Inverness Time Bank News

Due to the nature of Time Bank things are always evolving and changing so I will use this page to keep you updated on some of the developments with the Inverness Time Bank.

Wing Tsjun Scotland – Join the Time Bank
Wing Tsjun Scotland is a recognised Scottish charity providing self defence courses for children, teenagers, adults, women and vulnerable members of the community and the great news is that they have joined the Time Bank. They are really interested in offering their expertise to the Time Bank and can tailor their services to your individual needs and requirements.
“Our aim is to enable people to stay safe on the street, to help them identify and recognise danger and learn how to avoid it. Our main focus is on children who through the martial arts training become more self confident and their performance in school and in life in general will increase manifold.” says Sije Oana Stan, the Head of School for Wing Tsjun Scotland. The organisation provides specialised self defence courses for various groups, like “Prevention Courses for College Students”, “Violence at Work”, “Street Defence” and many others.
So if you would like to get involved and learn something new through the Time Bank please get in touch with the Time Bank office and we can talk about what you require as Wing Tsjun are offering a very flexible approach through the Time Bank and can tailor specific courses to members needs. They also run regular self defence classes at the Spectrum Centre in Inverness (by the Bus Station) if anyone knows of someone that may be interested.

INVERNESS PRISON JOINS THE TIME BANK
The Time Bank has teamed up with Inverness Prison to start a new prison initiative in the Highlands. This will enable prisoners to give something back to their communities through volunteering while they are serving their sentence, and to recognise and reward the volunteering that prisoners undertake within the prison for the Samaritans Listening Scheme. This scheme operates in the prison with support from Inverness Samaritans. Prisoners are trained and supported by Samaritans to listen in complete confidence, to fellow prisoners who may be experiencing feeling of distress or despair, including feelings which may lead to suicide. Prisoners are seven times more likely to take their own lives than an average person in Scotland and the objectives of the Listener scheme are to assist in reducing suicides, self-harm and to help alleviate feelings of distress.
It uses the Time Credit concept to reward them, hour for hour. However, instead of the prisoners spending the credits they have earned on accessing services for themselves - All credits accumulated within the prison are distributed at the discretion of the Time Bank across Volunteering Highland’s Time Banks - Inverness, Caithness, Lochaber and Badenoch & Strathspey to benefit local people in the community that need extra support to earn time credits or to organisations within Time Bank.
This is a concept that has worked really well with other Prison’s in Scotland and was something that the Inverness Time Bank was keen to set up as there can only be benefits for those involved, luckily Inverness Prison and the Samaritans were also hooked on the concept and very supportive in setting up this Initiative. To date the Prisoners have donated 134.5 hours into the Time Bank which just shows the amount of time and commitment that they contribute to helping other prisoners.

INSURANCE
Our Insurance company has insisted on a few changes to things offered in the Time Bank. The following things have had to be removed
* Use of a Car/Mini bus
* Website Design
* Car repairs
They have also clarified the issue regarding giving someone a lift and the position remains that the Time Bank member is required to inform their insurance company that they are going to be using their car to transport another Time Bank member,
I have a standard letter that you can use to inform your insurance company about this and this should not affect your premium in any way.
This means however that the Time Bank has a lack of members offering this service as quite understandably they are reluctant to do this. This has meant that I have not been able to help a Time Bank member that was really wanting to get a lift from someone to go out on trips/outings.
The Time Bank has now introduced a Lone Working Policy You should ALWAYS inform someone else of where you are and when you expect to be home whilst taking part in any Time Bank matches. Also we updated the Time Sheet to include Risk Assessment information in the back.

If anyone has any questions regarding the above or would like more information on the Time Bank please do not hesitate to get in touch with Nicola Rafferty on 01463 711393 or enquiries@volunteeringhighland.org