Welcome to Oldham Community Power’s newsletter!
Issue 03
Welcome to the third instalment of our newsletter!
In this edition, find out about our AGM, our submission at the RHS Tatton Flower Show, how our share offer is progressing, an invitation to a day of environmental talks and discussions that we are a part of, and how much energy our installed solar panels have produced so far.
AGM
The Annual General Meeting of Members was held at 7.00 pm on Thursday 13th July at Oldham Council’s Crompton Suite, Civic Centre, West Street, Oldham OL1 1UT.
9 members and 6 non-members attended the meeting, with 3 members voting by proxy on the agenda items.
Minutes of the AGM:
- To approve the application of postal and electronic votes for future motions put to the membership.
The issue of an appropriate quorum was discussed and a point was raised that although it was accepted that postal votes could be counted towards the quorum, it may not be desirable for a meeting to be quorate just on the basis of three directors being present and no other members present in person. It was proposed that before the next AGM, the rules regarding the quorum and use of postal votes should be circulated so that members could propose an amendment to these rules to be put as a motion before the next AGM. - To receive and adopt the Report of the Directors and the Annual Accounts for the year ended 31st December 2016
Several members expressed the wish that as the Society seeks to be as open and transparent as possible, it would be good practice to have the accounts examined independently. It should be possible to obtain this either pro-bono or for a very modest fee. The motion was therefore amended to be that the board should seek some quotes for an accounts report, and for the board to be delegated to decide whether to get the accounts examined once quotes are received. - To re-elect Bill Edwards, Alan Price, and Colin Salt as Directors of the Society
These motions were carried by members; Bill, Alan, and Colin were re-elected as Directors of OCP.
After the AGM, the board led a discussion about the future direction of the Society, around governance and encouraging more of the members to participate in day to day running of the society, and managing events. Nikki Davies volunteered to help manage events. Andy Hunter-Russall and John Nuttall volunteered to help support at events.
RHS Tatton Park Flower Show
Oldham Community Power recently attended the 2017 Tatton Park Flower Show, where we created a bus stop for the bus stop boulevard.
Working with IF Oldham and The Real Junk Food Project Oldham, we created a community bus stop designed to educate people about the problem of food waste and how to eat healthily, and to provide a space for sharing food and getting inspiration about cooking!
The bus stop was covered in edible plants on its walls, showing how much food can be grown in a limited space by making the most of vertical growing techniques. In the bus stop, there are shelves containing recipe books to inspire people and a community fridge where surplus food can be stored for local people to use as they need.
Best of all, the fridge is powered by solar panels and a battery system provided by our installer so that the fridge will keep cool no matter where the bus stop is placed!
The bus stop was unfortunate not to win the people’s prize at the show, but it gained considerable attention throughout the week; Monty Don even helped himself to strawberries while filming the bus stop for the BBC’s coverage of the show!
Now the show is finished, the bus stop will not be taken apart but will be installed in Hollinwood to benefit the local community and educate local children about the importance of healthy eating.
Share offer update
We have now raised £55,050 in our second share offer, raising the total investment to £106,550!
There are now 60 members of OCP, thank you to everyone that has invested so far to make OCP a truly community-owned organisation.
We do, however, still need to raise almost £135,000 to repay a loan from Oldham Council and make sure that as many of the benefits of our solar panels are seen by the community as possible.
Please share the opportunity with family and friends to raise awareness of this opportunity!
Our share offer document can be downloaded here:
http://oldhamcommunitypower.org.uk/files/2017/04/OCP-share-offer-document-web-version.pdf
Latest generation figures
As of 24 August 2017, our sites have generated a total of 137,985 kWh of renewable energy.
This has saved 56,856 kg of carbon dioxide, almost 57 tonnes, from being released into the atmosphere, the equivalent of taking over 29 cars off the road for a year*!
Energy generation split by our sites can be found on our website here:
As we approach the first anniversary of installations, some sites are behind the anticipated generation level due to initial difficulties following installation. We can, however, account for the shortfalls, and Blackshaw (where we have had no outages to date) looks likely to surpass its year 1 prediction. In subsequent years, without the difficulties we had in the initial phase, we are confident that we will see generation predictions exceeded across sites and will be able to make up year 1 generation shortfalls.
*Figure based on UK Government’s Greenhouse gas reporting – Conversion factors 2016, average vehicle CO2 emissions of 153.0 g/km (RAC), and average car mileage of 7,900 miles (RAC).
We need your help!
Oldham Community Power is a community benefit society run by volunteers from the community who give their time to make community-owned renewable energy a reality in Oldham.
As we expand our activities, we are looking for people who are interested in giving some time to support us, and are particularly looking for people skilled in:
- Running events
- Publicity, like writing press releases or editing this newsletter
- Environmental education
- Energy saving
If this sounds like you, why not write us a brief email saying who you are and what skills you can offer and send it to info@oldhamcommunitypower.org.uk?