What a week - we have just processed our 100th booking for the Low Carbon Communities Conference on 4th October in llangollen, completed 2 case study reports on low carbon communities in the North West, written two articles on low carbon communities, written a conference presentation, answered over 200 emails and still found time to walk the dog!!
For the time being I’m saying goodbye to the Low carbon Diary Blog, but you can still keep up with me by checking out the Conference website, reading my posts for the Chester chronicle or following progress on Sustained Magazine’s Staff Blog. See you after the conference x
July 31st, 2008
Last night I had a drink with the Editor of Sustained Magazine (thanks David!), we talked about low carbon living and the ways in which Sustained might be able to support the Low Carbon Community Conference, as well as having a good blether over a lime and soda! David kindly gave me a couple of back issues to look at, and I really enjoyed the interview with Mukti Mitchell. I followed his Low Carbon Lifestyle Tour last year, but haven’t met him yet. There is an archive of back issues on the website so you can take a look at them for yourself.
David and I also chatted to Alison, founder of Chester Freecycle. I might finally get rid of my daughter’s old but in immaculate condition Barbie scooter… Freecycle is a great concept, give useful stuff away instead of sending it to landfill. Lots of low carbon communities support their local Freecycle groups, so take a look and see if there’s one near you.
Today I’m off to talk funding for the October conference, hoping to organise some travel bursaries for community groups. I’ll let you know how I get on
May 28th, 2008
Organising the conference has meant a fair bit of travel, not good for my family life or the environment (not to mention my bank balance), so when one of our group came up with the idea to meet by telephone conference using mindmapping softwareI was keen to try it (and how obvious - wish I’d thought of it!). Now, anyone who knows me will tell you I’m a complete technophobic. Like the car, so long as everything works I’m happy to leave the technical side to someone else and throw a complete wobbler when all goes wrong - so I was happy to hand over the facilitation to someone who knew what they were doing.
The result was that many people who haven’t been able to participate in the meetings so far were able to join in and I feel the experiment was a success. There were some minor hitches, the software doesn’t like linux, it’s too big to download on a dial up and it’s inconvenient if your phone runs out of credit half way through (mentioning no names 
However, we had a constructive meeting, agreed to do it again and the feedback by email has been very positive. So, although it won’t replace face to face meetings entirely it served a useful purpose and we’ve agreed to meet up again in 2 weeks. Next time I’ll be at home so I’ll make sure I’ve got a cup of tea and a piece of cake to hand! All we need to do now is find out if there is a web based tool we can use which performs the same function as the mindmap software, top up our phone credit and we’re sorted!
Just please don’t suggest video conferencing or everyone will see me sitting in the garden in my scruffy shorts taking advantage of the sunshine and the wifi…
May 16th, 2008
Sometimes you chat to people and they come up with an idea for something you may never have considered or a new twist on something you have previously tried and if you’re like me you find yourself thinking “Wow I would never have thought of that”. The Ecovation Open House weekend in Oxfordshire last November is a fine example. I’ve led tours around the village of Ashton Hayes highlighting the fantastic things individuals have done to reduce their carbon footprint, but Jo Hamilton in Oxford reminded me about this event she helped organise last year. Jo will be coming to the conference in October and will have more ideas to share. Take a look for yourself and let me know what you think.
May 15th, 2008
I have been having some very interesting conversations this week with groups and organisations that want to support our October conference. This event is a team effort, a small group of us are meeting and talking to try and plan this year’s event. We want to know what kind of event you want it to be. Please use the blog or the email contact to talk to us and be involved in making this event the biggest and most creative event for low carbon communities so far! I’m delighted that some very high profile people have agreed to support us and even more excited that I’m going to get the chance to meet up with community groups such as Going Carbon Neutral Stirling who will be back this year to tell us how things have moved on since we last met in Chester.
Paul Kingsnorth (not known as a climate change commentator, but the author of the insightful and fascinating Real England), will be joining us as well as Penney Poyzer (in addition to presenting the humorous and informative No Waste Like Home BBC series, Penney and her partner Gil have transformed their Nottingham home with a host of stylish eco features).
So, if you want to meet real people taking real action and supporting local projects then this year’s event is for you. Come and be part of it.
May 15th, 2008
