Martin Farrell offers advice on setting the tone and style of leadership you want your organisation to take.
Ordinary miracles - those everyday small acts of human kindness exchanged because people want to give and they like to receive and which are recognised by the currency of time. Hundreds of thousands of them every day. Small acts yes, but a global force when you add them all up. Or am I dreaming?
History is peppered with people who were convinced that they knew how to put the world right yet in the process of trying have made things worse. Carried away with their own rhetoric and enthusiasm, they fight wars for peace.
Ghandi suggested that we 'be the change' we want to see. That's the challenge for time banking. We want to change the world a little bit at a time ordinary everyday miracles - but also we want to get on with it and make a big and lasting impact, and not just in the UK. So what does having global ambitions mean for me, as chair of an organisation with a handful of staff, insecure funding and a small office in Gloucester? Am I getting above myself, carried away with my own enthusiasm?
I think it means that every phone call, email, decisions large and small, how I sort things out when I mess up and how I deal with tensions, has to live and breathe the essence of what time banking is about. I'm being watched all the time and I know that one day everything I do is going to land back on my desk times 100. So I'm going to do my best every day to set a tone and style and direction that I want to see.
One challenge was how to handle the work I was asked to do with TimeBanks USA, of which Edgar Cahn, the founder of time banking, is chair. TimeBanks USA was creative about reciprocating the help I had freely given earlier in the year. But the request to me as director of get2thepoint to facilitate their six-month strategic planning process, came with an offer of a fee.
A dilemma. Was it right to accept it? I knew that if I didn't I would be giving more than I was happy to give my basic human need for some form of reciprocity would not have been met and I would probably feel bad about the whole thing. After some pondering, I decided simply to ask my fellow UK trustees. To my surprise and relief they said they didn't see any problem or conflict and on the contrary thought it would be great for time banking in the UK and US to work together in this way.
Sure this small decision was of no great significance in the grand scheme of things, but alongside all the other small decisions and all the time banking ordinary miracles everywhere, all the time, I think it has helped a little bit to build the world I want to see. Really.
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
Legal note: this article raises complex legal issues on payments to trustees and it is impossible to give generalised guidance in response to them. The facts will be different in each case, and even a small difference in the facts can change the legal position. If you find yourself in a similar type of situation, you should take legal advice.
Martin Farrell is chair of Time Banks UK and founder of Get2thepoint.org.
