Beth is 73 and lives in a local community called Æblehaven in Frederiksberg. She used to be a conservator at an art museum. Her husband passed away three years ago, while they were still planning to enjoy life with travelling, local theatre, and looking after their tiny garden and five grandchildren.
Paul, 69 years old, lives in the same apartment complex. He was divorced 15 years ago, and never remarried. He retired four years ago after 40 years as a schoolteacher. Paul has an urban garden plot not far away where he spends time in his carpenter workshop. Since the divorce, his garden has grown a little wild.
Anne, a retired expert in permaculture, recently moved in next to Beth. Anne, Paul and Beth are all subscribers to the Give&Take neighbourhood portal.
Beth has created a profile with her interests and experience. She has listed cooking, simple garden work, embroidery, and painting restoration.. Paul has also become a member after Beth encouraged him to join. He has listed driving, shopping, carpenter work and handyman-work in general. Beth is re-decorating her hall and has been to IKEA to buy a new lamp to mount on the wall. She grabs her new tablet computer and taps on the Give&Take icon. She notices that she has plenty of credit on her sharing balance – after looking after children in the neighbourhood several times – and puts up a task request on the Give&Take portal about mounting her lamp. She remembers to click the ‘bring own tools’ box, and hope that somebody replies soon. After two hours she hears an alert from her phone indicating a response. She finds the tiny phone display difficult to work with, so she only uses the Give&Take mobile app when she is not at home. Instead, she turns on her tablet computer. Paul has replied and suggested three alternative timeslots for performing the task. She picks the first one, tomorrow at 11am. The next day Paul arrives, and the drilling and mounting done in less than an hour. Beth is very happy with the look of the new lamp.
While Paul is cleaning up and collecting his tools, Beth suggests that he stays for an open sandwich with her homemade marinated herring while they negotiate which level the drilling task accounts for in the system. They agree that drilling is a small service, based on the examples that Paul look up via his Give&Take app on the phone. Paul is happy now: Beth’s homemade herring is one of his favorites, and now he has enough credit have some help for his overgrown garden plot. He remembers that Anne is offering a course on urban gardening through the Give&Take portal. Previously he had exchanged services with a young family to help with the plot but he decides that it is probably even better to learn himself how to handle the garden. And you always meet a lot of nice people at the Give&Take courses.
(This story if fictional. It describes how Give&Take could be used by senior citizens to share skills and services in their local community.)
