Volunteering

Where would we be without volunteers?

Parents helping in schools. People befriending in hospitals. Scout leaders, counsellors in Citizens’ Advice Bureaux, people running clubs for the elderly.

Kingston has over 300 voluntary groups. Partly to celebrate this contribution I won a recent debate in Parliament on volunteering. I told the Minister the importance of the voluntary sector for Kingston, and explored ideas for encouraging more people to volunteer.

For every volunteer group I visit in Kingston tells me they need more helpers, especially younger people.

Government is promoting volunteering. I welcomed, for instance, their encouragement for employers to give staff one paid day off a year for voluntary work.

Time banks

But more should be done. I’m taken with an American idea called "time banks".

"Time banks" work like a babysitting club. When you help a neighbour, you earn a time credit: when you need some help, a neighbour, most likely a different one, will help you.

Time is the "currency", where an hour of help grocery shopping equals an hour of help filling in a tax return. Some American time banks provide monthly statements, recording the flow of good deeds.

It’s different from traditional volunteering, because you may get help back. But what’s interesting is how many people don’t cash in their time credits: they just get more involved in helping their community.

In fact, time banks’ founder, Edgar Cahn, describes them as a "tool for re-building community". Experience shows people who might not normally volunteer do come forward. For "time money" buys things ordinary money can’t, such as friendship and neighbourliness – and recognises that help.

Time banks are organised in many ways – perhaps on a housing estate, in a GP’s practice or through a community centre. Inner city US schools use them, with older pupils helping younger ones, earning time credits for buying refurbished computers: grades have risen and bullying fallen.

Further information

Visit www.neweconomics.org/timemoney for a fuller explanation of time banks in the UK.

If you want to volunteer, please send me a message and I can put you in touch with Kingston Voluntary Action, who support local groups.

I called an adjournment debate in the House of Commons on this issue. You can read the full text of the debate including my speech and the response by Paul Boetang. After the debate I gave some comments about it to the press.

Tell me what you think
about time banks and volunteering

Abolition of volunteer fees
Voluntary organisations no longer have to pay for criminal checks on volunteers

Adjournment debate on volunteering and time banks
Full text of my debate in the House of Commons on 5th April

Comments to the press
after the adjournment debate

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