Reminder: Oxfordshire Ideal Green Home Show Fri 23rd & Sat 24th April

Already advertised here, but here's a reminder - the show is THIS WEEKEND.

Oxfordshire Ideal Green Home Show

Friday 23^rd April, 4-7pm, and Sat 24^th April , 10am – 4pm

Oxford Town Hall, St Aldates, Oxford, OX1 1BH

Oxfordshire’s second Ideal Green Home Show will take place at Oxford Town Hall on Friday 23^rd and Sat 24^th April.

If you want to find out about energy efficiency grants or new micro-generation technology, compare products or hear how local house holders have eco-renovated their homes, then this event is for you.

Featuring:

• Over 30 local green building and renewable energy companies
• Technology introductions from local suppliers
• Presentations from local eco-renovators
• Updates about local grants and the recently announced feed in tariffs
• The opportunity to learn from people who have eco-renovated their homes

For further info about the stall holders and programme of talks, see www.climatex.org

or call Jo on 01865 275 856.

Suggested donation of £2 per adult for entry.

Organised by Oxfordshire ClimateXchange and the Climate Outreach Information Network (COIN), with support from Oxford City Council and Oxfordshire County Council.

... Read this ...

Carbon Cutters Meeting TOMORROW 21 April

As the local Abingdon Hustings will be held on Thursday 29th April, our Carbon Cutters meeting this month will be an informal get-together to talk about the "green" challenges for the incoming government, whatever its hue. Do come along and help us to work out what to raise with any candidates we may come across in the street or on the doorstep, as well as what questions to ask at the hustings. See the poster.

The usual coffee and cake will apply.. ... Read this ...

Election Hustings

The Church in Abingdon have organised a hustings on Thursday 29th April at 7.30pm in the Abbey Hall, on behalf of the entire community.

Come along and meet the candidates standing for election and find out about their policies and local priorities.

If you would like to put a question to the candidates, please send to:

cia35abingdon@aol.co.uk

OR

c/o CiA Administrator,

35 Ock Street, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 5AG

... Read this ...

CAG Welcome to the new finiancial year!

Note especially the training dates at the end of this email. Is anyone else interested in the "Carbon Conversation" training? It sounds so good.


Hello

As we start the new financial year, the following email is contains details of this year’s grants, CAG events and other information you will find useful. Please take the time to have a read through and please don’t hesitate to contact us if you need anything clarified.

We are really looking forward to working with you in the coming year.

With best wishes

Simon

CAG Project Manager





Maintenance Grant

For those of you who have already completed your accounts – thank you! We appreciate the time taken to put these together and it has really helped us to produce our final reports. If you have yet to send us a copy of your accounts, please do so as soon as possible as we are unable to release any further grants to groups that have not done this. There are guidance notes on putting your accounts together in the CAG Toolkit, downloadable from the members’ page of the website. Please let me have copies of everything by Friday 30th April.



This year’s maintenance grant is £250 and can be used for the day to day running of your group; room and van hire, photocopying, etc. Please remember to keep a copy of all your receipts. For future reference, the CAG financial year runs from 1st April to 31st March. You can download any of our grant application forms from the member’s area of the website.





Special Projects Fund

The maximum application to the special projects fund is £500 per annum. This doesn’t mean you have to limit your projects to £500 – there are plenty of potential funding bodies out there and we can help you put together an application. Please contact us for further details.





Insurance

Your group is eligible for subsidised insurance to ensure that your projects, volunteers and the members of the public attending events are covered. This is an umbrella policy that means it is much more cost effective for each CAG. As last year, unless you inform us otherwise, the CAG contribution of £50 is automatically taken from your annual maintenance grant.



If, for any reason, you are unsure as to whether you need insurance, or whether your group’s activities are adequately covered, please contact us. If you already have your own insurance policy, please let us have a copy of your cover note.



We will send you a copy of the insurance document when you apply for your annual grant. If you have any further questions relating to the policy, activities insured, etc., please do not hesitate to contact the CAG Network officers.





Website

Please could you take the time to review your page on the CAG website and check that it says what you want it to. It’s always good to update the page with new photos and text to keep it fresh for those visiting the site. Remember that this is often the first impression a local resident may have of you. Send any content to Frances Buckel by replying to this email and also please inform her if you would like your public contact details changing in the newsletter. You can download the last version from the website.





Training, Visits and Networking

So far this year we have planned the following future events:



Wed 26th May Introduction to Defra’s ‘ZERO WASTE PLACE’ standard:

A short evening on how to apply for this UK best standard & associated funding. Features presentation from BREW / WRAPand case studies / Q&A sessions from Dorchester Carbon and other UK projects.



June (date TBC) Visit to Ardely In-Vessel Composting facility:

A chance to visit and find out more about the facility that will be treating a large proportion of Oxfordshire’s food waste collections.



Sat 10th / Sun 11th July ‘Carbon Coversations’ facilitator training:

A full weekend of training on how to run these courses in your local area. Cited by the Guardian as one of the top 20 solutions to climate change.



September (date TBC) PAT testing training:

By popular demand, a repeat of last year’s event to train groups on how to test small electrical items for re-use


November (date TBC) Successful marketing for community groups:

How to maximise your impact on local people and how to engage them on climate change by drawing on what’s important to them.



November (date TBC) Big Climate Event 2:

Following on from the success for last year’s event, we will be working with Climate Xchange and Oxfordshire Rural Communities Council to run another day of networking and skills sharing.

More details of these events nearer the time but please inform your members and make a note of the dates in your diaries.


We will also be facilitating an annual meeting between yourselves and your local District Councils, thereby giving you the opportunity to discuss aims and objectives and to highlight areas in which you would like more help. We hope this will also help the DCs to fully understand the needs of the local community.



Simon Kenton | CAG Project Manager ... Read this ...

Light later?

I'm writing to tell you that I've seen the light (www.lighterlater.org) and I hope you will too. In fact over 7,000 people have signed up in the past few days alone to this latest campaign from 10:10.org

Everybody loves the sunshine, but right now we set our clocks so that we get less of it in our lives than we could. For big parts of the year, most of us sleep through hours of sunlight in the mornings and then use expensive and energy-hungry electric lighting to keep out the dark nights.

By moving Britain's clocks forwards by one hour throughout the year, we could brighten up our days with an average of 55 minutes of extra useable sunlight each day. Not only that, research shows that it would cut at least half a million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions every year, save lives on our roads and give a boost to sport, leisure and domestic tourism. What's more it's practically free and it could happen right away.

Changing our clocks so that we are awake for more of the time that the sun is out is a no-brainer. That's why I've added my voice to the growing movement calling for the next government -- whoever they may be -- to launch a three-year experiment to put the theory to test.

Join me and the thousands of other supporters of the Lighter Later campaign at www.lighterlater.org ... Read this ...

4 upcoming events

4 upcoming events that may be of interest to Carbon Cutters.

1. Oxfordshire Ideal Green Home Show

Friday 23^rd April, 4-7pm, and Sat 24^th April , 10am – 4pm

Oxford Town Hall, St Aldates, Oxford, OX1 1BH

Featuring:

• Over 20 local green building and renewable energy companies
• Technology introductions from local suppliers
• Presentations from local eco-renovators
• Updates about local grants and the recently announced feed in tariffs
• The opportunity to learn from people who have eco-renovated their homes

For further info about the stall holders and programme of talks, see http://climatex.org/articles/eco-renovation/ideal-green-home-show/

www.ecovation.org.uk / www.climatex.org/ecorenovation or call Jo on 01865 275 856.

Suggested donation of £2 per adult for entry.

Organised by Oxfordshire ClimateXchange and the Climate Outreach Information Network (COIN), with support from Oxford City Council and Oxfordshire County Council.

2. Ask the Climate Question

Ask the Climate Question is a coalition of UK environmental and development charities and not-for-profits, focusing on marginal seats where the candidates and political parties are listening the hardest. They’re calling on everyone to: Ask the Climate Question.

Further info about the national campaign here: http://asktheclimatequestion.org.uk/

Wednesday 21 April 7.30 pm CLIMATE QUESTION TIME

In the Assembly Room, Oxford Town Hall.

Panel: Andrew Smith MP, (Labour), Steve Goddard, (Liberal Democrats),

Edward Argar, (Conservative) and Sushila Dhall (Green Party)

In OXFORD EAST, make sure you ask the 2010 Election Climate Question.

As the next election approaches Greenpeace has teamed up with a collation of other environmental and development NGOs to organise a political hustings in our local constituency of Oxford East.

The coalition includes Greenpeace, Oxfam, WWF, RSPB, Christian Aid, the World Development Movement, People and Planet, Tearfund the Green Alliance, and a few others.

Between us we have 5-15,000 regular supporters in Oxford East, which is really interesting as our current MP Andrew Smith has a majority of 963. We think that the next MP (whichever party they belong to) should be made very aware of the number of people in his/her constituency that are worried about climate change. This is an issue that will win, or lose them votes. We want to ask them the climate question and make sure that the candidates we vote for have very good answers……

Contact: jspragg@nildram.co.uk with questions or offers of help

3. NOURISHING COMMUNITIES - LOCAL FOOD PROJECTS LEADING THE WAY Wednesday 28 April 10.00-15.00

Are you involved in a food project which is helping to reduce health inequalities in your community? Or would you like to learn more about how you could make this happen?

If so, please join us at a free networking and learning event for community food projects in the Thames Valley area on Wednesday 28th April, 10.00-15.00 at St Anne’s College, Oxford.

There will be presentations and workshops on relevant themes as well as an opportunity to meet other projects from across the region and to share your experiences and ideas. The deadline for registrations is Friday 9th April, but places are limited so please book early.

For more information, please contact : Louisa Greenbaum, Communications Co-ordinator on tel: 01273 431 711 (Mon-Tue) or email: louisa@freshideas.org.uk.

4. 7th - 9th May 2010 Power – Up London: 2010, A training weekend on the planning system and your legal rights

For full details go to: http://www.foe.co.uk/community/news/power_up_22627.html

Power Up is a weekend of workshops and networking to empower people to make a difference.
Find out how to use the system effectively. Learn how to confidently use legal and planning knowledge and share your ideas with others. Gain
the tools, confidence and contacts to help make your community a cleaner, healthier, fairer place to live. ... Read this ...