Reflecting on the Last Month

October is one of my favorite months, mostly because Halloween is one of my favorite holidays. We had a terrific Monster Mash event to have fun and raise a little money for KCTB and for Standing Rock Cultural Center. I managed to make it to Last Thursday craft night for the first time in forever, and got some help in learning how to crochet. That reminds me, I owe our treasurer, D. J. Smith, time credits for helping me learn!

I moved to Kent three years ago in May. That October, I met long-term time bank member Gaylen Moore who offered to show me around town and introduce me to people. Shortly afterwards, I met Heidi Weisel (member of the board of our parent organization) and D. J. Smith, our treasurer. I started going to potlucks and craft night. Now I feel like I have more friends and deeper roots than I've ever had in my life. This is how you build a community, through offering help and asking for help as needed. I am profoundly grateful for all of you.

Dawn Albright, president of the KCTB board

Monster Mash

We had a lot of fun at Standing Rock making weird little creatures. A number of families with children of varying ages, college students, and a mix of familiar and unfamiliar faces came out to play with us. We made roughly $90 for the time bank, and $50 for Standing Rock. We will definitely be doing this again next year.

In last month's newsletter, I talked about challenges we have with leadership and finances. I'm concerned about the long-term sustainability of the Time Bank if people don't step up. We did get a few more volunteers out of that, but we are going to need more.

I don't think the lack of response is because people don't care about the time bank. If anything, it points to another problem we have: communication. Much of the world runs on social media these days. During Covid, a lot of our interactions moved online and we haven't moved back to the real world in the time since. However, Facebook is not reliable for communication. Many people don't check their email. The software has some useful features and will be adding more, but fewer people check the software regularly.

We are looking into new ways to reach out to members to improve communication. One project is a new way to send texts to members so we can send important announcements to everyone. If you'd like to be added to the list, please send your cell number to kctbinc@gmail.com.

We do have some volunteers who have recently stepped up for leadership roles. We'll talk more about the others in later newsletters, but today I'd like to introduce you all to the newest board member who joined this summer.

Louise Ditchey is a semi-retired administrator at Kent State and now spends her free time helping various organizations to do good things.   She’s currently a member of the Kent League of Women Voters and the Cocoon Makers of Ravenna, and is an advisor to the Knitting for Those in Need student organization at Kent State.  She’s also an amateur musician and dabbles in learning foreign languages.   She lives in Kent with her husband Paul and their dachshund, and looks forward to becoming more involved with Time Bank activities.

Volunteer Positions

Here are some specific needs the time bank has. If you are interested in any of these, please reach out to kctbinc@gmail.com, or reach out to me (Dawn Albright) via Facebook or at an event.

1) Vice President of the board: focuses on running events

2) Social Media Coordinator: help with Facebook posts and expanding our presence on other networks

3) Pot Luck committee member: help with setting up and cleaning up for our monthly dinners, participate in planning overall. We have an active and lively committee, but there's been some attrition lately so there's room for more.

4) Membership committee: help with running orientation. This is another active and lively committee. We have a number of people who pitch in with orientations, but could use help with leadership so current organizers can get a rest.

5) People interested in future leadership roles who can start shadowing current officers of the board. I'd feel much more optimistic with a succession plan.

6) Liaison to business members: the current board has not had time to give our business members much attention since Covid, and this area could use some vision and energy.

Regular Events

We have two standard monthly events, in addition to extra activities on an ad hoc basis through the year. Every month, we have a community pot luck usually on the second Friday of the month where we bring food to share with each other. We also have a craft night usually on the last Thursday where we work together, laugh, and share our skills. We find that more people respond to requests when they know each other, so come out to these events and socialize with fellow timebankers.

If you have yet to formally join our community, we also have regular orientations. While many events are open to non-members, you have to attend an orientation and formally join in order to participate in exchanging services through timebanking itself. So if you haven't joined us yet, please do so soon! Our regular orientations are going to change from a monthly to quarterly schedule.

All of our monthly activities this month are not on their regular dates due to holidays or other scheduling issues.

Monthly Pot Luck Dinner

Friday, November 7th at 6:00 pm at the Fred Fuller Shelter House at 600 Middlebury Road. This will be our annual Friendsgiving dinner, which is usually one of the best-attended dinners of the year. Given the food insecurity around SNAP benefits during the government shut down, we are changing the rules around a bit this time. If you are experiencing a loss of benefits right now, please feel free to come without a dish. If you have the resources, please bring extra food to make up for your neighbors who may need some help. In addition, if you have extra food to share from your pantry or the end of harvest season, please bring it. Please make sure your offering is something that would actually help our neighbors, and not something that would be better thrown away. If you have extra leftover containers to share, bring them so we can share freely at the end of the meal.

Monthly Craft Night

Thursday, November 20th, 2025, 6:00 pm to 9:00 pm at Standing Rock Cultural Arts at 300 N. Water Street, Suite H., Kent, OH 

Orientation

We are now moving to a quarterly schedule to make better use of our volunteers' time, so the next one will be in February.

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Kent Community TimeBank 

(A TimeBank hub under The Crooked River Alliance of TimeBanks - 501(c)(3))

MAIL TO: 1675 E. Main Street, Suite 177, Kent OH 44240

330-474-9492

WWW.KCTB.ORG

 kctbinc@gmail.com

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Kent Community TimeBank 

(A TimeBank hub under The Crooked River Alliance of TimeBanks - 501(c)(3))

MAIL TO: 1675 E. Main Street, Suite 177, Kent OH 44240

330-474-9492

WWW.KCTB.ORG

 kctbinc@gmail.com