Community Gardening Give it A GO!!!!

The Westgate Community Trust (Canterbury) have with permission taken over the 'garden' surrounding the hall. The above picture would be better if we had taken a before and after shot!!  but believe me those shrubs were blocking out the light to the downstairs windows of the hall.

We also got some plants and bulbs from Meadow Grange Nurseries to improve little uncared for weedy patches around the hall.

So basically look at what you can do for the community, what we achieved above cost us nothing but 15 volunteers time, we got a SERCO man and a van for free to take the mounds of vegetation we had cut away & free plants so support your local community & get some community spirit going!

Some good links are the Federation of City Farms and Community Gardens the BBC Whats a Community Garden Thrives community gardening projects for those with various disabilities and Guerilla Gardening

Ecobuild 2010 - biggest showcase in the world for sustainable design

The biggest event in the world for sustainable design, construction and the built environment, there’s a wealth to see and experience at Ecobuild. The event is running this year from tuesday 2nd March until 4pm Thursday 4th march at Earls Court. This year there is a debate on Copenhagen which you can see at http://www.ecobuild.co.uk/copenhagen.html but have a look at the rest of the website if you cant make the event as there are loads of interesting companies & contacts on it http://www.ecobuild.co.uk/index.html

Microgeneration & Feed in Tariff Campaign for Existing Generators

See article below from Good Energy

Dear Good Energy supporter


Fair deal for energy entrepreneurs: Please join our campaign

We'd like you to sign a petition and write to your MP about the unfair deal that early adopters of microgeneration are getting from the feed-in tariff. Here's why:

Good Energy has a long history of campaigning to help grow renewable generation in the UK. We're really proud that one in every 25 of our customers generates their own renewable power and we're committed to getting the best deal for them.

For several years we were part of the campaign to get a feed-in-tariff - or FiT- to reward renewable generators with a payment for their electricity. We pioneered our own, award-winning HomeGen scheme which pays generators 15p a unit for all the electricity they generate. And we were very pleased when the government recently announced the terms of its FiT scheme starting on April 1st 2010.

BUT - there is a major flaw in the scheme.

For the pioneers who installed their microgenerator before July 15th 2009 the government is offering much lower payments - just 9p a unit - than those available to new generators, who will get up to 41.3p a unit. We think this is wrong.

The UK microgeneration industry owes its existence to the early adopters who installed their own generation equipment because they wanted to make a difference to climate change. Many invested their life savings in such schemes because they believed it was the right thing to do - and they deserve to be recognised and rewarded for their entrepreneurial attitude, not penalised. We believe that green energy entrepreneurs should not be worse off under the new scheme.

So we're campaigning for a change in the legislation to ensure they get the recognition they deserve.

We're delighted that the Liberal Democrat MP Alistair Carmichael has endorsed our campaign and tabled an Early Day Motion on this issue. As he says, "If the government is serious about wanting people to develop small scale renewable energy projects then they will have to treat everyone fairly instead of punishing those who demonstrate initiative and commitment."

You can support the campaign in the following ways:

Sign a petition Please sign the petition about this on the Number 10 website - http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/Microgenerators/
Write to your MP If you are an existing generator who will be affected by this, please write to your MP telling him about your concerns and asking him to sign the Early Day Motion. We've drafted a letter you can use, which you can download from our website. To find out who your MP is, please visit http://www.parliament.uk/mpslordsandoffices/. Cross Party support is important, so please write to your MP whatever his political party.

If we work together, we can make a difference and help our energy entrepreneurs get the fair deal they deserve for helping set the UK on the right path to reducing its carbon emissions.

Yours sincerely

The Good Energy Team

http://www.goodenergy.co.uk/

Sustainable Innovation Help

30 organisations will benefit from the GreenThink! © programme, a free personalised innovation and advice service provided by experienced consultants at The Centre for Sustainable Design (CfSD). This includes a workshop process using a range of unique creativity techniques to maximise high quality idea generation. CfSD will produce a report highlighting recommendations from the workshop and then provide follow-up research and advice related to sustainable product design and development, innovation, funding, marketing and commercialisation.

Support can help with:

• greening of existing products or services
• development of new greener products or services

 This might include:

•  identifying opportunities to reduce costs through environmental improvements
• identifying new market opportunities
•  developing new product and service concepts
•  identifying the implications of product-related environmental legislation
•  exploring opportunities related to low carbon product or services

 see http://www.suscin.org.uk/