Fair Shares

Fair Shares, a charitable trust, and the UK pilot of the American Time Dollar movement, was set up in April 1998. In October 1998 Fair Shares in Stonehouse - the first UK time bank opened for business. This was closely followed by a time bank in Newent and five further time banks in Gloucestershire

Fair Shares has both urban and rural projects with over 250 participants of all ages offering a wide range of skills. Some of the most popular activities are shopping, dog walking, giving lifts, companionship, gardening, sewing, music lessons, knitting, visiting housebound people and computer skills. Amongst the more unusual are healing, lip reading and decorative wood burning.

Staff at the Fair Shares time bank act as 'Time Brokers' for each of the local sites. They are responsible for promoting the local time banks, recruiting and interviewing members, setting up assignments and managing the 'accounts'. In time, it is hoped that resources will be found to employ time brokers at each site.

The real achievements of Fair Shares has been in the making of new connections between local people and the trust, interdependence and friendships that are created every day as more and more people involve themselves in rebuilding community.

Participants of Fair Shares

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