This is a CTP of initiative: Fair Shares (UK)
The CTP concerns the establishment of the first Time Bank in the UK in 1998 by Martin Simon. After visiting the United States and being introduced to the American Time Dollar Scheme, he was convinced that timebanking could contribute to improve societal conditions also in the United Kingdom. He initiated Fair Shares in Stonehouse, Gloucestershire. “The Mission is very much social networks, turning strangers into friends and neighbours into extended families”. Stonehouse was the first of a set of local time banks that are known under the name Fair Shares.
Martin Simon was able to obtain funding from the Barnwood Trust, a local, long-established trust “dedicated to creating the potential in Gloucestershire for disabled people and people with mental health problems to make the most of their lives”. This funding backed the venture for the first three years; i.e. the establishment phase of setting up Fair Shares and developing the early activities of the Time Bank. The funding had greater than only financial significance. It represented a “first signal of […] not just [being an] idealist” and that “timebanking is seen as holding a positive potential also by established actors.”
In 1998, the Big Lottery Fund provided a £100,000 grant to support the Stonehouse scheme as a demonstration project. In close cooperation with the New Economics Foundation (NEF), which was important because of its link to policy makers, the organisers of Fair Shares were able to gain charitable status for Time Banks and privileged fiscal and welfare benefit status for those engaging in timebanking. In the process, time exchange systems were recognised to be different from either paid work or volunteering; rather time exchange was recognised to be a distinct activity labelled as ‘unpaid work’.
The association with NEF added to the credibility of the nascent time bank. The two organisations worked in partnership to establish Timebanking UK (TBUK) as a national membership organization for Time Banks in the UK and UK counterpart to TB USA.
The main purpose of the Fair Shares Time Bank in Stonehouse was to enable its members to enhance social cohesion and social capital and to contribute to community reorientation by reversing trends toward decline and division. The Stonehouse Time Bank still operates today, having between 80 and 100 active members. Martin Simon points out that recognising and calling it a time bank is more important to external analysts than to those who use it. More important is that members “know the relationships they have” and “know the local people who are part of the same thing”.
Over the period since 1998, Fair Shares has grown. It now consists of a set of 5 Time Banks and operates a charity shop. Fair Shares has also contributed to developing a local social enterprise. Some of the profits from that support a local trust, which in turn supports local social innovation initiatives and organisations, including Fair Shares. Fair Shares has therefore developed a route to self-funding that enables it to maintain its integrity and a high degree of independence.
Martin Simon trained as a community organizer in the United States and was mainly influenced by the approach of Asset Based Community Development (ABCD). ABCD concentrates on local assets and social networking within a community to enable sustainable local community development. He came across the Time Dollar scheme at a Community Development Conference in Devon at a workshop led by people from Local Exchange Trading Scheme (LETS) in the UK and became aware that “building social networks [was actually] totally in line with what […] timebanking is about”.
David Boyle (of the New Economics Foundation) went to the USA to do research for his book “Funny Money” where he explored different local community currency systems, such as LETS and timebanking. He introduced Martin Simon to Edgar Cahn and his Time Dollar Institute. Later, Simon and Boyle worked together to set up Timebanking UK (TBUK). Whereas Simon took care of getting the project working on the ground, Boyle worked on research and theory development, particularly around the concept of coproduction. Through his political contacts, Boyle was able to engineer a favourable political hearing and reception for timebanking and achieve the charitable, fiscal and welfare benefits status for timebanking that provided an open operating space free from most concerns over the legality or status of timebanking.
The inspiration Simon obtained during his stay in America was fundamental for setting up Fair Shares. The association with the NEF was also important. It lent weight and credibility to the idea of a parallel local economy which fosters communities as an alternative mode of community development. Also important was the support provided by the first funders. Being associated with and supported by the Barnwood Trust and the Big Lottery Fund helped to establish project credibility. The project also received support from the Member of the Parliament for Stroud, David Drew. He supported the pilot project and on the national political level supported Fair Shares and NEF in establishing TBUK.
The time dollar movement in the USA provided inspiration for setting up the Fair Shares’ Stonehouse Time Bank. In turn the development of timebanking in the US can be traced to events in St Louis and to the establishment of the Member Organized Resource Exchange (MORE) program there as a response to the ending of the ‘war on poverty’ at the start of the Reagan Administration.
Edgar Cahn’s development of a Time Dollar Institute to promote demonstrations and research into timebanking and his writings and presentations about timebanking were important in drawing attention to timebanking. Richard Rockefeller had become an important and influential figure, lending support to the timebanking movement in the US and funding a set of time banks in New England.
An important event was Martin Simon’s visit to the United Stated and his encounters there with those in the US time dollar movement. This convinced him of its potential contribution as a mechanism for community building that could work in line with the ABCD methodology. The connection between Martin Simon and the US time dollar movement was made through David Boyle. Boyle had been in the US undertaking research for a book on community currencies, “Funny Money”. The Barnwood House Trust sponsored Simon to attend the first ever Time Dollar Conference in the USA where he established connections with all the main players in the time dollar movement and formed friendships that have lasted to the present day.
The success of the first Time Bank pilot in Stonehouse (1998) was a breakthrough as this has led to the establishment of additional Time Banks in Gloucestershire (Newent 1999, Gloucester 2000, Cheltenham 2012, and Tewkesbury 2013). Although these each operated individually within local communities in different parts of Gloucestershire, which is a rural county, they were geographically close together. They became a local/regional network of closely associated Time Banks, experimenting and learning from each other and exchanging experiences and lessons.
Fair Shares has impacted significantly on the further development of timebanking in the UK. The team involved in setting up Fair Shares also helped to set up one of the first Time Banks in London, Rushey Green. The establishment of the London Time Banks is considered by David Boyle to have been an important moment in UK timebanking history, since these have also sustained long-term and are still active and vibrant today. The pioneering work of Fair Shares provided inspiration for establishing other time banks in the UK and also paved the way for forming a national membership organization: Timebanking UK (TBUK) in 2000.
Fair Shares and NEF were the main partner organisations in achieving charitable status for Time Banks in the UK and securing the status of time exchange as a distinct class of activity (unpaid work), different from either volunteering or paid work, activities that are both highly regulated. This has provided all UK Time Banks with freedom to operate in a protected ‘niche’. Fair Shares has therefore contributed to establishing a favourable external governance framework for timebanking in the UK from the perspective of fund raising, fiscal arrangements, and the possibilities for including welfare benefit claimants and job seekers.
The emergence of timebanking in the UK has in turn been a factor in the further evolution of timebanking, including the development of a person-to-agency time credits system, known as Spice. The development of Spice was an offshoot of the Wales Institute for Complementary Currencies, who had closely collaborated with Fair Shares and TBUK almost from the beginning. Spice evolved through adaptations of the original person-to-person timebanking concept, but has become very different. It offers a form of incentivized or rewarded person-to-agency volunteering. Spice time credits are promoted and developed by a separately constituted organisation of the same name. Spice (the organization) has its own legal identity.
The establishment of Fair Shares and the original Stonehouse Time Bank was not contested. However, different actors and stakeholders coming from different organisational cultures and perspectives have different ideas and ambitions. At times, this has led to tensions especially between those locally seeing the time bank as a way of enabling the community to self-organise and self-empower and outsiders who may want to support community development but try to do this by exerting control and influence top-down.
There is a potential for tension when money is involved. Sponsors and investors have their own agendas and ideas. Money typically comes with terms and conditions relating to agenda setting, monitoring and evaluation. Often, when imposed by external sponsors, “evaluation requires a baseline to be set describing how awful the situation is and […] accountability systems to prove the disaster and how you have improved it”. This can be contrary to the whole concept and mission of timebanking and counterproductive to the idea of communities coming together, setting their own agendas and developing their own solutions. The idea of timebanking is to enable people to become active participants based on their skills and assets rather than requiring them to define their situation in regards to problems and deficits.
However, it is more than just related to money. It has to do with different organizational cultures and the logics and modus operandi of government and its agencies which are fundamentally different from the logic of ABCD. Even when agencies target community development, their own rigid procedures and requirements lead them to take approaches that end up with citizens as passive service recipients rather than to support approaches that activate and empower people. The more informal a time bank is the more creative the participants become and people are inspired by local stories of how people have come together to make life better more than by data and spread sheets
There was a mixture of intention and happenstance in the establishment of Fair Shares.
The route by which Martin Simon came across time dollars in the US involved elements of conscious planning, but luck and fortunate timing also played a part. Martin Simon was directed to Edgar Cahn by David Boyle who had just returned to the UK from the US where he had been collecting materials for a book on community currencies. Martin Simon contacted David Boyle who was able to introduce him to Edgar Cahn. The timing was judicious, since the timebanking movement in the US was entering a new phase because of the interest being shown in it by Richard Rockefeller. This was leading, also, to ideas about internationalizing timebanking. The first of a set of international timebanking conferences was held in the US around this time.
Martin Simon saw the potential in timebanking and, like David Boyle, saw a clear need for it in the UK as a mechanism for re-building communities in the UK suffering from decline and division. While there might have been an element of chance in their ‘discovering’ timebanking, there was a very conscious and planned process for bringing timebanking to the UK. This involved collaboration between Martin Simon and David Boyle. It also involved securing funding for establishing the first UK time bank in Gloucester, where Martin Simon lived, where he had local contacts and in respect to which he had detailed local knowledge. His background and experience of community organising, he was trained at the IAF in the USA, had led him to question the efficacy of current community development practice which appeared to him to be led by outside problem solvers. Only the people who live in a community can build community. In timebanking he believed he had found an approach that valued everyone’s contribution and recognised that everyone had a contribution to make.
By that time, timebanking was already becoming established in the US. It had been developed there from initiatives begun in St Louis. Edgar Cahn had played an important role in raising the profile of timebanking in the US and promoting timebanking at the national level. The time was right in the late 1990s to extend promotion also internationally. Both the US and UK sides saw interest in establishing timebanking in the UK and in working together to promote timebanking and projects involving time banks. The endeavour was therefore supported by a set of actors on both sides of the Atlantic. Edgar Cahn and Richard Rockefeller both came to the UK to support the establishment of Fair Shares.
The timebanking movement in the UK subsequently developed rapidly. In common with experience in the US, however, it was found easier to establish new time banks than to maintain existing time banks. A stable level of timebanking activity has been attained in the UK at a level of around 250-300 time banks, but the composition of the 300 Time Banks shows variation year-on-year as births of new Time Banks are offset by deaths of existing Time Banks. This highlights that significant challenges are faced in sustaining individual Time Banks. The lack of secure and sustained base level funding for time banks is the main factor here. Voluntary sector grants are usually for three years and community development is a far longer term process. Fair Shares has sustained and grown, so is one of the most successful time banks in the UK. In part this is because Fair Shares has developed independent funding streams and a social enterprise wing. This has contributed both to the sustainability of the time bank and to its autonomy. Fair Shares has been able to maintain and support its ABCD approach to community development.
The Fair Shares Time Bank in Stonehouse was used as a pilot to try out timebanking in a local context in the UK. On the basis of Fair Shares, other time banks were set up around the UK and a national timebanking support organisation was established, TBUK.
The main lesson from Fair Shares is that an asset based community development approach can work. However, a mechanism is needed to begin the process of making interpersonal relations.
“Connecting [people] does not happen on its own. But it’s the most powerful thing we have. There are thousands of small conversations inside any community, but then you need some new ways of stimulating them. […]"
Over the years the project has shown that interventions are needed to get the process started. This is especially the case when people are isolated and lack recent experience of social interaction and self-confidence. Then, there is a need for brokers to make introductions and to organise social events to create meeting opportunities. Based on experience and learning, Fair Shares now puts more emphasis on supporting and preparing new members first before they get into group activities.
The time bank provides a mechanism to get the process started. But over time it is the relationships that develop between people that are important, not the activities and tasks themselves. In the real world the relationships are what counts.” Also, what people do in the Time Bank needs to be left up to the Time Bank members to decide: “You just connect those people together, give encouragement, connect them to some resources they might need,… but then you stand back and let THEM do it.”
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