Phew, It’s Been A While

By Grace Maselli

Related imageHowdy. Some time’s passed since this blogger shimmied on over to WordPress for a post. (Chalk it up to the day job, out-of-state travel, and kid stuff that leapfrogged to the front of the Must Do line.) Excuses aside, I’m pumped to be here and report that the Tuesday, June 18 jewelry get-togetherour Third Tuesday of Every Month member-and-guest meeting and orientationwas a whole strand full of bauble-y fun!  We had our way with swapped and shared jewelry. We woman (and man-) handled it all: Chunky necklaces and delicate charms. Pipe cleaners and copper wire. We took stuff apart and rearranged it. We glue-gunned and fastened. Considered and chatted, as we noshed on food. We let our imaginations run wild.

All at Tampa’s Life Enrichment Center (LEC). Our Third Tuesdays home and part of TBT’s revitalization initiative to dispatch our efforts further into the community.

And, with tech support from member Karen Lowman, our TBT Coordinator Rita Cobbs demoed the new volunteer-created Florida-wide timebanks website. The new site is a trove of information from core values to the nitty gritty of how to sign up and get involved in timebanking. Building the new website was a labor of love with some elbow grease tossed in for good measure. The result is a timebank jewel that guides members and visitors to vital content.

Yuppers. Last month LEC was abuzz in bangles and glass beads, in trinkets and treasures, and super useful information about our growing Florida-based timebank movement.

Get ready for next month’s Third Tuesday event. Come and learn more about timebank exchanges galore. Share what you love to do while you make friends and build community.

 

Gearing Up for Third Tuesdays July Shindig, Too!

Date Tuesday, July 16, 2019
Time 6:30-8:30 PM
Address LEC: 9704 North Boulevard, Tampa, FL 33612; phone: 813.932.0241
Questions? Contact coordinator@tampabaytime.org or call 608.335.2382

 

They Arrived, They Self-Expressed, They Listened

By Grace Maselli

Beautiful objects, symbols, and handmade art from natural elements were brought to the TBT “Decorate the Springtime Tree” potluck and adventure on May 19. Participates shared Asian cats, a reference to beloved animals and multiculturalism, jewelry and discussion of its energetic frequencies, handmade pieces denoting devotion to curiosity and respect for critical thinking, women’s empowerment and strength, and meaningful, deep friendship.

It was a Sunday afternoon spent timebank-style, where members  and guests came together in a safe space as a community to look into each others faces and tell their stories, building friendship through listening and acknowledgement. Consider Transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau’s words, “[T]he essence of friendship [is] the cultivation of true sympathy,” a belief he also extended to connection and sympathy with “non-human beings.”

To learn more about our growing Florida-wide timebanking network, check out our flyer.

It’s a “Decorate the Springtime Tree” Potluck!

By Grace Maselli

Put it in your calendar: Sunday, May 19 from 3 to 6 PM. TBT and its friends and guests will be self-expressing and chowing down on potluckery on a Sunday afternoon. Coming together as a community to connect and share. And of course we have a theme! We’ll be festooning the tree pictured here. Guests should plan to bring a personal emblem, ephemera, memento, relic, small photo, object, remembrance, Roadside America gadget, souvenir, or bauble, to hang from a tree branch—anything participants feel is a reflection or symbol of who they are. It can be store-bought, homemade, borrowed, rented, picked up at a yard sale, accepted on temporary or long-term loan. You name it. Could be a mini collage, a symbolic animal that represents what you value in strength, speed, ability to camouflage. It could be something that sparkles to represent engagement with the world around you. It should be about the size of a standard holiday tree ornament, maybe no bigger than your hand. Anything you conceive that is valuable to you and authentically symbolizes what you want to share with guests, is fair game. But it must be able to hang from a tree branch. So get out your glue gun, tape, sealing wax, paste, chewing gum, stickem stuff, and ribbon, string, fishing line, cord, twine, dental floss, or copper wire to make it work. (To make it dangle from a branch!) Plan to bring a yummy, crowd-pleasing dish to share. And prepare to let us know why you chose what you chose, then pick a place on the tree for your object. We’ll hang all pieces from the tree and take a community photo as an area-wide timebanking keepsake! Let’s come together to satisfy our collective hunger for stories and to build friendship! 

 

Date Sunday, May 19, 2019
Time 3-6 PM
Address 2128 Park Crescent Drive
Land O Lakes, FL 34639
Between Collier Pkwy and Livingston Road
Questions? Contact Grace at mgmwrite@gmail.com
or 215.834.4567