11/18: Greater Ithaca Skill Share organized by Transition Tompkins

In the spirit of increasing community resilience White Hawk Ecovillage is hosting the “Greater Ithaca Skill Share” on Sunday, Nov. 18th!

The event is free and activities for children will be available and supported.

It will be semi-structured and will offer a morning session of predetermined skills and an open-space afternoon session to let our community members share a skill they love. So come prepared to learn and if you’ve got a skill to share come prepared to teach!

If you do come please make sure to bring:
– weather appropriate clothing (some activities will be outdoors)
– a water bottle
– a dish to pass
– eating ware and utensils
– cloth or clothing of natural fabric to dye (if you’re interested)
– a skill to share, if you’re feeling inspired

There is a hope to make this a recurrent event (seasonally, semi-annually or annually) and if you’re interested in seeing some other skills represented that weren’t or want to help organize future Skill Share events we’ll be gathering names and ideas for the future.

Please feel free the forward on the poster to other friends, family and listservs, there are paper copies posted around Ithaca, Danby, and Brooktondale/Caroline, also our website is updated with the event

We hope to see you for all or part of the day and if not, sometime soon down the road!

Best wishes, “Skill On, Wayne”. “Skill on, Garth”
Sam and Simone
Transition Tompkins

11/10: Fixers Collective Planning Meeting

Finger Lakes ReUse invites anyone who has things to repair, wants to help fix items, or wants to learn how to fix items to a planning meeting for our new fixers collective on November 10th at the ReUse Center at the Triphammer Marketplace, 2255 N Triphammer Road, Ithaca. The fixers collective is open to anyone who wants to prolong the lifespan of items such as home electronics, furniture, small appliances and more. The planning meeting will be 3pm to 4pm, followed by a fixer lab from 4pm to 5pm. Please fill out the fixers collective survey to let us know if you are interested in attending or in learning more.

We will meet in the Furniture Overflow Showroom (the storefront to the right of the ReUse Center) at Triphammer Marketplace.

Bring your ideas – this will be a collaborative and evolving effort and will be guided by those who are actively participating – so your thoughts and input at this first meeting will be very important, but there will be lots of opportunity to grow and improve the collective! We hope to start small but really grow this event into a vibrant community experience. One of our largest current challenges is that we have zero storage space, so projects will need to be portable – in and out each time we meet. We can offer a heated space, large work table, an assortment of tools, and internet access to research fixes, but we’ll have challenges with projects that may take more than a couple of hours to fix, etc. Feel free to bring along tools and an item that needs to be fixed. We’ll leave the last hour for repair attempts – although no guarantees that we’ll have the skillset, tools, or time to tackle your project. We’ll see! Let’s meet and talk from 3pm to 4pm, and have a fixer lab from 4pm to 5pm. Future meetings (time and frequency) will be discussed at the meeting, but will hopefully continue to evolve and expand – we’ll continue to publish updates to the full email list.

There was some interest in the initial survey responses in paying a fee to have items fixed – so one of the topics we will be considering is some sort of sliding-fee structure which will support this effort. We can give you an update on FLR job training programs and initiatives to support underserved individuals in Tompkins County.

Looking forward to seeing you Saturday!

Diane

Diane Cohen
Executive Director, Finger Lakes ReUse, Inc.

Meet Swidjit!

We’re very excited about this new local web platform that makes it easier to share and barter online and which has the potential to bolster our local economy. Creator Alex Colket explains…

Hello Share Tompkins,

I’m writing you today to introduce you to Swidjit, a new Ithaca-based website designed to strengthen the local economy and provide greater access to the wealth of goods, skills, and other resources that surround us. Swidjit has a commercial aspect, but it also places a strong emphasis on bartering, sharing and otherwise making it easier to survive/thrive with less dependence on money. Of course, this is something Share Tompkins has already been doing here for the last couple of years, and you should all feel proud of your role in this critical and beautiful change that is currently unfolding in places like Ithaca. The momentum you have built is one of the main reasons that Ithaca is poised to take the idea of local economy to the next level and demonstrate how a modern US community can learn to flourish within its means. Thanks!

Press: Share Tompkins in Tompkins Weekly Article about Economics of Happiness Screening

On April 27th, we were invited to speak about Share Tompkins as part of the panel discussion following the community screening of the film The Economics of Happiness.

The event was featured in an article by Eric Banford in the May 2-8 issue of Tompkins Weekly. You can read the full article on the Sustainable Tompkins site and here are some key excerpts:

Share Tompkins has been hosting monthly swaps and “Really, Really Free Markets” and co-founder Shira Golding said they
have received email from all over the U.S. and as far away as the UK,
asking how to start similar ventures…

Shira Golding and McKenzie Jones-Rounds of Share Tompkins talked about real life swap examples fostered through swap meets. Jones-Round swapped for a cello that wasn’t being used for a year of
guitar lessons. She shared that, “It’s not just about the stuff we keep out of the waste stream or save money on, it’s also about instilling in the kids in the community the value of who they are and what it means to be part of something bigger than themselves. It’s good to be someplace where people aren’t just willing to share their things, but they share themselves too. We are building a resilient, self-reliant, non-monetary based economy through this.”

Photos: Share Tompkins Service Swap – Oct ’10

Vodpod videos no longer available.

Share Tompkins Service Swap – Oct ’10, posted with vodpod

Oct 24: Service Swap – Share and Barter Your Time and Skills!

Sunday, October 24, 7-8:30pm
Tompkins County Workers’ Center
115 The Commons (above Autumn Leaves), Ithaca, NY

Gardening for graphic design? Music lessons for massage? Ever wish you could trade time with others to meet your needs without cash?

The Share Tompkins Service Swap is presented in partnership with the Finger Lakes Bioneers “We Make Our Future” Conference. It’s a chance to barter with others for services like photography, accounting, health care, and anything else that attendees have to offer.

Emphasis will be placed on making personal connections and exploring ways we can help meet each others’ needs locally.

Feel free to bring business cards and a snack or drink to share!

RSVP on Facebook

Finger Lakes Bioneers “We Make Our Future” Conference website

TC Workers’ Center website

Sept 25: Community Shred Day

Community Shred Day
Saturday, September 25, 2010 9am-Noon
East Hill Plaza parking lot opposite Tompkins Trust Company

“Bring your old personal documents and computer equipment to us! We’ll shred your confidential records safely and securely. All paper must be clean, dry and ready to shred, free from staples and spiral binders. Please limit your recyclables to 6 boxes. We accept computer related and home electronic equipment. Limit 5 per person. Please, no cracked CRT or LCD monitors, copy machines or non-working TVs. We reserve the right to refuse anything we deem inappropriate. This service is open to households only, no commercial businesses.

Brought to you by Tompkins Trust Company and Cayuga Radio Group. Join us for activities provided by Tompkins County Solid Waste; refreshments and fun!”

Wed 9/15: Organizers’ Meeting

Share Tompkins Organizers' Picnic/One-Year Celebration

Like sharing? All are welcome to come to this organizers’ meeting to plan for the next few months of Share Tompkins events. We’ll also discuss strategies for reaching new people, partnering with other groups and generating press.

Wednesday, September 15, 7-9pm
212 N. Plain St. #1, Ithaca, NY 14850

Feel free to bring snacks (vegan) or drinks to share.

If you’d like to get involved but can’t come to the meeting, let us know!

RSVP for the event on Facebook.

See you there!

Help name a new sharing platform!

From Steve Austin:

We need your help choosing a name for our Share Network tool. What is a Share Network? A Share Network is a system where users can exchange goods and services in a currency other than money. Our system will allow users to sign up, name their Share Network, determine the value and unit of exchange of their currency and invite friends to join and start trading.

Some examples of possible Share Networks include:
* A community garden – members earn work credit, redeem for vegetables
* A Food Coop – members earn work credit for shopping privileges
* Community Organization – volunteers earn credits, redeemable for space rental
* Coffee Shop – customers earn rewards for bringing their own cup, redeemable for discounts
* Local dance studio – tracks attendance and offers reward discounts.
* Summer program – track credits earned from participation, redeemable for Popsicles.

Please help us narrow our choices and if you wish, enter another possible suggestion in the last option. Fill out the form online.

Thanks for your help!

Organizers Meeting/Share Tompkins in Ithaca Journal again!

We were in the Ithaca Journal again! This time for getting a Sustainable Tompkins mini-grant:
Sustainable Tompkins awards $1,810 in grants

Here’s an excerpt:

Sustainable Tompkins recently awarded quarterly mini-grants totaling $1,810 to four community projects that encourage local self-reliance, strengthen neighborhood connections and promote long-term community well-being. The donor-supported program has distributed $10,270 to 25 projects since 2008. Mini-grants awarded this week were…

$410 to Share Tompkins for publicity expenses of the monthly Swap Meets and creation of an on-line directory. Share Tompkins began in May as a grassroots initiative that aims to build community self-reliance by facilitating the sharing and bartering of local goods and services. Swap Meets help residents save money while reducing the county’s environmental footprint by lowering potential pollution generated by production and transportation of new imported goods. Share Tompkins is run entirely by volunteers. Shira Golding, a co-founder, is [a] contact person for these increasingly popular Swap Meets.

Help us spend the grant money by coming to the organizers meeting tonight!

From McKenzie…

Thanks to all of you who were part of making Saturday’s Really Really Free Market a huge hit! Share Tompkins relies on the participation of all of you to keep us going. We ask that you please provide input as we prepare our next Share Tompkins swap meet in February! Whether you’ve helped organize a meet before, or have never even attended one, you’re invited to help!

Our meeting will be held on:
Thursday, February 4, 2010
7:30 – 9:30 pm
Danielle and Greg’s house, 322 S. Geneva St.

Everyone is invited to take part in the organizational process. We have a lot of decisions to make, like where and when the meet will be, if it will be centered on bartering or be another successful free market, and how to best promote the event.

Come share your ideas for continuing to make Share Tompkins a valuable community resource!!

As always, feel free to bring snacks, too!

RSVP on Facebook.