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Time is money

Group exchanges its members’ talents and services – but doesn’t use money in any way

Before the invention of currency, humans from across the world exchanged goods and precious metals through bartering.

In today’s world of tepid economic growth, several people nationwide have brought the concept back – except instead of trading goods, they trade time.

Hour Exchange La Plata, or HELP, is a time banking group based in Bayfield attempting to bring people together and create a web of resources weaved by the various skills and expertise offered for exchange by community members.

The local group was started by Bayfield residents Elizabeth Anderson and husband Eric Nylund, who learned about a similar group in the Pagosa Springs area called Time Bank of the Rockies, or TBR.

“A time bank is a collection of people who get together and help each other save time and money,” Anderson said.

The group operates by offering time in various services that range from group consulting, home repairs, cooking and fitness to legal advice, companionship, spiritual services and much more. Some requests can be as simple as asking for a ride to the airport.

Exchanges are not necessarily made between two parties. Often exchanges rotate in a circle, which saves time, adds flexibility and helps members of the community.

Group members vary in age. Anderson and Nylund were able to recruit a handful of Fort Lewis College students after speaking to a sociology class.

Yet, the group might gain its most value from retirees, who are able to share their wide range of experiences and expertise from a lifetime of acquired skills, Anderson said.

Anderson enjoys sharing what she’s learned from 10 years of belly-dance lessons and also offers long-distance energy healing, she said. Nylund is a software developer and offers information technology help, Excel assistance, group consulting and his knowledge of solar-energy conservations.

Anderson and Nylund also have helped members move, set up a greenhouse and did some work for the Bayfield Public Library.

HELP has about 75 members and operates similarly to a checking account. The group documents each member’s hours, requests and services. Time banks nationwide use software found on the national website, www.hOurworld.org, which keeps track of the nearly 400 local groups, members and hours traded. Nearly 25,000 time bankers operate nationwide, according to the website.

The local group has documented more than 80 hours of trade, Nylund said, while nationally, time banks have traded more than 1 million hours.

The group works by exchanging time with services, but not one service is “worth” more than the other, Anderson said. Services are equal and evaluated only by time spent completing a task.

The time bank software offers nearly 40 categories and a little more than 400 subcategories to choose from. Members have the ability to trade and offer just about any imaginable service. Also, members can add more categories if they are not listed to cater to a community’s specific needs.

For instance, Pagosa Springs needed to add categories involving ranching and country living that were not included in the software that originated in Portland, Maine, 10 years ago, Anderson said.

Tera Couchman Wick, coordinator of LiveWell Montrose Olathe, was hesitant to have the organization join the Time Bank of the Rockies but has since found it incredibly useful.

Though the organization is still fairly new to the group, it has received more than $3,000 worth of value through volunteer members, she said.

LiveWell Montrose Olathe joined as a gold level sponsor, for $500 a year, and in return, received 10 individual memberships for staff and volunteers, she said.

“As an organization, if people come to volunteer with us, they receive time bank hours,” Couchman Wick said. Also, the organization can receive time bank hours for time offered.

LiveWell has greatly benefited from time bank members who have given their time to provide services that otherwise would have proved unaffordable, she said. The nonprofit received hours from a doctorate-level public health consultant who was able to provide a data analysis and help with grant writing, she said.

The nonprofit, Couchman Wick said, still is learning to reach its potential with the time bank group.

“We are still learning and refining how we can utilize time banking effectively,” she said.

The La Plata County group has reached out to several single-person businesses and offered its various services, and it has high hopes it will be able to assist them.

“We are really well set up for the these small businesses,” Anderson said.

The next step is to reach out to nonprofits and exchange resources. Also, the group hopes a nonprofit will take them under their wing so the time bank group can fall under the umbrella of a 501(c)(3) organization, Nylund said. Also, a perk of joining a time bank is that time is not taxable.

Larger, more established businesses will be more of a challenge, but nonetheless, they remain a long-term goal for addition to the group.

Another, perhaps more important, purpose of the time bank is to bring communities together.

The essence of time banking can be summed up in two sentences on the hOurworld website: “We don’t need another movement. We need to move together.”

vguthrie@durangoherald.com

How to join

Hour Exchange La Plata will host two informational potlucks this month:

Durango

5:30 p.m. Nov. 5 at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church.

Bayfield

5:30 p.m. Nov. 16 at Bayfield Public Library.

The group asks for a $25 once-a-year donation to join but will waive or reduce the fee for low-income residents.

On the Net

Hour Exchange La Plata

www.helptimebank.com

On the Net

Learn about time banking: www.hOurworld.org



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