Some good news out of our county council to brighten this dull, gray day. After years of trying to get time banks off the ground by all sorts of members of the community, here in Glossopdale and further afield, as well as lots of success at getting thriving ones going – Tameside’s Timebank being a shining beacon to us locally while we tried to get Glossopdale’s going – I see that Derbyshire County Council is now trying its hand at running a time bank, which it is calling Time Swap.

This is an excellent concept, and one I dearly hope takes off – one I have, in fact, been on a committee for in the past. Please go have a look and a think about whether it’d fit in your life. Some points to consider:

• It’s a marketplace: there’s an exchange of time, rather than a one-way giving.
• It’s as and when it fits your schedule and needs, whether that’s more or less often; we’re not talking about “every Monday from 10-12” kind of thing, unless you want it to be that. It’s entirely up to you. Also, if you need a hiatus (birth of a child, round-the-world trip, what have you), that’s also perfectly alright. If DCC’s using the same or similar Timebanking database software that we were using, there’s even a status option to tell the system that you’re not available for a time, so you won’t even come up in the search results when they’re looking for, say, gardening if you’ve put down that you’ll do gardening.
• It’s only to the “friends helping friends” standard: you’re not expected to be an expert landscaper to do a bit of gardening, for example. Just think about what sort of help you’d give and want from your friends and family and neighbours, and that’s the sort of things we’re talking about. For example, you wouldn’t (usually) ask them or offer to create a new garden from scratch, but you might ask them for or offer help trimming your hedges.

You can find out more about DCC’s scheme here and also there’s this information sheet [pdf].

You can sign up by downloading and filling in the questionnaire and sending it back – via email to timeswap@derbyshire.gov.uk or print it and then post it to:

Prevention Team,
Adult Care,
County Hall,
Smedley Street,

Matlock,
Derbyshire,
DE4 3AG

To read even more about the concept, if I’ve piqued your interest, there are the major national organisations, Timebanking UK and Timebank, whose websites I’d recommend as starting points.