Week 4: Streetbank (continued)

Regular readers of this blog will know that last week, I used the online service Streetbank to loan out our carpet cleaning machine to Joanne.

Although I was glad to have helped this complete stranger, sharing one of our household goods with someone I was unlikely to see again left me feeling somewhat underwhelmed. But to avoid writing the site off without giving it a decent chance, I decided, this week, to try and get a more well-rounded view of the way Streetbank works. So I set out to borrow something.


By the end of the week, I'd almost given up hope. I'd contacted at least five people who'd put recent messages onto the site, offering cookery classes for kids, dinner, a cup of tea (which was intriguing - did it involve a chat too, or would they just leave it on your doorstep?), help with gardening, and other services that weren't essential, but which might brighten my day.

Nobody replied.

I decided to put out a request. The person offering help with gardening had inspired me: it would be really, really useful if someone could come round for an hour to do some weeding. Our garden is small and pretty, but increasingly over-run with rampant mint, nettles from the uninhabited garden next door, and baby aquilegia that's been sprayed across the flowerbed by a fecund mother.


The very next day, Wilhelmina (not her real name) came to my door.

This bonny, dimpled, out-of-work Aussie actress had cycled, through pouring rain, to kneel in our garden and rip out unwanted plants, transforming what was a straggly mess into a garden with a semblance of order. She worked for much longer than the hour I'd requested; in fact, if I hadn't dragged her away when I took my son to pre-school, I have a feeling she'd have stayed for the whole day.

Wilhelmina's help brought a large drop of sunlight into my otherwise grey, damp day.

Of course, my life hadn't depended on her cycling round to do the weeding. And there was no physical impediment to my doing it myself, except for the fact that looking after two children under the age of 4 saps my life of practically any spare time to do non-essential tasks. Clearing away brambles and dead-heading flowers always comes way, way down the list. An extra pair of hands beavering away at what had seemed like an insurmountable task, gave me fresh energy and boosted my spirits.

I'd experienced the 'helper's high', only this time in reverse: a high on the part of the person who has been helped.

I did wonder, though, about what Wilhelmina could have gained from the experience. Yes, it got her out of bed but, apart from the slab of carrot cake and cup of tea she drank outside in the rain, there was no direct reward for cycling through the drizzle and tidying up my garden.

Guardian journalist Suzanne Moore recently wrote an article claiming that the digital economy helps create a system where artists, musicians and writers are increasingly working for free. They create interesting reads, catchy tunes or entertaining videos and then upload them to the internet in the hope of 'making it big'. But nobody pays for downloading any of this stuff, and very few people actually end up earning a living this way.

It occurred to me that Wilhelmina had done a similar thing: she'd offered her skills for hire, via an online network set up by Streetbank, without expecting any form of financial reward. I assume her motivation - unlike the artists described by Moore - wasn't an attempt to gain fame and fortune for her gardening talents. There must have been something driving her towards lending a hand in the garden, even if it was just the pleasure of helping.

But still, under different circumstances she would have expected payment for her efforts.

Moore quotes the computer science pioneer Jaron Lanier, who, in his new book Who Owns the Future, proposes a solution to this problem: people receive 'nanopayments' whenever their work enriches a digital network or community. So this would mean, say, the creator of a funny clip receiving a few quid when her video is shared on youtube. The youtube viewers have been entertained; so the creator gets a reward. One she can use to help buy food, or heat her home, rather than just a raised thumb on a screen to show someone 'liked' her work.

Wilhelmina's gardening efforts helped enrich my life (albeit in a small way), but, more importantly, they restored my faith in Streetbank. In this way, she enhanced the site's community, and I'll now be returning to it in the future. Of course, the set-up's not reliable enough for those who are genuinely in need: the elderly, sick, disabled or impoverished. They need to rely on more than just the good fortune of contacting a cheerful Aussie on a day she doesn't have a job to go to.

But after all the failed attempts, I can now see it is possible to get help, or successfully loan something, through Streetbank. It's exciting to know that, among all the many strangers living just beyond my doorstep, there are a few who may be able to lend me something I need, when friends and acquaintances aren't able to do so.

And, just like when you act generously in a 'real-life' community of friends (more on this next week), Wilhelmina has already been able to benefit from her contribution to the Streetbank community. She managed to get a free mattress through the site, when she had just moved to the UK and didn't have a bed to sleep on.


I'm hoping to be able to give something back to Wilhelmina. Her selfless act on that rainy day has left an impression on me. I was touched by her generosity, and I want to make sure I pay her back.

So keep an eye out for future follow-up posts.


Next week on Our Time of Gifts: the circle of friends.

Week 3: Streetbank

A couple of years ago, a good friend was cooking us both dinner. He described a new venture an American entrepreneur had set out at a conference: a website, designed so that neighbours could pool their stuff. It was based on a notion called 'collaborative consumption', and the idea that there are some goods we don't need to own individually. Why does every household have to possess a lawnmower, for a small patch of grass they mow only once a month? Surely it makes more sense for people to share these items, borrowing them when needed?

My idea for Our Time of Gifts has been brewing ever since our discussion. And, in the run-up to getting my experiment off the ground, I discovered that there is a website here, in the UK, which is doing exactly what my friend had described. That website is called Streetbank.

The idea is simple: you register, create a profile including your postcode, and the computer gives you a list of people who live within 1, 5 or 10 miles, who have all pledged to give away or lend out their stuff. If you like the look of any of it, you get in touch with them; and if there's something you need that isn't already listed, you send out a request to your neighbours.


I decided, this week, to lend something out via Streetbank. We don't own a lawnmower, but we do have a carpet cleaner to offer. I used to regularly lend it to a friend who's since moved away, and I thought it might be useful to a fair number of people.

I wasn't wrong: within a week of my signing up, a woman who lives nearby (Jenny - not her real name) contacted me and said she wanted to borrow it. So week 3 of Our Time of Gifts involved me loading the carpet shampooer into the car (along with the children), driving up the road, and trundling it down the pavement to wait outside a stranger's house while she answered the door in pyjamas, a baby tucked under one arm.

Our exchange was friendly but fairly brief, and when we drove off, my three-year-old son gave voice to some concerns. 'Who is that lady, Mummy? Will she give the shampoo machine back? What if we need to use it, Mummy? Will she break it?'

'She's a very nice woman, and she'll return the cleaner when she's finished with it. I'm sure she'll look after it....' But, at the back of my mind, there was a nagging little worry. Could I trust this complete stranger with a machine that, while not exactly top-of-the-range, was worth a fair bit more than the customary bag of sugar people used to give their new neighbours?

In the end, my fears proved to be completely unfounded. Jenny returned the cleaner within a few days, with smiles, thank-yous, and an offer of the loan of her tile cutter. And I was pleased to have been able to help her out.

The positive effects of sharing on emotional well-being and mental health are well-documented; this phenomenon is know as the 'helper's high'.  The high is often attributed to the presence in the brain of feel-good hormones like endorphins and oxytocin.

I was happy to have helped Jenny, but, whereas sharing food with neighbours at the Big Lunch left me feeling undeniably perky for the rest of the day, when I loaned out the carpet shampooer I didn't feel quite so euphoric. I didn't experience the rush of oxytocin described by Lily Cole when talking at the Cambridge Union about the effects of giving and her new website Impossible.com (which, as far as I can make out from the beta that's currently trialling, is based on a very similar notion to Streetbank).

Relationships built through Streetbank are created online. During her talk at the recent BritMums Live conference, neuroscientist Baroness Susan Greenfield pointed out that online interaction doesn't use empathic skills (which is why those with autism often feel comfortable in online worlds). Without the activation of these 'empathic' skills, is it reasonable to expect we'll feel the 'helper's high' when moving from an online exchange to a real-life meeting?

My face-to-face time with Jenny was very brief. I didn't manage to find out the first thing about her life, apart from the fact that she had a very cute baby and a tea-stain on her carpet. I knew that I'd helped her out, but I didn't know how much that help had brightened her day, how dirty her carpet was, or how much she'd needed the free use of this machine. Perhaps, for the 'helper's high' to work properly, relationships built online through platforms like Streetbank need to first be strengthened offline?

But I'm not sure how I could get to know Jenny better, now that she's returned the carpet cleaner. At this present moment, and without  a pressing need for a tile cutter, it seems a distinct possibility that I may never see her again.

However, I feel that I owe it to Streetbank to wait and see what happens next. After all, their idea is what helped germinate Our Time of Gifts, and to build any community takes time. So I have decided to spend the next week exploring Streebank further.

Find out in a few days' time if I was successful, in week 4 of Our Time of Gifts.