Waitaki residents are now trading time rather than money, after the district's first time bank community was successfully set up.
Time bank members provide services to members in return for time ''credits'', which could be traded for the services of another member, and although TimeBank Waitaki committee member Nathalie Brown said it was still ''early days'' for the project, she was keen to see its membership grow as much as possible.
Ms Brown said a ''broad range'' of occupations was represented by TimeBank members, but added it was not necessary for people to trade their professional services.
''It's not a one-to-one thing, so I can give someone a massage and someone, quite other, can come and spend an hour in my garden weeding.''
So far, 10 people had signed up and had already agreed on some ''interesting'' trades. Marie Grunke, of Oamaru, traded one hour to look after the elderly husband of a friend who had to leave town for a couple of days for work.
''Since we set up the time bank we thought, well, let's see if we could do our first trade. So she asked me if I would be able to give an hour of my time, each day for two days, enough to make sure her husband was fed and had a bit of company.''
Ms Grunke, a cook, said she would now spend a few hours making home preserves for members, ''and pop that time into the time bank''.
The Waitaki TimeBank is based on the model used in Lyttelton, which Ms Grunke said had been working very well in Canterbury.
''They were all set up just before the earthquake, and they swung into action in the most amazing manner and were able to look after and feed their people, because they had a time bank in place.''
