We've just launched the Cottage Grove Time Exchange (CGTE) -- a marketplace and a meeting place for members of our community to help each other.
The Cottage Grove TimeExchange is essentially an hour bank where we all get to help each other and benefit from each others skills and expertise. The basic idea is that when you provide a service to another member of the community, you get an hour of credit for every hour of help you provide. Similarly, when you need something done, you have the rest of the time exchange to find someone with the skills and experience you need. It's a great model, and has proven itself in communities across the country.
We have a newly installed time-exchange set up by the organization hOurWorld that developed the software and has hosted numerous exchanges around the country. They have many years experience with time banks and have developed a pretty robust service that we can just use right "out of the box".
By services, we mean those different types of help that we can each provide to our fellow community members. These could be things like child care, carpentry, garden work, massage, auto repair, computer assistance, web design, school tutoring, photography, driving, music lessons, cooking and catering, legal services, dog walking, decorating, and just about anything you can think of. See the complete list below.
So.... how do you get started... easy! The first step is to "join", i.e. to submit a membership application for the time exchange. Your application then gets reviewed and approved and you can then post the services that you are willing to offer and engage others to provide the services that you need.
TO SEE THE SERVICES AVAILABLE: www.hourworld.org/bank/Services.php?hw=1023
TO JOIN: www.hourworld.org/bank/Join.php?hw=1023
TO LOG-IN AS A MEMBER: www.hourworld.org/bank/?hw=1023