Do we want to use loomio as a decision-making forum at a national level?

Hi. I think Loomio is the beginning of a wonderful tool for facilitating democratic processes.
Been reading back through some of the original comments in this forum, it might be helpful to clarify a few things first.

• Who are the loomio.timebank group?
• What is their affliation/relationship with Timebank.org.nz or TBANZ?
  
• Who is the executive of TBANZ?
• Who is their chairperson or spokesperson?
  
• Who do TBANZ represent? Is it just some of the timebank administrators or is it also open to actual timebank community at large?
• Is the Loomio.Timebank an official project/activity under the auspices of TBANZ?
  
• Is there a separate Community Weaver Users Group? - Is CW tied to or the official software platform for TBANZ?
• Should New Zealand re-state its core values in our terms rather than just wholesale adopt the american version? (some other countries have already restated their core values).
• What is Loomio.Timebank's mandate to make any decisions or policy with respect to TBANZ or timebanking in NZ?

Hey Richard,

Good to see you on here. Lots of questions so I will probably only answer a few and leave the rest to the others.

• Who are the loomio.timebank group?

The consensus for using 'loomio' for national decision making arose out of the national hui for timebanking in raglan just recently. I guess the people with accounts on loomio so far is just those that have turned up so far from that wider national group but over time I think we'll see some representatives from each timebank on here. See also the "how many people from each timebank" discussion, of course.

• What is their affliation/relationship with Timebank.org.nz or TBANZ?
• Who is the executive of TBANZ?
• Who is their chairperson or spokesperson?

Hmm you may not realise that there is, as yet, no formal national body for timebanking in NZ in terms of a formal 'incorporated society' or what have you rather there's just a lot of local initiatives and efforts (including your own one) that come together to collaborate and swap ideas in various ways.

The general consenus of the people discussing this at the hui was that we wanted to keep things as 'bottom up' as possible. There was however the idea that it would be good to have an IRD number for things like national coordinator funding etc. Margaret from Lyttleton suggested that forming a formal inc society might be a bad move, so instead we've gone with the idea that (tentatively) we might be able to be a group formally under "living economies" for IRD number / legal purposes (tentative because we're still waiting to hear more news on that one) . As far as organising ourselves Margaret was quite into the idea that we could be a bit innovative and different and sort of do things in a new way, such as using Loomio to make decisions and stuff. This (the idea of using Loomio for national decisions) was then brought to the wider group of everyone at the hui to agree with and reached rapid consensus. So actually, thinking about it. I'm not sure we technically 'need' this loomio proposal to pass to maintain that we have consensus on this point, at least from the group represented at the hui.

As far as timebank.org.nz goes I guess everyone just assumed that it was a website set up to represent the wishes of the national group whatever that was. As far as this word 'TBANZ' goes I'm really not entirely sure. Maybe someone can correct me but I decided after a while that its a short way of saying timebank.org.nz in that people normally say 'the TBANZ Website' and not very often just TBANZ on its own ;-)

Phew that was long! As I say folks feel free to jump in and correct me where I got this wrong. Let's do a few more questions though..

• Who do TBANZ represent? Is it just some of the timebank administrators or is it also open to actual timebank community at large?

By 'TBANZ' I guess I'm going to assume you mean the group of people that turned up or were invited to turn up to the national hui recently. So that includes you. Generally speaking I think it is a national body for collaboration between timebanks, so yes lots of people were coordinators of local timebanks. Speaking for myself I was aware that there is a whole committee of other people who help out with the Kapiti timebank, and then around the actual comittee all of the actual members of Kapiti timebank. At the TBANZ group I feel like a representative of both of those wider groups. (FWIW Kapiti is a formal inc society so I am technically president of Kapiti timebank currently so I suppose in some formal way I was in fact representing them). However I would say that the general mood at the hui, and therefore I assume at any group answering to the name 'TBANZ' is that they would be open to discussion and input from anyone interested enough in 'timebanking' to want to get involved at a national level (so yes that could include you IMHO).

• Is the Loomio.Timebank an official project/activity under the auspices of TBANZ?

I suppose so, yes, in as much as we had a fairly formal moment of consensus from all the people at the national hui that we should move on to this platform for 'decision making'.

• Is there a separate Community Weaver Users Group? - Is CW tied to or the official software platform for TBANZ?

Not within NZ. We specifically discussed this and if I remember correctly the consensus was that we were not about being tied to any particular software. That if there was going to be a line between what is and is not a timebank for our purposes it would be to do with the dividing line between core values and the 1=1 principle. (FWIW there was apparently once a 'timebank' up north that split off from the wider group aka 'us' because a group of people there did not really like the 1 hr = 1 time credit idea).

• Should New Zealand re-state its core values in our terms rather than just wholesale adopt the american version? (some other countries have already restated their core values).

That's a really interesting idea. I think there are a few different phrasings already in Edgar Cahns words. Id like to know more, do you have links to other phrasings/statements of core values around timebanking?

• What is Loomio.Timebank's mandate to make any decisions or policy with respect to TBANZ or timebanking in NZ?

I guess I'd refer you to the above comments about a consensus decision of everybody in the room at the hui.

Hi Richard, that's a lot of big questions! The simple answer is that most of those things have not been decided yet. At the recent hui in Whaingaroa, there was consensus amongst those present that this loom.io group will be the place for making decisions at the national level. Any active timebank member is welcome to participate in decision making by joining this group.

Just to clear up a small point. At the first hui in Lyttelton (Oct 2011) we reached consensus that the term TBANZ refers to a loose, un-incorporated network of all the people in NZ who are actively developing timebanks (whether on community weaver or not). So bascially, it means "(all the) TimeBank(s) (in) Aotearoa New Zealand". It has never been an official or incorporated body.

It is also not an acronym for the website (timebank.org.nz). The website was simply set up around the time of the 2011 hui as a means for collaboration between timebanks in NZ.

Unfortunately it hasn't fulfilled that role as effectively as we had hoped. For more info on where that leaves us now, see the discussion about CoActivate.

Perhaps Emma will confirm my observation that timebanks around the world are as different as people are. I understand and see the wisdom of a bottom-up approach. I guess a question we can ask now is how can we (TBANZ, timebank.org.nz, loomio.timebank, skype.timebank, myself, coordinators, and others) serve and help those wanting to faciltate timebanking or participate in timebanking? What resources, knowledge, experiences, friendship and mentoring can we bring or contribute? Can we be open to all the different flavours? For example accepting of those not using 1==1 or different business models or their own restatement of their values or using different systems? Those using their own definitions of inclusion and membership criteria, etc? Maybe we all can agree for a start on a NZ flavoured statement of our Kiwi core values without being too prescriptive? That we are all timebankers if we agree to a basic premise of reciprocal service exchange and community service and inclusion.?

@richardbrown, those are really interesting questions and deserve their own discussion thread - and you're welcome to create one! But this discussion is about something more specific, please try to keep to the topic at hand when posting on this thread. Loom.io works best when we keep separate topics in separate discussion threads/proposals :-)

yes please.