Meetings
Home Last updated: 16 Feb 2010 |
You are here:Home > Meetings > 8 April 2009
Minute of AEF Meeting – Wednesday 9 December 2009
High Interest Account Total £12,061.74 allocated against other accounts pro rata Transactions since last report, excluding interest payments on General Current Accounts: Income: Fees from attendees at 'Natural Energy': £200 (Highland EcoDesign and Baltic Trading) Aberdeenshire Grant of £5,400 for Strachan Village Hall has been approved through the Landfill Tax Credit Scheme and payment has been sought. Entrust & AEF fees will be due. No funds yet received. Expenditure: 'Natural Energy' associated items: Venue costs - £874.oo With other costs (£1,014.70) reported at the last meeting, 'Natural Energy' was presented at a loss of £188.70. Other changes to balances due to interest payments received. Treasurer's correspondence A copy of the annual accounts recently presented at the AGM was sent to Aberdeenshire Council's Chief Executive as promised at the meeting held with him. No acknowledgement or other communication has been received from Aberdeenshire Council in this regard. 4.Convenor’s Report AGM and Green Butterfly awards went well. Suggested that the Forum should consider ‘Soor Ploom’ awards in addition. Ron advised that he had participated in a climate change debate in the City at which Stewart Stevenson had advocated the ‘need to decarbonise fuel usage rather than reducing the need for it by insulation’ – seems an odd approach – hard to see how the maths work. 5. Presentations Thomas Tait - presentation on Renewable Energy options Copy of ‘slides’ is available here or can be sent separately if requested.(1.2Mb file) Download Adobe Acrobat Reader  Portable Document File (PDF) FormatGeorge Niblock – Presentation on Home Insulation Paper attached as appendix – Following the presentation, the meeting agreed that George should progress the project in order to establish what level of support can be organised to ‘make it happen’. It requires backing from Local Government, Advisory and Business Organisations and the general Community, if needed, some financial assistance can be provided. Jackie thanked all participants and the meeting closed. Date of Next Meeting – February 10 (Altered to 17 February) – 14 April - 9 June – 11 August – 13 October – (17 November AGM) – 8 December Brian Martin – Minute Secretary Appendix George Niblock - Home Insulation – Presented at 9 December 2009 AEF Meeting Home Insulation schemes – information note Introduction On 10th Sept 2009 Aberdeenshire Environmental Forum organised an alternative energy Fair at Thainstone Mart, Inverurie, called Natural Energy. It was a great success with almost 1000 people in attendance. Feedback from attendees and exhibitors alike was hugely positive. Originally designed to provide a venue whereby interested householders and small business owners could get information direct from the providers of alternative energy sources such as solar, both hot water and photo-voltaic; wind generators; water and biomass such as wood pellets, we soon realised that there was a need for independent advice on grants and home insulation. Fairly late on in the process we realised that it would be beneficial to have representatives from the insulation installers and the surveyors who inspect the properties for suitability. We were grateful to Alva Surveyors of Cumbria, England and EAGA insulation installers of Livingstone, West Lothian, for attending the event with teams of staff. (having to pay for the privilege) One of the issues that became apparent was that while the existing sources of advice on home insulation were operating effectively, there were a couple of broken links in the chain which were acting to prevent the insulation of homes in any significant The geography of the North East of Scotland allied to the dispersal of homes in many low density areas, meant that there was not the critical mass of work to sustain commercially viable business for surveyors to inspect the homes of those wanting their homes insulated. Additionally, there were insufficient numbers of installations at any one time to justify the installing companies locating teams of installers in the north meaning that those wanting their home to be inspected and insulated sometimes had a long wait until numbers had grown to justify sending teams of staff up north. This was characterised at the exhibition itself whereby the surveyors received c. 28 enquiries for home insulation surveys. These turned out to be 1 in Forres; 1 in Portsoy; 1 in Collieston; 1 in Ellon, 1 in Aboyne; 1 in Huntly ; 1 in Blackburn; 1 in Hatton of Fintray; 2 or 3 in Inverurie area and the rest in scattered rural properties. In the week immediately following the Fair, Alva Surveyors sent a surveyor up to the Inverurie area for three days to attempt to follow up the requests for surveys. Surveyors are self-employed and it soon became clear that the individual concerned could not generate enough income to even cover the cost of travel and accommodation to stay up here never mind travel around the countryside doing individual houses. The nature of the housing stock in the north east having a large proportion of stone built or timber framed houses meant that many were not suited to cavity insulation. Trained surveyors would rather be located in the urban areas where they can gain access to large numbers of properties without the need for extensive travel time or costs. Having stimulated community interest, members of AEF felt an obligation to try to address the broken links and indicated a willingness to train as insulation surveyors with the intention of generating enough leads to justify the commitment of installation teams more frequently than present. It was also clear that some strategy would be required to try to generate interest on a community basis to achieve that critical mass of work in relatively close geographical areas. We hope to develop a strategy to build on the success of existing community links in the area such as Community Councils, religious organisations and sports and social clubs etc etc. There are already a number of organisations involved in the home energy advice / insulation market and it was felt that it was important to clarify and understand that complexity before committing to any action. In addition to a complexity of organisations, the sector is also plagued with a plethora of schemes initiatives and programmes all of which tend to be in a state of fairly constant flux with a myriad of acronyms covering their terminology almost like a secret and foreign language. See appendix for the list of names etc To further complicate the matter it appears that there are also a number of funding sources which appear to be limited in time or amount, to the extent that the money or the time can and does run out on a fairly regular basis. This further level of uncertainty is far from helpful in forward planning and particularly in trying to convince local surveyors that there is a viable living to be made on a consistent basis. The way forward The investigations into existing schemes and initiatives is nearing conclusion and will be reported to AEF in due course. However, in the interim it is relevant to make contact with the broad spectrum of community organisations to determine if there is support for such an initiative in their area? That interest may be in the form of fairly passive support or endorsement of the proposal, all the way to active participation in promotion and identification of householders seeking home insulation improvements. As indicated it makes environmental and commercial sense to address the issues on a community by community basis and to learn from experience and feedback. The basic purpose of it all is to help both residents in the north east get their homes insulated to modern standards where appropriate with the assistance of Government grants and on the big scale to reduce CO2 emissions. As a consequence residents will of course save money spent on fuel. In effect it is the concept of ‘Think Global and Act Local ' in practice. I would welcome feedback, comment or questions on this outline of the proposal at this early stage. George Niblock Niblock Environmental Ltd / Aberdeenshire Environmental Forum 01467 621902 insulatemyhome@niblockenvironmental.com |