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No More Throwaway People – Public Banking as a First Step in the Right Direction

2014 Slow Living Breakout Session: Edgar Cahn, Time Banking

No more throwaway people — Our economy doesn’t value such core activities as home care, community service, social justice activism and skill sharing. Time Banking addresses that crucial unmet need. In this session we present Time Banking as a model of economics that acknowledges the value of all people and the dignity of all work. Our panel will explore the many uses of Time Banks to create a more just society, looking forward and applying these ideas in new and more inter-connected ways that will build our impact.

Edgar Cahn, founder of Time Banking, author of No More Throwaway People; Stephanie Rearick, Director of the Dane County, Wisconsin Time Bank, and Gwen Hallsmith, author, founder of Global Community Initiatives. Moderated by Linda Weil, former Time Bank coordinator

“Some people are just wired differently”

The godfather of Time Banking says why money will never be enough, and the reason why some humans are wired so differently

Potluck meeting! July 1, Wednesday, 6:30pm at the Omni

bace

2015 things are getting started again. Here are some folks hard at work

This Wednesday the next meeting is at the Omni Commons at 4799 Shattuck Ave, Oakland, CA.  On the corner of 48th St & Shattuck.

  • Sign up at the Meetup page!
  • Our meeting location within the Omni building may vary.  Please check the whiteboard for our directions!
  • If the front door is locked, simply ring the doorbell which is high up on the right side.

If you can, bring some food or a non-alcoholic beverage to share, as well as any necessary utensils.  But please join us with or without a potluck offering!

omni1 There is a kitchen at the Omni as well that is shared by Food Not Bombs.

kitchen

On the first Wednesday of each month the BACE Timebank holds our general meetings. Come meet others interested in non-cash mutual aid, and help us make the timebank awesome! We try to make participation easy, as BACE is an all-volunteer collective. Without community, there is no BACE. 

Schedule:  (Every 1st Wed of the month)

  • 6:30 – 7:00 pm – Intro and Orientation for new Timebank Members and Interested Community
  • 7:00 – 8:00 pm – General Meeting
  • 8:00 – 8:30 pm – Breakout groups / post-meeting discussion

Please feel free to come to this meeting if you’d like to volunteer, to be part of the decision making process at the timebank, or if you’d just like to check out what the timebank is all about.

Link to Timebank Exchange System: http://bace.org/

Bay Area Community Exchange Blog:  http://sfbace.org/

The months fly by — BACE updates from the first quarter of 2014

You may have noticed that you haven’t heard much from BACE administration in the first quarter of 2014.  The turn of 2014 saw a large turnover in core volunteers supporting the every day operations of BACE, and our new volunteers (like me!) needed time to learn the ropes and figure out how best to contribute.  We apologize for the silence, but are here to remedy that with some updates from our BACE monthly meetings, and a few notes on what to expect in the coming months.

Let’s start with the most important announcements:

  • A Tech lead is needed for the BACE website.  If you have sysadmin skills, please consider helping BACE continue to thrive. Your help is seriously needed! If you (or someone you know) is a programmer with experience in Ruby on Rails, and you can commit a few hours a week for the next three months, volunteer your time as the BACE Tech lead.  Specifically, the BACE tech lead will help
    *Modify the website to return to the original source code
    * Handle the accounts
    * Investigate and fix bugs
    For each hour that you work, you’ll receive an hour. You can obtain all sorts of services through BACE–from guitar lessons to bicycle repair to health care–and use your hours to say thanks.   To make the new economy real and connect with people who share the vision, email the BACE volunteer coordinator, Emily Wheeler, at emily(at)emily4english(dot)com.
  • The BACE core is in need of additional volunteers.  Volunteering with the core means committing to one, two-hour meeting per month (always the first Wednesday of the month from 6:30-8:30, rotating between Oakland and San Francisco), and following up on small tasks to keep BACE operational between meetings.  These small tasks can include: maintaining the BACE blog, planning BACE events, answering BACE support emails, attending local meetings to promote BACE, and more.  To get involved, join the BACE volunteer list-serve, and attend our monthly BACE meetings.
  • The BACE “board” becomes the BACE “staff”.  After much discussion, the BACE staff has decided to change the language we use to talk about our work.  Instead of a “board” doing “governance,” a “volunteer staff” would handle “administration.” We are a do-ocracy; the board has been essentially whoever shows up at meetings, not an exclusive decision-making group. The new vocabulary is meant to communicate inclusivity. You can comment by emailing support(at)bace(dot)org.

And now into the nitty-gritty.  For full transparency, here are meeting notes from the last three BACE staff meetings.

  • January, 2014.  Full minutes were not taken at the meeting, however we did draft this letter to BACE membership calling out for greater volunteer engagement.  The letter was never sent, due to disagreement amongst BACE staff about language and purpose.
  • February 2014.
  • March 2014.

And looking forward, a few goals we have for the coming quarter are:

  • Find a tech lead and facilitate the transition of BACE back to the original source code, allowing for improved user interaction
  • Plan and host a DIY Festival
  • Begin to showcase stories of successful BACE exchanges on our blog

The possibilities are limitless!  Now is a great time to get involved with BACE.  Join the fun, won’t you?

 

december’s planning meeting

BACE monthly planning meetings are now on the first Wednesday of the month. For Wednesday December 4th, we’re at Sudo Room in downtown Oakland, a few blocks from 19th St BART. Meetings are now only ONE hour, with ½ hour break-out groups afterwards for volunteer tasks. Time: 8:00 – 9:30 PM
, Address: 2141 Broadway, Oakland (entrance on 22nd; please see directions). This month’s agenda is here.

the return of the potluck?

Many have asked if there is a way to participate in BACE monthly, face-to-face, outside of our planning meetings. In the do-ocratic spirit of grassroots economics, let’s get it going!

Inspired by Arroyo S.E.C.O. Network of Time Banks, and also by successes with our own “POSSE Parties,” we thought that monthly potlucks, rotating through Bay Area neighborhoods, would be something to get off the ground. So now all we need are some people who would like to help make this happen. Do you want to be involved with the more “non-technical” aspects of BACE organizing? Is there a community space in your area that you think would be good—a library, center, office, park, or maybe even a home? Do you want to be part of the strengthening of BACE?

When we interact face-to-face as groups it really shapes what this project is supposed to be all about. Experience has shown that it’s essential to share space with each other in order to really build trust, and to build a movement that challenges capitalist values.

So let’s get it started! Eating, drinking, listening to music, offering skillshares, and sharing ideas on how to use the time bank and how to make it better…. Sounds fun already! If you’re interested, call Amber at 415 699 7011 or email support@bace.org.