Caledonian Road & Barnsbury Timebank

About Us

Cally Timebank covers the area around Caledonian Road in Islington: the whole of Caledonian and Barnsbury Wards & parts of Holloway and St Mary's wards. It is a member of the Islington Timebank Network along with Whittington Time Exchange (based at Hargreave Park, N19), Mildmay Timebank (based at the The Factory, Mathias Road N16), and Crouch Hill Timebank (Crouch Hill Community Centre N4).

It was set up in Summer 2002 as an initiative to encourage recycling and promote energy efficiency on council estates. Participants are able to earn Cally time credits by separating their recycling for collection each week. By saving their own recycling participants earn about one cally a month. When they have earnt six credits they are awarded a compact fluorescent light bulb which will help them cut their electricity bills.

More energy efficiency and environmentally-friendly incentives are in the pipeline. Draught-proofing, healthy eco-paints and a fruit & veg delivery service from shops and markets are amongst the benefits Cally Timebank participants stand to gain when they do something to help the planet and the local community. Like other timebanks, our aim is to increase the social capital in the area, the sense of community in which every person counts. Caledonian Road is an area of contrasts: it has a diverse range of people, from different ethnic backgrounds, from poor to wealthy. Everyone can participate in the timebank: everyone counts. In timebank founder, Edgar Cahn's words, there are "no more throw-away people": we can enrich our area by caring about our neighbours, our streets, our tress, our whole town. And we can care about what we use & how we dispose of it; through the promotion of recycling Cally Timebank adds to this: there is no more throw away goods either.

Forthcoming Projects

Recycle Picks

In May we held our first public event. A litter pick with a difference - we spearated all recyclabe material & took it to the recycling banks. The seven participants eanrt two credits each (two hours work), and collected 21 kilograms of rubbish from the streets around Freightliners Farm, Westbourne Estate, Caledonian Estate.

Shop Local

We are producing a web-based database of local shops. The aim is to encourage people to support their local shops - & we would like to encourage the participating shops to recognise this loyalty by offering occasional discounts or rewards. More information about this scheme will be available shortly.

Freightliners Straw Bale

Freightliners City Farm are building a straw bale building. Volunteers will be able to earn cally timebank credits when they help create this exciting new building. It ius hoped that we may be able to obtain some photo voltaic solar panels for the roof of the building to supply power.

Breaking News

Cally Timebank is getting its own office space in Hilldrop Community Centre! More details here soon.

The Participants

Our participants come from a cross section of the local population. They are mainly involved in the recycling scheme on the Westbourne Estate. Photographs of some of the people & events will be available shortly.

If you would like to get involved in future recycle-picks or regualarly household recycling call Kirsty on 020 7 700 0486 or e-mail [email protected]

Back to top

Hosted by www.Geocities.ws