Fair Shares opens it's first time bank in Stonehouse which is launched by the local MP David Drew.The original Trustees are Mark Gale, Linda Myer Bennett, David Ballard, Trudie Sheppard, Adrian Slade and Julia Bennett

The very first team of Fair Shares staff are in place and ready to take over the volunteering world! Jackie Whitmore (time broker), Martin Simon (Director), Sue Friston (time broker) and Joy Rogers (Project Co-ordinator)

The Newent Time Bank is launched by Dr. Edgar Cahn in May of 1999.

Cheltenham is the third location chosen for a time bank. It opens in the Whaddon, Lynworth and Priors park area of the town and within two weeks has over 30 participants signed up.

September also sees the 100th particpant in the county sign up to become a member; number 100 is Isla from Whaddon in Cheltenham.

Timebanking UK (TBUK) is formed from a partnership between Fair Shares and the New Economics Foundation. Timebanking UK is set up to promote timebanking across the country and support new time banks to start.

The first of the Gloucester neighbourhood time banks is launched in the Podsmead area of the city in May, followed by time banks in Coney Hill and Matson. The fourth opens in November, in White City.

Martin Simon and Fair Shares organise the first timebanking convention in the UK. It is held at City Works in Gloucester.

Fair Shares staff are invited to 10 Downing Street to meet Lord Falconer the Minister of State to discuss timebanking and it's merits. The project is awarded a £49k grant from the Active Community Unit in recognition of the work being undertaken.

Funding is received from the Countryside Agency to trial timebanking in a rural area. The North Cotswolds area is selected and John Cousins becomes the project manager

Fair Shares launches "Time For Childcare" schemes in Moreton in Marsh and it also starts in Leicester. This project offers training through the time bank for parents wanting to become childcare professionals.

The Cotswold time bank opens an office in Moreton In Marsh and is staffed by Jo Goldie and Kate Newman

Fair Shares starts to work with the Castlegate project based at HMP Gloucester's visitors centre. It is the start of long term involvement in prison work by the charity.

The beloved blue van is bought as Fair Shares first vehicle.

The four neighbourhood time banks are combined into the first citywide time bank in the country and the official launch is undertaken by The Mayor of Gloucester, Cllr Phil McLellan & Sheriff / Deputy Mayor Cllr Susan Blakley at City Works.

Four offenders undertake a massive 153 hour task to clear a participant's 100 ft plus garden of brambles. This is the first time Fair Shares has linked with the Community Service Team in this way to provide a service for participants.

By December, 200 participants are signed up to the Gloucester time bank and 6000 hours of services have been exchanged since the offical start in July

Fair Shares starts a bike project in HMP Gloucester. Old bikes from Centre Parks are refurbished by prisoners and then working with the charity, Jole Rider, the bikes are sent out to Gambia for health workers to use.

Fair Shares involvement with the Newent Onion Fayre continues and this year the Newent team take the third prize for their window display.

Gloucester time bank builds links with the Royal British Legion in the city and uses time credits earned by prisoners at HMP Gloucester and offenders undertaking Community service projects to provide transport, befriending and decorating for ex-service personnel. 

Timebroker Reyaz and participants Alec and Tina are invited to 10 Downing Street to meet the Prime Minister as part of an event to celebrate volunteering.

Fair Shares works with BBC Radio Gloucester to co-ordinate the volunteer response to the floods in the city after many people are left without power or clean drinking water. 

Fair Shares secures funding to buy some video equipment. The project works with a local filmmaker to teach participants how to video and edit films.

Minister of Justice David Hanson visits Gloucester Prison to talk to us about our prison project and how the work may be replicated in other parts of the country.

The annual holiday trips to the seaside start in 2008 with a trip to Bournemouth for participants.

The 10^th anniversary of Fair Shares. We hold a celebration at the City Works office and Dorothy Hodge, a founding member of Stonehouse time bank, speaks of her experiences to the guests.

The Fair Shares Stroud office in Brick Row is launched, staffed by Chris Moore and helped by volunteer Emma Ordonez

Fair Shares secures funding from Gloucestershire County Council to buy a minibus with a wheel chair ramp that allows it to be used by a wide variety of participants and local groups.

Permission is granted by the Governor at HMP Gloucester to start filming the story time DVD’s with prisoners. The DVDs show a prisoner reading a bedtime story which is then sent on to their children and proves very positive in maintaining family links. 

Initial talks get underway with HMP Eastwood Park and HMP Leyhill to undertake projects in these prisons.

A Smart car is left as a gift to Fair Shares by participant Martha Speyer in her will.

Fair Shares becomes involved with the City Farm in Tredworth.

Fair Shares holds a Spring Ball at the St Edwards Hall in Stow On The Wold as a fund raiser for the charity.

The North Cotswold Roadshow hits the highway for a week around the villages in the area to promote time banking in the rural communities.

Hugh becomes the first participant to earn 1000 time credits!

A project is launched in Stroud by Fair Shares and Open House (Five Valleys Foyer) which is a housing project for young people. The aim is to offer the opportunity for young people and older people to meet each other and benefit from the other person's skills and knowledge. The project runs to the following June 2012 and is very successful.

The Stroud time bank run a pop up shop as a culmination of their Life Histories project.

Sue Martin joins Fair Shares as a Time Broker to run the Cheltenham Time Bank and starts to develop IT projects to teach people basic computer skills.

Fair Shares launches a time bank in Stratford Upon Avon. This photo was taken at the River Festival at the end of June to promote the new time bank.

The Fair Shares staff team as of September 2012. 

Our charity shop opens in November in Stonehouse, the town where the first time bank began. Lawrence Hughes, the CEO, is on hand to pass out sandwiches at the opening.

On 7th February, the first Fair Shares coffee morning is held at the Chill Out Zone in Newent. The following week, on the 12th February,  a new weekly coffee morning session begins at the Holme Community Centre in Mile End, Coleford.

After 222 years, Gloucester prison closes down, bringing to a close our joint working. We look to see how we can continue the prison work elsewhere. The article below is from Gloucestershire Live:

Reyaz is named Citizen of Gloucester for over a decade's worth of community work in Gloucester City.

The Helping Hands project begins, it's aim is to support people being discharged from hospital who need a little more practical help.

Fair Shares holds an information day for organisations and over 65 people attend to find out more about the charity and time banking.

February 3rd sees David Moore join as a Time Broker whilst on the 10th February Rene Martin takes up her post as manager of the Fair Shares charity shop in Stonehouse.

May sees the development of a time bank in the Tewkesbury area.

Fair Shares has successfully supported the development of two timebanks that are now functioning independently. Stratford Time Bank and Oxford have benefitted from the expertise of all the staff at Fair Shares and after a year or more of consultancy and development have set off on their own independent journey.

Fair Shares jointly hosted the first South West Regional Time Bank Network meeting held in Taunton with Timebanking UK and Zebra Collective on 23rd September. Over 33 people across the South West came to network and share good practice from Cornwall, Plymouth, Stroud, Bath, Oxford, Gloucestershire, Tewkesbury, Swindon, and Seaton.

The Good Neighbours project launches in Newent.

The North and South Cotswolds offices merge and are run from Moreton by Andi Weide.

Fair Shares head office moves from it's first home at City Works a few minutes away to the Chequers Bridge Centre on Painswick Road.

Time for IT project funding ends having helped over 72 people to improve their IT skills. The IT club still continues to run with an added coffee morning component.

Contents of one of the memory boxes that have been launched at Stroud library.The launch at the library with partners from the Library and Museum In The Park.

Morrisons Foundation and Tewkesbury Borough Council provide grants to support Time Banking with older people with long term health conditions in Tewkesbury

40 people attended a celebration of the Times2 Maths Prison project at HMP Leyhill. Countess Lady Bathurst attended in her role as High Sheriff of Gloucestershire.

The CO-ACTE European conference is hosted by Fair Shares and was held at Park House near Gloucester Park. Delegates representing a range of community organisations from countries including Belgium, France, Greece and the UK will take part in the two-day event in Gloucester. The conference discusses new economic models based on people sharing time, money, experience and skills, to bring communities together and improve health and wellbeing.

Around 100 people attend our Summer Celebration at the Chequers Bridge CentreJamie and Sara, Fair Shares participants, are interviewed about how being involved with Fair Shares has benefited them and others.

We hosted a fun day, organised by Farhanah, for the people of Gloucester at Chequers Bridge Communiy Centre. Over 500 people visited, taking part in face painting, exploring a fire engine, bouncing on bouncy castles, and eating at the various food stalls.

We were joined for 3 months by two student anthropologists from Denmark - Sif & Julie. They shadowed us as we worked and also visited Rushey Green Time Bank to gather information for their master's thesis.

To celebrate one of our youth groups from Betaris Training finishing their volunteering with us, we visited parliament and had a guided tour around the Palace of Westminster and a chat with our local MP, Richard Graham. He answered various questions, ranging from apprenticeships to brexit.

2018 is the 10th year of our annual Bournemouth holiday, and the 11th holiday with our participants. This time, our holiday was a joint venture with Stroud coming as well.

A film was produced for us by Pip and Ali Heywood capturing the changing relationships between those living with dementia and their carers.

Using funding fron the Barnwood Trust and Screwfix Foundation, we refurbished our workshop and held an event to open it to the wider community.

To celebrate our 21st birthday we hosted a charity auction in Stroud with donations and guests from all across Gloucestershire.

June was Fair Shares 'Time to Shine' at Gloucester Services. We showcased our work to both staff and visitors for a month by building minature planters, using our chance to chat postcards and holding jewellery crafting sessions.

Rich, our young persons worker, won a 'Community Hero' award in the Gloucestershire Constabulary Impact Awards. He was nominated due to the work he's done with us and was presented with the award by Martin Surl, PCC for Gloucestershire.

Rachel joins Fair Shares and starts replanting the community allotment.

Once lockdown starts we switch from our usual activities to providing cooked, delivered meals every weekday and a foodbank is also opened in the Friendship Cafe.

After a year of hard work by over 90 volunteers and various community organisations, we cook our 15,000th meal.

Princess Anne visited our Gloucester office to see some of the volunteers who've been helping over the pandemic., as well as the facilities we have like the wood workshop.

Tim takes over as our new GEM worker, aiming to help people in Barton & Tredworth find employment or training opportunities.

Our wood workshop made a bench for Gloucester City Council in celebration of the Queen's Jubilee.

Our work with GEM, a programme centered around helping those into education or employment, ended as the programme wrapped up after 6 years and helping over 1,200 people into work or education.

After 12 years of working at Fair Shares, and 6 years as the CEO, Sue says good bye.

Katie join as new Fair Shares CEO, bringing with her 13 years of experience in the charity sector.

We held a grand celebration at The Friendship Cafe celebrating 25 years of Fair Shares. We premiered a video featuring participants sharing what they most enjoy about Fair Shares, as well as a speech from Martin Simon - the founder.

We were really honoured to have been part of the Gloucester Services 10th Birthday celebration in the House of Commons. Millions of pounds from the Services comes back out to support many different charities and community groups in Gloucestershire (including us). It’s been truly amazing to see how business can be done in a new way and make such a huge difference in our communities.