the European Youth Project had developed and the broad tasks for the weekend. Explaining that organisations in Italy, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Sweden and Georgia are already involved with the project. Martin explained the ideas behind time banking and how it was now being used in 25 different countries.

Susie ran a workshop making various time banks banners and flags to be used at future events was followed by representatives from all the groups explaining what projects they are involved in and what time banking meant for them. For instance Anne, Jon and some of the young people like Cerys, Daniel and Donna involved in Valley Kids, the Penyrenglyn Project, Penygraig Project and Dinas Project talked about the after school clubs they helped to run and an environmental project that is about to start where part of a forest has been adopted for conservation. Some people had acted in a community safety video sponsored by the South Wales Fire and Ambulance Services. Tasha aged 14 has been involved in time banking for 2 or 3 years, Ceri aged 13 since June this year. Some of the benefits for those who had built up enough time credits were fantastic, the star being a four-day trip to New York; others went to Alton Towers and Drayton Manor Park. Bec, Joanne and Emily from Glyncoch explained how there are 12 time banks groups in Wales and that all their trips are paid in time credits with each person putting in at least 2 hours a week community work. Mark and Amber from Bath Time Banks talked about their cleaning projects and help with a community café, while Gurdeep, Ewan, Phil, Marie and Heather from Bournville talked of their involvement in gardening projects, further education and intergenerational development. Anna and Ashley from Brockworth said how they had put on a bingo night at an elderly peoples home while Maisie, Peter, Lee, Rosie and Kyle from Whaddon plan to help young people who’ve suffered from bullying or have problems at home. Lorah, Steven, Nicola, Jenifer, Staci, Calli and Corrina from Clacks Youth Time Banks only started their pilot scheme in June, which is in the early stages of development, but went away with plenty of ideas. Ulla, Thanh and Zen from TidsNätverket in Sweden only started their project in August this year but have already set up a virtual youth forum tidsnatverket. se/and wanted to come to Britain to connect with other groups. Sam from their group works with volunteers to organise entertainment events with artists and DJ’s. Karin and Stephan from Managementkraft in Germany explained how they had only recently started working with young people and so were keen to report back on this European project to groups in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

The whole group then discussed the general ideas about the European Project. Such as:

meeting new people,
sharing cultures,
helping the community,
funding,
exchange visits,
organising a European conference,
learning from others about how they do their time banking,
will it lead to other things,
the importance of giving and receiving,
what is the age range,
what are the rewards for doing the project.

We then broke down into smaller groups to discuss in more detail why we wanted to be involved in the project, what we wanted to do and how we wanted to do it.

Why people want to be involved fell into three main categories; opportunities, bridging barriers and rewards.

Opportunities included:

meeting new people,
giving people a chance to ask for help
offering the experience and confidence that could help with future jobs.

Barriers could be bridged through experiencing other cultures so helping to change the way people approach each other.

When it came to what people wanted from the project there was no shortage of ideas. Five main headings were identified;

exchanges,
events,
work placements,
virtual links,
promoting time banking.

We broke into groups to discuss these in more detail with each idea being broken down into what would be needed to achieve it.

The discussion on how the project could run helped to concentrate peoples’ minds on some of the practicalities:

getting lists of European time banks,
how to get and keep in touch,
the need for translations,
setting up a website,
choosing delegates,
agreeing ground rules,
dividing up tasks,
where to meet,
organising different events and how to raise funds.

After an enjoyable but tiring day there was also time to relax over a game of pool, use the computers or simply chat and everyone appreciated the fantastic food organised by Sandie from Whaddon Youth Centre throughout the weekend with Lee, Kyle, Maisie, Peter and Rosie doing a great job helping with whatever needed doing.

Finally those young people who volunteered to take part in the steering group met at the end of the weekend to plan the next steps in the project, the first steering group meeting in January 2008 and how people can contact each other, with an idea to set up a Bebo site.

A ‘Thought Wall’ was put up during the weekend, some of the comments included:

good meeting, new people and good food,
had lots of fun,
def some cool people and you have a wicked centre,
OMG I  Whaddon, U guys rox,
we are all in the same time, we can all use our time for exchange,
gr8 people I love the food;
had a great day, good time banks workshops,
diolch yn fawr, (thank you very much in Welsh)
fun wknd wicked,
whoop whoop.

The event was covered in the local newspaper and radio with young people giving their views on time banking and the European Project.

The organisations that took part were:

Bath Time Banks

Bournville Time Banks

Brockworth Time Banks

Cheltenham Time Banks

Choose Sport First

Clacks Youth Time Bank

Dinas Project

Intresseföreningen för TidsNätverket i Bergsjön (Sweden)

Glyncoch

Managementkraft (Germany)

Penygraig Project

Penyrenglyn Project

Smart Event (Sweden)

Valley Kids Wales

Wales Institute for Community Currencies

Whaddon Youth Centre

The Steering Group members are:

Jon Bundy

Tasha Dolloway

Ceri Aldridge

Cerys Davies

Donna Hall

Lorah Joyce

Nicola Ferguson

Jo Ellis

Emily Duncan

Mark Alderwick

Amber Weston

Phil Treworthy

Ewan Fenton

Gurdeep Sembi

Ashley Tonks

Lee Ilott

Peter Wildsmith