Brighton (Triratna) Timebank - your feedback please on this synthesis of ideas please

This email is sent to fellow friendly (& challenging :-) members of the Triratna Buddhist Community & copied to others whose opinion matters most and whose support sustains.
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Brighton (Triratna) Timebank
- sparking new ways to help each other in the new economy

(underneath a logo of a Catherine wheel comprised of 3 Jewels, an arrow to the nail that holds the Catherine Wheel.)

What most firmly keeps the Catherine Wheel safely sparking into the world is a firm shared valuing of the values of the Timebank; the word 'Triratna' meaning 'three jewels'.

These values transcend many philiosophies and religions & are expressed in this Brighton (& South Coast) based Timebank as:

('Triangle Illustration' here)
Apex -Compassion
Left base - Learning
Right base - Team-building

1) Compassion (led by the example of the Buddha, who his closest friend described on his passing as "he who is so kind")

2) Learning (informed by the Buddha's teaching, which included a team-based generosity economics)

3) Team-Building (With our development of wisdom and compassion through working together and mutual generosity we become a stronger "Sangha"; setting a collective lead in troubled times, where ego-leading & greed have led to the un-economy.)

The un-economy was described on Radio 4's Sunday programme (27th November 2011) in the following terms:
Unfair
Unstable
Unsustainable
(& making lots of people) Unhappy.

Have you considered shifting your economic activity so that:
1) No more than one third of your economic activity is in the monetary economy?
2) As much as one third of your economic activity is traded through Timebank credits (free from money & yet able to pay for food, rent etc)? With creativity and good connections Timebank credits are even more potent and flexible than monetary credit in obtaining a wide range of the the things that matter.
3) All the rest of your economic activity becomes generosity- the "sharing and gift economy", whereby things flow freely without expectation of reciprocation.

People have the capacity to support each other meet not just their basic needs. A guy called Maslow wrote of our highest needs as our need for 'self-actualisation'. The more we go beyond 'self and other' & see "your needs (as) equal to mine", the healthier our communities become.

For all the benefits granted by late-modern society and competitive, debt-based economics, we can do better still.

If you want something better than what we've had to date, spend time finding out how the creative and socially-just application of timebanking (founded by Edgar Cahn) transcends the limits of money, the limits of barter & the limits of those local exchange schemes that have no brokerage-team to make wonderful things happen with no money.

The Moneyless Man, Mark Boyle, in his book of the same name celebrated with us at Buddhafield festival 2009 what could be done to lift the human spirit and re-connect us outside our monetary relationships.

Now in 2011/2012 the same organisation that founded freelender.org*, is coming of age, renaming itself Freelending & Timebanking CIC and seeking to build a strong team that makes a difference to many. Start by registering your interest via http://brightontimebank.info

(*Celebrated by Forum for the Future -alongside Landshare & Hospitality Club- as ahead of it's time in generating the low carbon economy)

http://additionalinfo.blogspot.com
Thank you for your time reading the whole email and following up what you were moved to do.

Clowning about whilst NatWest voting for 'St Leonards Sharing' Timebank ends at noon

Hello to anyone interested in St Leonards developments & beyond,
I'm still wanting to get loads more to St Leonards residents at no cost and Maria Arpa from http://centreforpeacefulsolutions.org has rung this weekend and offered to come down again before Christmas to provide more team-building support.
There are now 7 roles to be filled (a commitment of 6 hours a month) to power the St Leonards Sharing Timebank & you earn credits for those hours too so it's a win-win-win(St Leonards being the last win) if you contact me and offer some volunteer time- or come along to a Timebank monthly meeting to learn more - there's one at 11am today, even!

Clowning workshops I'm trying to get here soon so here's the message just sent to my mentor in clowning:

> "Hello Jayachitta, I hope that you are well? It may seem strange to you that I get up in the middle of the night just to send this message. For me it has become time to carry on our dialogue about what I could do for you that's worth as much as money. I'm confident that you'll be pleasantly surprised to learn how hours put into St Leonards can now be reclaimed in hours delivered by a range of skilled people local to you in London. Today, the St Leonards Sharing Timebank takes it's next major step -in an 11am meeting, and we have someone from East Sussex County Council visiting to see how we are innovating here and support this initiative which is now keeping me up at night & will hopefully lead to a clowning workshop or two from you down here. As I'm very interested in the 'Silver Dreams' lottery project goals too (which will have funding attached), I'm also interested in how you'd tailor clowning for less mobile senior-citizens?
> Kind regards
> Paul (that guy you accompanied around the streets of NW London door-knocking one fruitful night.)"

http://actionforhastingshappiness.blogspot.com/p/ideas-bubbling-out-of-happiness.html -web link for an introduction to Timebanking.

Before noon on 24th October -if you haven't yet- please go to the address where you can make the difference to St Leonards Sharing getting another vote of support, even though it's now unlikely that we'll get the £6,000 prize from the NatWest bank.
The address for info about "St Leonards Sharing" is http://communityforce.natwest.com/project/5827
You can also gonthere to become a volunteer - which will boost the St Leonards Sharing Timebank.
Thank you for your time reading this/ actioning it.

TIMEBANK PRESS RELEASE IMMANENT FROM Elize from Sussex Police & Paul Crosland (St Leonards Sharing & Hastings 4 Happiness)

Just had a very successful hour and a half with Elize from the police (including photo shoot & being booked to co-facilitate a Restorative conference in the next fortnight) - the Sussex Police & St Leonards Sharing Timebank arrangement is in place and active. Press release follows.

Alsoon Cooper, who as co-ordinator of Soundspositive, has come forward to be the main recipient of the timebanked hours being given to the police to help them with restorative justice says: "I am absolutely thrilled about this because it means the police hours will be put towards more support and police participation in my ground-breaking community project that builds new and improved relationships between groups that do not usually get along- thorugh the medium of music. So I am putting in a funding bid, for a group of police and young people (at risk of offending or who have offended in their past) to put on a music concert, each performing songs or anything else they would like to do. It's not just about the music but having the time and space to build a better understanding of each other, the differences and similarities, and being ok with that. This ultimately would lead to changes of attitude and could have a huge benefit to the town and those choices individuals from either groups make in their future, whether that be more offending or how to approach each other. If anyone is interested in playing in the band please give me a call on 01424 444330. Cheers!".