Time is literally money | Taranaki News | Local News in Taranaki

CREATED 20 years ago by Edgar Cahn, time banking is quite simply the exchange of one hour of your time for one hour of another person’s.
Members of communities around New Zealand are adopting this philosophy and offering their own time (anything from a skill, hobby or passion) as investment in a ‘time bank.’  Investors then receive ‘time credits’ - the time bank currency - which they can then spend towards the time of others in the network.
Time banking offers a great incentive for members to get out into their communities and volunteer.
The skills, hobbies, gifts or talents which people invest are varied; anything from child care, legal assistance, language lessons, home repair, tarot card reading and respite care - quite literally anything that a person wishes to contribute that can help another person.
Because everyone within a time banking network has something to offer, everyone becomes an asset, giving both communities and individuals a sense of self worth.
A system like this is designed to rebuild the kind of infrastructure of trust and caring that strengthens families and communities, getting back to basic core values of caring and sharing. It also creates opportunities for the elderly to share their skills and knowledge and have their needs met from within their community – especially good for those who are unwell or alone.
Because there is no money value attached to time, time currency is tax free; you cannot exchange anything else for time except for time and exchanges occur within the community and not between two parties. So the concept stays simple.
Lyttelton in the South Island was the first community to adopt the time bank system in New Zealand.
Ten percent of the town’s population of 3000 are now members, and a ‘community chest’ has been developed: members are able to donate their time credits for others who are unable to offer services to use. They can also use them for big community projects.
Members are signed up by a time bank co-ordinator whose responsibility is to help people identify the skills they would like to contribute and the kinds of things they would like help with. Members can also create a profile if they have access to their own computer.
Trades are recorded on special software and members are able to publish offers and requests.
For the system’s supporters, time banking offers a powerful new approach for social change; a way of improving on services and contribution within a community, whilst putting the value on people not the dollar.
For something so simple, in places like Lyttelton it is proving to have astonishing and profound effects.