April/May 2016 News
A break in at our community office disrupted things in April. Fortunately we only lost peace of mind, and we’re sure the culprits were wondering why they bothered when they finally got in: insulation samples, books, reports … not easily tradeable items.
Recent visitors included Pam McKinley, who has been planning the local reception to the #LeadingtheCharge Electric Vehicle roadtrip due 20-21st April; Jordana Whyte from Cosy Homes to discuss firewood banking, and; Ruth Zeinhert, the new DCC Food Resilience Advisor, to talk about ways to improve and support local food initiatives to build resilience.
The provision of services that have kept us busy this month have been:
- Home Performance Assessments: there is now a steady demand for our independent, expert appraisals, analysis and recommendations.
- Energy Advice: we’ve noticed an increase in individuals seeking advice as the cold weather threatens.
- Affordable Firewood: an increase here too, both in orders and in interest in bulk log delivery, and part of our discussion about firewood banking that we’re looking at with Cosy Homes.
- Quality Insulation: more orders for insulation from people who want to save costs and are able to install insulation themselves once they have the right advice.
Contact us for any information. We expect similar demand in May, and will do our best to keep up with it. Meanwhile our two project areas get the lion’s share of our time at the office, and both involve teams and specialists lending a hand. The Blueskin Wind Development is detailed in the BEL column. The ClimateSafeHouse project is about designing and building a relocatable home to provide a model of how we can manage our housing issues and adapt in changing times, and we are very happy to now have the first partners committing time and materials to the project. With assistance from Otago Polytechnic, a website is being designed and built to provide live feed on the project and detail about it.
A submission on the DCC Annual Plan is also being prepared and will be submitted this month. Submissions on the Otago Regional Council’s draft annual plan is also open for comment. Our office is located in Waitati at Waitati School, you can find us on Facebook as Blueskin Resilient Communities Trust, on Twitter as @BlueskinPower and you can call 03 4822249 or call in to visit and find out more about any of our work.
By Scott Willis