Update for July 11
The West Seattle Timebank website is live and found at www.wstb.tbanks.org/

Timebank reps will be at the Summerfest event with Sustainable West Seattle under the Greenlife tent. Folks will be able to join as members and/or sign-up for the upcoming orientation or just find out more about what a Timebank is. We will be there Friday, Sat. and Sunday, 11:00-5:00pm

Original post on June 20
A new kind of bank, called a Time Bank that manages time spent and time owed is launching in West Seattle July 12, 2013 at the WS Summerfest event in partnership with Sustainable West Seattle.

Herald columnist Kyra Lin-Hom wrote about the idea last week.

"A time bank is literally a bank that manages time spent and time owed. These are non-monetary, privately or community-run organizations that are kept afloat by the sheer dedication of their members. Technically you only need a pencil and paper, but normally time banks are run online. It's simpler to let a computer keep track of all of those transactions.

The unit of exchange is called a 'time dollar.' It is worth exactly one hour of service. It doesn't matter what kind. All services be they legal, labor, art or as simple as giving someone a ride to the doctor's office are rendered equal in a time bank. For example, Mary paints Joe's house for two hours and earns two time dollars. She's been wanting to give yoga a try but can't afford it. So she searches her time bank for 'yoga.' Turns out that time bank member Kyle is a yoga instructor. Mary then spends her two time dollars for two hours of yoga instruction from Kyle. Kyle can then spend those two time dollars wherever he wants within the time bank community. More to the point, though, someone does you a service and then you pay it forward."

The Time Bank was awarded $500 by Sustainable West Seattle this past March to get their website up and running.

Chair of the Time Bank, Tamsen Spengler said, "This was not a "murmur with no follow through". The West Seattle Timebank steering committee has been meeting since last November and will be a member of the "Timebanks of Puget Sound" which includes Mercer Island and the Eastside Timebanks. We are pleased and excited to finally have our website up and running by the Summerfest event and can inform the community about the West Seattle Timebank. We will be registering members interested in joining for an orientation to the timebank on July 24, 2013 at the West Seattle Senior Center."