The first meeting of the YourTime Club happened on Saturday, 11th April. We had Indu, Sunil, Harsh, Sony, Nisha, Ajay, Ritwick, Tarun and Saritha at the meeting.

Minutes of some the discussions which happened in the meeting:

• introduction of the concept, the motivations, the members and the possibilities
• understanding the situation
  • being laid-off and others being over-employed as as a result
  • the pressures
  • the support-groups
  • some stories by the members [the stories will appear at this blog in different forms soon]
• ideas for activities
  • work with the land – grow food there, involve the children in the neighbourhood, build a trash-compost-good-children-water eco-system
  • start an after-school for the children in the neighbourhood
  • start a library with books contributed by the members
  • use cow-dung to flatten the floor of the incomplete building and develop a skating-rink there!
  • skill-based workshops (photography, urban farming, temporary structures)
  • bringing projects to the group and involve the members in the research and brainstorming (Harsh and Sonny later accompanied Saritha on a research trip around the temples near the Halsur Lake)
• ideas for next time
  • walking in the neighbourhood
  • discussing the details for some of the ideas and starting to do things
  • Prayas (I) will introduce some processes and methods for the club members to work together

We have a google group for discussions and a SMS group now to receive updates and news,

• Email discussion list (google group): Visit the group’s page or send an email to yourtimeclub-subscribe@googlegroups.com.
• SMS group: Join this group by sending a SMS with the content, “ON yourtimeclub” to 09870807070 or visit this page.

Some photographs of the meeting are below. I also did a few audio recordings, I’ll be able to edit and add the audio clips later this week.

The meeting happened inside (was it really inside?) a temporary structure created by Nisha Nair from Mumbai. More details and photographs of Nisha’s work at CitySpinning in the next post.

== INVITATION:== If you have recently lost (or not found) a job, you are invited to the introductory meeting of the YourTime Club. If you don’t own your own time yet please forward this link along to those who do!

== DATE:== Saturday, 11th April, from 5:00 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.

== LOCATION:== UWA hostel plot, New Thippasandra, Link to the google map: http://is.gd/rl5p or call me if you need directions (that’s my mobile number up there)

== ABOUT:== The financial-crisis has entered the family. Someone we know directly or indirectly has lost his/her job. This is great news. With full-time employment we haven’t had time to do many things which were once close to our heart. Did you once like to just sit around and stare at the sky, the clouds merging into each other, making strange shapes? Or maybe try and read patterns into the flow of traffic on the street outside your house, browse the library shelves for hours? Clean the garden, cook experimental dishes, drive out to the highway only to look at the stars…

We are introducing the YourTime Club, for people in Bangalore who are experiencing a new found freedom with their time, either because you have recently lost your job or because you can’t find one. So, what are you doing with this time?

The YourTime Club will meet twice a month at the University Women’s Association, Bangalore  (UWAB) property  in New Thippasandra – the UWAB’s site for a working women’s hostel (see LOCATION). The site is temporarily unemployed as the project requires a further infusion of vitamin M. UWA is currently working at raising funds to soon be able to employ the site full-time.

At each meeting of the The YourTime Club, we will perform activities which the club-members feel are educational, fun, adventurous, social, service-oriented or explorative**. The first meeting of this club will be on the 11th of April 2009. At this meeting the concept of the club and the initial few ideas for activities will be discussed. Those who find some of those ideas interesting can enroll in the club. Enrollment is free.

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* UWA – University Women’s Association (http://www.ifuw.org/ifuwa-bangalore/)

** Yoga workshops, gardening and urban farming, writing poetry, flying kites, teaching children, repairing bicycles, learning to cook etc.

+ This project is supported by OpenSpace Bangalore