http://www.geocities.com/kirstysburns

Caledonian Road
& Barnsbury

cally timebank

welcome to kirsty's web pages: featuring the cally environmental timebank, Lapland in a Smart Car & the fanlisting for mother earth

NEW! (27 August 2003) Visit my weblog | Lapland in a Smart Car | Other SELP projects | Needs & Skills | UK Time Banks

Islington FOE | Islington Trees | (ONS London): PCS | Wine Club | Architecture & Environment MSc

Community

Caledonian Road & Barnsbury Timebank

The timebank area covers the Caledonian & Hillmarton wards of Islington. This is the area bounded by Pentonville Road to the South, York Way to the West, Camden Road/Parkhurst Road to the North and Holloway Road & Upper Street to the East.

On 17 May Cally timebank held its first public event, a recycle-litter-pick event: Cally Recycle Pick. We are holding similar event on Saturday 27 September 2003 in the Hilldrop area. For details see our poster and leaflets.

During the 10 months we have recycled over 300 kilograms of waste: for a breakdown of the materials recycled see recycling data.

Also here are the Timebank newsletters for February/March & April/May - and the questionnaire.

I will be drawing my own maps for this web site but until they are ready here is the streetmap of the area.

Update 27 August: Website entry for London Timebank

Time Bank

A time bank is a way for local people to come together and help each other. Participants 'deposit' their time in the bank by giving practicable help and support and are able to 'withdraw' their time when they need something done themselves. Everyone's time is worth the same and a broker links people up and keeps records. People help each other with everything from making phone calls, to sharing meals and giving lifts to the shops.

We want to live in places where we know our neighbours and can call on them when we need help. Money can't buy that trust - but time banks can provide support when we need it and at the same time help us get to know our neighbours.

We all have skills and talents but a lot of these are wasted. Time banks are one way if using what you have to help someone else. And no-one is excluded - time banks recognise that we need every one's contribution to build healthy, happy neighbourhoods.

Time banks can help provide a whole range of community based services - everything from home visits to older people, to security patrols and practical DIY schemes.

There are a growing number of inspiring schemes already running in London & elsewhere in Britain. For instance Southwark Hourbank, Rushey Green in South East London & in Gloucestershire Fairshares. If you are interested in participating have a look at the list of skills & needs. E-mail Kirsty telling me with contact details (phone number, address or e-mail list*), a list of your skills & needs & any questions you have about time banks. NB. The skills & needs list is not comprehensive - you can add new ones to this list by letting me know - I'll add them to this list.

* I will keep these on a computer database unless you prefer to keep a paper record only - please let me know if that is the case

A network of time banks is being established across London. See the links from: Timebanks UK.

LONDONERS TO EARN ‘POINTS’ FOR HELPING COMMUNITY 24/7/2001 &

TIME BANKS: A Radical Manifesto for the UK)

Recycling Initiative

Islington now operates a recycling scheme for people living in housing, but there are no such facilities available for flat-dwellers. The distribution of recycling facilites are fairly limited & this means people living in flats often have to travel considerable distances to dispose of their bottles, paper & cans. It is even more difficult to dispose of many other recyclable products in a environmentally sound way. The borough stopped recycling cardboard in 1999 to save cash & recently arguments have been made to avoid recycling plastic because it is not "financially viable". Islington's is nearer the bottom of the recycling league than the top & its inner city location is often given as a reason. But surely a large city like London must offer much more recycling opportunities than less populous, less industrial areas? The lack of money & the absence of an established recycling infrastructure or network is a problem but this is where establishing a timebank may help.

Islington does have a central recycling facility, at Queensland Place (see Islington Council's list of recycling points but this is out of reach many people. There needs to be some facility to enable flat-dwellers to participate in looking after the environment & minimise their waste.

The Timebank Meeting

See Barnsbury Timebank. The timebank was created in the summer of 2002 and we have held monthly meetings during the last six months. If you would like to come along to the next one please contact me by phone (020 7 700 0486) or e-mail.

Plans
In summary:

Speak to local companies & residents to ask whether they are willing to collect selected types of waste for recycling. The very act of their sorting waste can count as a timebank activity, and it is suggested that participants will be able to earn credits by doing this.

Volunteers arrange to collect the sorted recycling on a weekly basis. For instance, kitchen waste, such as unused waste vegetables from grocers & chipshops could be taken to freightliners city farm for composting. A couple of years ago a business-centred cardboard recycling scheme was set up in Holloway.

These volunteers will earn time credits which they can use to obtain goods & services they need or they can donate their credits to other people.

Composting Kitchen Waste

Both Culpeper Gardens & Freightliners City Farm have facilities for composting suitable kitchen waste: for instance peelings from fruit & vegetables (cooked food, meat, fish & dairy products are not suitable for composting as they decompose in a different way). If you would like to know more about these schemes please e-mail Kirsty or contact either of these organisations directly.

Freightliners City Famm

Culpeper Gardens

One aim of the Barnsbury Timebank is to facilitate more recycling & composting from both both commercial & domestic premises. Volunteers would be able to earn time credits by collecting the recycling from participating households.

For more information about recycling in Islington see http://www.islington-foe.freeserve.co.uk/campaign/recycle.htm.

Warm Homes

One idea I am currently investigating is to set up a project to improve the energy efficiency of homes in Barnsbury.

Every winter many people suffering from fuel poverty become vulnerable to the dangers of hypothermia. According to the first release by the Office for National Statistics, there were 25,000 excess deaths in the relatively mild winter of 2000/2001 & nearly double that in 1999/2000.

8 million people in Britain are unable to heat their homes adequately, but by following advice on energy efficiency and taking a few steps to insulate our homes adequately this needn't be so.

Islington Council run an Energy Advice Centre, which residents can contact (visit or phone or e-mail) for advice on improving the energy efficiency of their homes. They provide lots of information which people can use to reduce their fuel consumption and I am hoping to carry out a survey to assess the positive impact of this centre for people living in Islington.

I am looking into whether the Barnsbury Time Bank could encourage residents to become pro-active in improving living conditions for neighbours. Participants could earn time bank credits by checking that vulnerable members of the community are OK during the cold weather. The installation of hot water tank lagging, loft insulation, and other energy saving measures (silver lining behind radiators, thermal curtains) could be carried out by skilled local people , which in turn earn credits which could pay for improvments to their homes.

Another imprtant way to fight excess winter deaths is to support the passage of the Warm HOmes Bill. For more information see

Friends of the Earth.

The paragraph headed "Cutting energy use in the home" on the FOE Briefing on UK Government Action to Combat Climate Change.

A Combined Heat and Power (CHP) schme launched in Tower Hamlets by Bowman Power.

The Energy Saving Trust.

Community Map

Plan:

Geo-reference information about good & bad aspects of the area

Create an image map linking this information which will be stored on a database

Shading or colour coding the map to make it easier to establish geographical patterns

What the map could show:
As I develop this website I will turn words on this list into clickable links so that you can view the map & information about the specific issue.

trees, flora & fauna

parks & other green spaces

cycle lanes

the bus routes

the tube stations

taxi ranks

sports & leisure facilities

libraries

information points

churches

schools

colleges