Our Vision
Here is one person's vision of the future - using time banks. Send us your vision to post in this space (e-mail [email protected])
"The Time Exchange has really given me a sense of community - I thought this had been lost over the past few years in this area." Sharon, Arthur's Hill Time Exchange
Karen Smith describes a journey through time to 2100, using a time machine called 'Imagine' fuelled with time credits...
2000 A community recycling project in Lewisham, south-east London, trades surplus resources, things that are usually considered waste. The scheme incorporates a time bank scheme so that people in the borough can help themselves, others and local organisations.
2001 Time credits pays for a village-wide search for Mrs K's moggie Tabatha, after the cat fails to come home after 2 days. She is found in a neighbours garden shed. Both Mrs K and Tabatha are traumatised, but make a speedy recovery after being reunited.
2003 Mrs P gets help with her kids using time credits. She earns time credits by helping local older people with their DIY.
2004 A community consultation is held and the local authority rewards participants through the time bank. People begin to say 'hello' in the street and take care of their estates. The local authority benefits through its wise use of resources, decline in the rent arrears and increased local participation.
2005 Bangladeshi women in east London use their time bank to support a local organic food growing initiative. Their health and well-being improves, they feel supported, and learn simple horticulture techniques which increases their confidence and independence.
2010 As women have less restrictions on working hours, due to increased availability of childcare in the community, men feel less need to work long hours. The number of people in full time work is less than 60%. As a result, stress, heart attack rates and pollution levels nose dive.
2018 Households are credited with time credits by their local authority when their weekly rubbish collection is less than a green box of rubbish per person. The need for black rubbish sacks is eliminated and waste disposal in London drops by 56% in 5 years.
2019 The disabled lady at Number 8 enjoys looking and smelling the flowers in her garden, which is tended by a long term unemployed young man called Martin, who has become fitter and livelier through his contact with nature.
2029 A time bank introduced to a centre for the homeless expands rapidly. Visitors swap time as mentors and advisors to other homeless people in return for health care, counselling, housing and other citizen's advice. The time bank is administered by former residents of the centre.
2035 New volunteer initiatives with thriving time banks excel in their work as less time is spent chasing funding. A decreased dependence on external funding builds improved capacity, community involvement and long term sustainability.
2056 All London boroughs operate a system of full and part payment of rent in time credits.
2060 Welfare benefits include time credits to encourage community self-help and skill sharing.
2095 Time Banks UK is referred to as the TLCUK (Tender Loving Care UK) by its 40 million members. Time credits are recognised by the Global Network of Nations as one of the key tools that enable a healthy partnership between Gaia and humanity. By rewarding love and compassion, time banks fuel the evolutionary shift of person-kind from focus on individual self, towards that of interconnection of all beings.
2100 Lucas, aged 5, asks his father Martin (now aged 105) what it was that first started him in his work to restore the earth. Martin replies that as a young man he discovered that he loved tending trees and plants through his gardening work at the time bank. Without the opportunity he would never have gone on to train as a tree doctor and help in the cleansing and healing of the planet.
