WomanShare: A Skills Exchange Bank
What we are: WomanShare is a practice of a new socio/economic alternative where our currency is time. We are a community of women who share our skills, our interests, our time and ourselves just as our grandmothers used to do. But WomanShare has one important difference: we have taken women's cultural heritage of sharing and transformed it into a system in which we can earn credit for the time we give.
Vision: That women of all ages and cultures may exchange professional and life skills in a way that empowers and enriches their lives economically, socially, and intellectually, in a cooperative model of trust and ownership by all.
Mission: We recognize that our energy is transformed into value no matter the skill being offered; that our common and most valuable currency is time; that every exchange is measured equally—an hour for an hour; and that any woman can join so we will recruit with diversity top of mind.
Values: By valuing caring skills and life skills, we honour work that women have always done without getting credit for it. We also value work in process, in which the learning and the being together are as important as the final product.
There is also a very strong undercurrent of community building and making connections. Women have expressed very clearly: (1) the desire for organic, grassroots community building; (2) equal ownership in the cooperative; (3) diversity—all ages, all races, you name it, we include it, and indeed, search it out.
P.S. The more you participate, the greater the sense of community and the greater the personal and financial reward.
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There’s a strong and highly engaged group of women in Waterloo Region and beyond who want to ensure that we make WomanShare lift off. After all, there is nothing else like this!
Here's a very quick update from the committee meeting Mar 20:
The Interim Committee for Organizational Structure is meeting for a 4-hour 'retreat' to determine what WomanShare will look like (Mar 31). It's the most important piece of work to move this ahead. Big Picture, Interim management of profiles, what we need technologically, and all that good stuff. It's a lot of work and they will be fully prepped with materials ahead of time.
They will then send on their recommendations for the Executive Committee to sign off on, and we should have it to present at:
Our next General Information / Skills Workshop
Saturday April 14th - 1:00pm to 3:30pm.
at the Embassy Room, King Street Waterloo (across from the Heuther!).
The Member Recruitment committee is meeting next week, and they will have a membership sign up form (with tear-off receipt for $25 fee) in time for April's meeting.
The Member Events committee is also meeting next week to line up the monthly member meetings for the next year--when, where, plus theme around meals! I love that.
The Marketing Committee will work with the 'Who we are, Vision, Mission & Values' that we discussed this evening, so that our messaging is consistent. But they are laying in wait for the good stuff to start working on...you know, like logo, taglines, all those wonderful elements that they are so good at.
Our WomanShare accountant has graciously agreed to be the Treasurer and will be setting up a bank account so that memberships can be purchased on April 14th. (Cash or cheque at this time please.)
In short, there’s a lot going on.
I do have a request for people coming to the April 14th meeting at the Embassy. Will you also bring along an elder with you? At the moment we’re thinking that it’s too much for the younger (shorter attention span) set, and so we’ll invite them to member meetings in the coming year.
I expect to also follow this email with the invite from the Marketing Committee, so we’re all sharing the same thing, however in the meantime, feel free to share with your sister tribes!
We’ll have lots of news to share on April 14th.
Regards!
