Rural Community Carbon Network

RCCN is supported by the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation!

I am really happy :-))  We have heard from the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation and they have agreed to fund part of the pilot stage of the RCCN.  This is fantastic news and reflects 7 months of dedicated fundraising efforts. The grant will allow us to form the RCCN 'Consortium', which will consist of community advocates, experts and academics who will help to drive forward the initiative.  The grant will also support the establishment of a multi-user blog-based forum which will form the foundation of the RCCN. We would like to thank the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation for this grant and the support that they are giving to this initiative.

More on this development soon!

RCCN will complement and work with CAfE

I went to meet with Rob Bell a few weeks ago, who is the Programme Manager for Community Action for Energy.  CAfE is a programme from the Energy Saving Trust that is designed to promote and facilitate local community-based energy projects.  It is important that the RCCN develops and fosters relationships with organisations like CAfE, who are doing such complementary work. 

Transition Forest Row support the RCCN!

The village of Forest Row is in it's early stages of becoming a 'Transition Town' or 'TT'.  A group of eight individuals, led by Mike Grenville, is taking the lead and preparing an awareness raising plan to start introducing the community to the concept of the Transition Towns model, as a way to respond to the twin challenges of Peak Oil and Climate Change.  Follow the link below, 'Read More...' to see the email of support and find out more.

North Devon sustainability charity support RCCN!

Sam spoke with Caroline at Torridge Action Group for Sustainability (TAG for Sustainability).  Tag for Sustainability is a fantastic charity working for a sustainable future across northern Devon. TAGS develops projects that contribute to sustainable living and works with individuals, groups, businesses and local government....

Community Energy Advocates at ruralnet|2007 - join us!

 

We are delighted that Angela Duignan from Energy4All, Garry Charnock from Ashton Hayes Going Carbon Neutral and Adam Kennerley from Wasteless Society have all agreed to attend the forthcoming ruralnet conference 'Rural futures - who cares?' and will be contributing their invaluable knowledge and experience to a panel session facilitated by Simon Berry, ruralnet|uk CEO.

The RCCN will be launched at the ruralnet|2007, with a focus this year on climate change and the promotion of collective approaches to tackling this issue.

RCCN receives academic support

Sam had a very interesting discussion recently, with Dr Patrick Devine-Wright, a Senior Lecturer at the University of Manchester.  Patrick is a chartered environmental psychologist and member of the British Psychological Society, committed to working in interdisciplinary contexts on research with significance for policy makers and practitioners. He joined the University of Manchester in 2006, having previously held posts as Research Fellow and Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Energy and Sustainable Development, De Montfort University. 

Support for the RCCN

Support for the RCCN has grown considerably over the last few months.  We want to evidence that this initiative will work to complement and build-upon existing climate change initiatives.  As such we have been contacting key organisations to ask them to read about the RCCN and provide a letter of support for the initiative.  So far we have met with COiN, Marches Energy Agency, Every Action Counts, Converging World and EcoCongregation and all have recognised the synergy between what we are doing and what they are doing.  We would like to thank these organisations for this support and we look forward to working with you in the future. Please go to the Supporters section of this blog for further details.

We meet with The Converging World

Sam travelled to a sunny Bristol and met with Alice-Marie Archer from The Converging World to discuss the RCCN and mapping of community energy projects.  The Converging World is a UK based registered charity. Their work addresses the issues of climate change and sustainable development globally.  They generate clean energy in developing countries and enable carbon reduction in the UK. All their income supports the communities where their energy projects are based as well as programmes in the UK that help people and organisations reduce their carbon footprint.  Converging World call their approach ‘beyond carbon neutral’.

The Converging World are currently looking to 'map' where groups exist within the Bristol area - with the possible extension to the UK as a whole.  We have already undertaken some considerable mapping work as part of the ongoing action research we are doing for the RCCN; so we met to discuss collaboration and to avoid duplication.

The Converging World support - an email kindly sent by Alice-Marie;

Support provided through RCCN

The RCCN has received praise from Ashton Hayes community group for providing the type of support and information that will be integral to the initiative once it is up and running.

Tracey Todhunter from Going Carbon neutral Ashton Hayes writes:

"The Going Carbon Neutral project will be having a meeting in September and I know that the information you have provided will be very useful to us in deciding how best to proceed with the project - especially as we are looking to pursue our microgeneration  plans. I hope we finally get to meet at Ruralnet Conference in October and I can thank you personally for all the support you have given the project."

Providing funding information is just one of the resources that community groups will have access to as part of the RCCN and we are very encouraged by this feedback from Tracey.

CoRE Project receives the support from One North East

One Northeast To Fuel Social Enterprise's

Lower energy bills, cleaner fuel and income for local communities could be on the horizon if a visionary North East business with environmental objectives meets it goals.  Community Renewable Energy (CoRE) is a social enterprise covering the North East which works with the voluntary and community sector to develop renewable energy systems. Now they have just received backing from the region’s bosses to allow our communities to play a bigger role in the efforts against climate change.

Ashton Hayes support the RCCN

The Cheshire village of Ashton Hayes (pop. 1000 approx.) is aiming to to become the first small community in England to achieve carbon neutral status. The village want their children and future generations to know that they tried to do their bit to stem global warming and encourage other communities to follow suit.

The profile of Ashton Hayes is growing (they met Graham Norton the other week!..see blog), and they are finding it increasingly difficult to fulfil the many requests they receive for help, advice and visits.  They see the RCCN as the way forward for knowledge transfer and support amongst community energy projects, nationwide...meeting a real need.

Tracey Todhunter has detailed this support of the RCCN in an email;

We are very excited that Gary Charnock has kindly agreed to attend ruralnet|2007, our annual conference, in October as a panellist to a discussion about community energy projects.

UKVillages Come on Board to support the RCCN

We are really pleased to announce that UKVillages are supporting the RCCN - and will be helping us to collect data on the existing community energy projects as part of the mapping exercise.

Launched in April 2000, http://www.UKVillages.co.uk is now widely recognised as the national and local community website for the UK, providing a fully interactive home page and tailored portal for over 31,500 villages, towns, cities and suburbs in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

George Monbiot - Glastonbury 2007

The audio file below contains most of George Monbiot's speech on the 'Left Field' stage at Glastonbury on 24/6/07. It's only 8 minutes long. He used the speech to support the concept of individual carbon rationing. Download Monbiot.WMA (3.7 Mbytes).

The first 30 seconds or so of the speech is missing and in this he highlighted the conflict in Central Africa as the first 'climate change fuelled conflict'. He said that this was happening at the beginning of the 21st century and not at the end of the century when it was predicted. He also made a quip about one of his correspondents that thanked him for his recent book [Heat] saying that if we don't do something the planet will turn into a dessert (sic). You need to know this to understand the last couple of sentences of his speech!

Marches Energy Agency support the RCCN

Sam met with MEA's Project Manager Katherine Shepherd in May 07. 

MEA are supportive of the RCCN and have supplied a letter stating;

"The proposal is highly complimentary to our areas of work and expertise and I am confident that there is great mutual benefit to be had from us working together".

Thank you to Katherine for this letter.

Carnegie show their support

The Carnegie Trust have confirmed their support towards the RCCN and will be putting £20k towards the mapping research and development of the project.

This support reflects the Carnegie Trusts 'Sustainable Management of Community Assets' theme, which believes that there is an alternative approach to rural development that builds upon the things that a community has - an asset based approach to rural community development.

We would like to thank the Carnegie Trust, particularly to Kate Braithwaite for her commitment and support to the RCCN.

A Bike Trip to Ashton Hayes

Simon travelled to Ashton Hayes (not all the way by bike, but quite a lot) to attend their First Grass Roots Conference on Carbon Neutrality, which was held at the University of Chester on 14th April. 

Around 300 people attended, many of which were community 'champions' who have just started their community energy project or were hoping to get their project off the ground.

Gary Charnock from Ashdon Hayes will be one of the panellists at our annual conference, ruralnet|2007, where he will be one of four hand-picked 'champions' who will be discussing the topic of carbon communities.

COiN Support RCCN

Sam met with Tim and Matt at COiN in Oxford in April 07.  COiN works with community groups and individuals, both urban and rural, to spread awareness about climate change and promote action on its solutions. 

Following a very interesting and supportive meeting, Matt wrote to us;
"There is a clear need for impartial and expert advice on climate change and it's solutions, particulalry in rural areas which present challenges for sustainable living that are different from those of an urban environment.  COiN views the Rural Community Carbon Network as a welcome addition to the portfolio of support available for communtiy groups across rural areas of the UK."

Many thanks to Matt for this letter of support.