Lisa Benner responds to others who request her service and also seeks out those she can help. Lisa has helped our members in many ways, including: plumbing; painting; housekeeping; exercise and fitness; video production; grocery shopping and errands; moving, packing, and loading; general garden and yard; and clutter/ organizational management. Lisa helps whoever needs her service, without ever feeling she’s helped someone enough already. She helped one member with housekeeping chores 13 times over a period of six months. So, we are pleased to present the first Primary Coordinator Award to Lisa Benner for her outstanding service to our members and to furthering the ideal of TimeBanking, which is: We help each other

Robin Graham is a person who helps every time – often going out of her way to be there. That’s the way she is, always doing nice things for members. I admire her spirit of service. Not only does she respond to many different requests for help, she has been part our leadership team more years than not, and the last time she left the board, it was to go to Latin America on a service mission – I think she was delivering babies – another example of her giving nature. Some years ago, Robin was a huge success as potluck coordinator, and has been a prized part of the team. One of the things her current fellow-board-members value most about Robin is that she always does what she says she’s going to do – which might not sound like a big deal, but believe me (and them) it is. It’s comforting to know that once she takes on a task, no one has to worry that it won’t get done. Reliable people are an essential asset to any organization and Robin has consistently proven herself to be just that. We are honored to present Robin with this well-deserved public acknowledgment of all she has done for our TimeBank.

Rae Weitz was named Outstanding Member of the Year for 2013 for her six years (so far) of faithful service to our TimeBank. She has always been willing to help when asked and has not only served as member-at-large on the board of directors– often hosting the meetings at her home, but has also manned the farmers’ market outreach table on countless mornings. We appreciate Rae for her good work!

Lisa Dicksteen – President of the board, writer for and editor of the newsletter, and all-around gung-ho glue-for-the-group-at-large, Lisa Dicksteen is the very deserving recipient of the Member of the Year Award for 2012. Lisa joined our TimeBank in June of 2010 because, “it seemed like a really cool idea – I had never heard of anything like it before.” Early on, she offered childcare, editing, and home organization, and received services such as cranial sacral therapy, star chart preparation and review, a spiritual house cleaning, and massage. Not long after joining, she decided to get more involved by becoming a member of our Board of Directors, stepping into the open position of Secretary. Continuing to make TimeDollar exchanges, for instance, she helped Andi revise her resume for application to a specific position, helped Bonnie weatherproof her cabin, and wrote a follow-up letter for Judi Strahota for a potential artist-in-residence position. The main reason Lisa dedicates so much of her time to SkillShare is that she “believes strongly in the mission of the organization. We have personally seen her halo glowing in the dark.”

Laura earned her first TimeDollars doing clerical work for Esther and was hooked for good. “I found the TimeBank at an interesting time in my life,” said Laura. “At the ripe old age of 27, I was burned out from working in the corporate world and trying to figure out ‘what’s next?’ and TimeBank Boulder was the perfect tool to let me ‘play’ with different possibilities. “For example, I’ve always loved cooking. But, would I like cooking as a full-time job? I wasn’t sure, so I posted an Offer to cook healthy meals on a weekly basis and people quickly signed up. Laura cooked for Nisargo, Kathryn, Jan, and others fairly often for almost a year and said, “it provided a full taste of what it would be like to actually work in the food industry. The result? While I love cooking, I don’t want to do that as a job. And, thanks to SkillShare, I figured that out without spending big bucks to attend culinary school!” And she didn’t just do work, she received services from “an amazing group of people.” She specifically mentioned a guided nature walk with T.S. and crochet lessons from Vanessa before talking about “all the help I received before and during the week of my wedding: Claudia provided expertise selecting the catering menu, Lisa edited the text of the wedding invitation, Vasi provided a personalized yoga session in the park the morning of the wedding, and Lisa also babysat my niece and nephew during the wedding events.” OK, I am sure you get it by now, she’s an awesome addition to the organization. Laura says the reason she does all that she does for our TimeBank is “because of the people.” All those people say, “thanks for all you do Laura.”