Join us! Start with 15 minute sprints: high-impact, interactive learning to support you at work or in leadership roles. Next, dive into our always-yummy potlucks. Stay for afternoon breakout sessions to co-plan Timebank events for 2019-2020. Click here for registration, program, & speakers.
Member Events
BACE Timebank Potluck (Feb 7, 2019)
| Date: | Thursday, February 7 |
| Time: | 7:30 – 9:30pm |
| Location:Â | Omni Commons 4799 Shattuck, Oakland, CA Disco Room (upstairs) |
Join fellow Timebankers for our first potluck of 2019! Catch up in person with Timebankers you know and get to know some new Timebankers. Volunteers will unveil some BACE Timebank goals and plans for 2019, and you’ll have an opportunity to share your ideas for improving the Timebank for all. Everyone is welcome, even if you are not yet a timebanker.
Bringing food is optional, but let us know if you are bringing something at the time you RSVP to the invitation.
To find us, enter the Omni Commons building on the corner, then go up the stairs on your left. We’ll be in the Disco Room.
To RSVP sign up on our Meetup page here.
Time Bank Potluck – Omni in 30 seconds
Join us for our next General Monthly meeting at Potluck August 5th!
http://www.meetup.com/Bay-Area-Community-Exchange-Timebank/events/223656147/
POSSE Party July 19th, 2013 at Sudo Room in Downtown Oakland, 6-9 PM
We’re reviving monthly POSSE parties, 3rd Fridays at Sudo Room in Downtown Oakland. Can we say, “yaaaay”? Spread the word to your friends, family, and community! We’ll have food, skill-shares, childcare, and gift circles.
Event is wheelchair accessible.
For info on getting to Sudo Room, check out the website:Â https://sudoroom.org/wiki/Getting_there
You can RSVP on our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/events/567378529994045/ or Meetup http://www.meetup.com/Bay-Area-Community-Exchange-Timebank/events/129403142/
Meetings Relocated
Until April 2013, all BACE general meetings were held at Noisebridge on the second Wednesday of every month. Starting then, if you were watching the sidebar on the homepage, you may have noticed a change. April’s meeting was held at the Sudo Room in Oakland instead. May’s meeting will be held back at Noisebridge, June’s at the Sudo Room, and so on.
Currently, we are holding the general meeting at the Sudo Room in even numbered months and at Noisebridge in odd numbered months. The plan is to continue this arrangement for six months, then re-evaluate it and determine if we should continue to alternate meeting locations between Noisebridge and the Sudo Room or choose another arrangement.
The decision to alternate meeting spaces was made largely so that we could better accommodate both San Francisco and East Bay members. Wherever we hold our meetings, we realize that some people will have to cross the bay, that some who would be able to attend at Noisebridge can’t make it to the Sudo Room, and vice versa. On the plus side, alternating meeting spaces allows a greater range of people to attend the meetings, even if it means that some can no longer do so every month.
All general meetings are open to all BACE members, and all meeting attendees are welcome to make proposals and to vote on them. If you have an opinion on this or any other Timebank issue, please come to a meeting and make your voice heard! And if you cannot attend a meeting, you are welcome to email your thoughts, questions, and suggestions to support@bace.org.
Guest Post: February BACE Retreat Reflections
This is a guest post by Jenny Greenwood, an active BACE member:
The February BACE Timebank retreat was my first Timebank meeting. The small room got quite full of people over the course of the day. After introductions and some discussion of cooperative principles and the need for a respectful, constructive conversation, we proceeded to have one, along with a refreshing, meditative, exercise circle in the garden and an excellent potluck lunch.Click here to see the meeting notes and here to see pictures of the whiteboard. Â
I enjoyed meeting other Timebank members and found it interesting and worthwhile to get an overview of the range of issues facing the Timebank. Once we adopted the approach of advancing toward setting an agenda by listing on the whiteboard specific problems needing solutions, things moved efficiently, and the final discussion of the three top priority issues for 45 minutes or less each felt very productive. By the time we started on the third urgent issue, though, I heard some people express the understandable desire to just forget about it and end the meeting, as it was now late afternoon.
It’s hard to have a specific agenda already in place on the morning of a Timebank retreat, because there’s no telling who is coming or what their concerns are. On the other hand, having a procedure for setting an agenda quickly at the start of the meeting would free up time for more progress on more issues during the day. Perhaps before a retreat announcement, the Timebank might send out an email titled something like “All Members: Take a quick survey to help set the BACE retreat agenda!” and ask questions such as, “What issues do you want addressed at the upcoming BACE retreat? What specifically is not working in your experience of the Timebank? What is working? What should we keep doing and what needs fixing? Take the survey even if you can’t attend the retreat!” The questions could sit right at the top of the email where even casual readers would see them.
The basis for the survey could be the list, seen in a February retreat whiteboard photo, of things not presently working. The list would be reviewed and edited for current applicability at a BACE meeting shortly before the sending of the email. Using an online survey would avoid the burden of having to sort through lots of emailed responses. Members could be asked to prioritize the listed issues (the computer would tally responses) and add other thoughts or concerns as desired (someone would have to print these out, go through them to see what categories they fell into, and bring them to the meeting). This would make it simple for members to get involved even if they didn’t plan to attend – and getting people a little bit involved can sometimes be a step toward getting them to participate more – maybe they might even decide to come to the retreat after all!
Alternatively, if creating an online survey were an unrealistic amount of work, the agenda creation email could simply ask everyone planning to attend the meeting to think about and write down their numbered prioritization of the listed issues, together with any issues they might wish to add, and bring their responses to the meeting. In either case, the overall prioritization could go up on the whiteboard early in the day to set the agenda.
On a different topic – the house where the recent retreat took place worked well as a venue, but should more people attend in future, a bigger room would be needed. It might be helpful to consider using meeting rooms at a public place like a library. The main branch of the Berkeley public library, for example, located only two blocks from downtown Berkeley BART, has meeting rooms open to community organizations with operations in Berkeley. Wherever future retreats may take place, notices advertising them could be submitted for posting on library bulletin boards around the Bay Area a few weeks beforehand so that more people discover the Timebank and decide to attend. For similar reasons, the Timebank might ask that notices about retreats go out in the event announcement mailings of groups like Transition Berkeley and Transition SF.
All in all, I found the February retreat enjoyable and worthwhile. I’m looking forward to the next one!
