Opinion

1,579 emails - and still they keep coming

Governance | Martin Farrell | 1 May 2007

Time Banks UK’s chair of trustees, Martin Farrell, advises busy chairs to feel the struggle and do it anyway.

I know it’s got nothing to do with good governance but an image in the film ‘Zulu’ has just come to mind. The bit when the hundreds of brave Zulus just keep on coming over the brow of the hill in the face of the fire power of the British army.

That’s how my inbox is. Since I became chair over two years ago I’ve received 1,579 emails, all of which are saved in my ‘time banking’ folder. And still they keep coming...

(That’s about as far as the analogy goes. The war in South Africa was about fighting for territory and time banking is about building social capital. Spot the difference.)

Many of my replies to all those emails are still lurking in my laptop (yes yes I know I should do ‘autoarchive’ or some other such thing to clear them out). Some of them brought worry and hurt. Bad funding news, complicated problems and the occasional stream of consciousness (I-just-have-to-get-this-off-my-chest-and-you’re-chair-so-you’re-the-one-I’m-going-to-tell).

Wouldn’t it be just fine if every day was warm and sunny like the day I’m writing this? Too bad. It isn’t like that. We need those dark days too to muster our resolve to overcome. (A wise person once told me that community work was about hearing people’s complaints and turning them round to something positive. Being an effective chair is much the same.)

So I think I have to accept that I’ll never find it easy. But also I know that facing difficulty is a necessary ingredient of doing anything at all and is certainly inherent in any leadership position. Feel the struggle and do it anyway.

New issues keep coming. Like the issue which has always been in the background but has just surfaced – the feeling that the board is too distant from the staff team, time banks and from the time banking movement. It pains me because I don’t want it to be like that but I’m told it is.

So we start thinking about what we can do about it. The suggestion of holding the July board meeting in Gloucester where the head office is seems a tiny thing to me, but I’m told will be much appreciated. Having the awayday planning group of two trustees and two staff around a table feels wholesome and healing too. And then another good idea comes up – let’s show our faces by having pictures of the trustees on the website. (Hmmm, simple solutions are the best.)

Then there’s the challenge of trustees having other related interests which don’t directly conflict with their being trustee of Time Banks UK but dilutes their attention. Whilst recognising that many of us are engaged with all sorts of other things how can we give appropriate priority to time banking? We need to work on that.

Then there’s keeping up with the tumult of policy changes, sharpening our key messages, thinking about what our first impact report should look like and …and …and still they keep coming.

Time Banks UK exists to create an environment in which time banking can flourish. Time banking is a tool which builds sustainable social networks by using time as a medium of exchange – everyone’s skills are of equal value. One hour = one time credit. For more information about time banking see www.timebanks.co.uk.

Martin Farrell is chair of Time Banks UK

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