Energy Efficiency Volunteer Training
Would you like to volunteer in your local area and become an energy efficiency advisor?
Do you live in the Anglesey Ward, or have strong links in the area?
Would you like to contribute to saving people money and aid your community?
If so .... East Staffordshire Borough Council (ESBC) are offering you the chance to become a local volunteer in the Anglesey Ward, Burton upon Trent. You will receive five days of training in energy efficiency in order to provide home energy efficiency advice to the community, aiding people to understand the financial savings that run alongside this.
These dates are as follows; Thursday 31st March, Friday 1st April, Thursday 7th April, Friday 8th April and Thursday 12th May 2011
You will act as a point of contact within in the community to offer energy efficiency advice at community events and local workshops.
The training includes many topics such as:
- current fuel costs and expected rises
- loft and cavity wall insulation
- understanding energy bills
- grants available for energy efficiency
- fuel poverty
You will also work alongside the Staffordshire Fire and Rescue Service in conjunction with the Home Energy Checks that are currently rolling out across the community.
Successful candidates will
- have good communication skills
- have a desire to help reduce fuel poverty in the area
- ideally, be from the Anglesey ward or have links with the area
- ideally, already have strong contacts within the community
Key benefits to the volunteer include
- Becoming trained in Energy Efficiency Advice
- Sharing learned knowledge on energy advice within their community
- Helping families relieve the problems associated with fuel poverty
- Working alongside ESBC and Staffordshire Fire and Rescue Service
- Meeting new people
For further information and an application form – please contact the climate change team on 01283 508483 or polar.bear@eaststaffsbc.gov.uk
Fire Safety and Energy Efficiency Open Day
East Staffordshire Borough Council in conjunction with the Staffordshire Fire and Rescue Service would like to invite you to a ‘Fire Safety and Energy Efficiency Open Day’. This will be held at Burton Fire Station, Moor Street, Burton On Trent, between 2 – 4pm on Thursday 18th November, 2010.
There will be many stalls to browse, including information on Home Fire Risk Checks; ideas to show how you can make your home less at risk from fire, combined with fire fighters on hand to answer any questions you may have. We are also combining this with an energy efficiency theme, with information on how you can save money by improving energy efficiency in your home, which can also help reduce your carbon footprint.
There will be many other ‘sustainability themed’ stalls in relation to travel, food, recycling and information on other projects that are to be undertaken in the local area.
"Fantastic Home" and the Community Games
During the Climate Change Season; on Saturday 24th July, the Community Games took place in the Anglesey Ward. As well as the games, we also had a "Fantastic Home" display.
"Fantastic Home" is whole house overview showing you how you can install carbon saving methods in your own homes and save money at the same time. This is a mobile version of the perfect house.
The "Fantastic Home" display had elements such as a carbon countdown game for children, an energy bike and interactive aspects throughout the display. It signposted people to local information and grants, as well as providing general information on all aspects of energy saving / energy generation. People also had the opportunity to book in for home insulation surveys for their own property.
This interactive display was located in Queen Street just up the road from Queen Street Community Centre, Anglesey, Burton-On-Trent and was a great success with the public.
Climate Change Season
For three weeks, back in July 2010, we put on a number of climate change related displays on show at the Brewhouse Arts Centre, Burton.
During this period we also screened three sustainability/climate change related films at the Brewhouse Arts Centre. These were as follows
- Tuesday 13th July, 7.30pm, An Inconvenient Truth - Academy award-winning 2006 documentary featuring former US Vice-President Al Gore
- Thursday 22nd July, 7.30pm, The 11th Hour - A look at the global environment and ways to save it, produced in 2007 by Leonardo DiCaprio
- Tuesday 27th July, 7.30pm, The Age of Stupid - Pete Postlethwaite stars as a man living in a devastated 2055 and recalling the present, wondering why we failed to act
These films were free to watch, and proved successful with the public.
We would like to show future environmental films, if your community is interested in hosting these films or would like to suggest future ones, please get in touch at polar.bear@eaststaffsbc.gov.uk
Film Competition
Since the start of the school year, schools across the borough have taken part in an ESBC run, sustainability themed short film competition.
The schools were asked by ESBC to take part in this competition, which could take the form of an advert, play, musical or even ‘My Carbon Footprint’. The brief was kept as broad as possible, to let the children have free range on the sustainability topic.
We felt that there were many ways to communicate with the public, but that schools were a great way to engage and deliver valuable information. By raising this further awareness with the children, the climate change message will hopefully be taken home to parents and friends.
Five primary schools – Holy Rosary RC, John of Rolleston, Riverview Primary and Nursery, Victoria Community and Violet Lane Infants – competed for one prize and pupils from Abbot Beyne and Paget High School competed for the older age group prize. The success of the schools was highlighted at a special ceremony held at the Brewhouse Arts Centre on Tuesday 8th June 2010, to honour their achievements in making the films.
River View Primary and Nursery School with their film ‘Planet Savers’ and Abbot Beyne School with their film ‘We Cannot Pretend’ were selected as the winners of the competition by a panel of local film experts, including Tilley Bancroft from Project Wired.
We had some fantastic entries from many schools all showing that the younger generation are taking the issue of climate change seriously. As a prize for the competition, ESBC, funded two sustainability themed workshops for the winning schools, which were delivered by Keele University’s Science for Sustainability Department. These prizes took the form of a challenge and showed the children how to build a solar powered car out of scrap materials. Both workshops went down extremely well and the children thoroughly enjoyed taking part.
You can watch the films here
Gardening Olympics
On the 26th June 2010, The gardening Olympics took place at Shobnall Leisure Complex. We asked Marches Energy Agency to attend and provide attendees with energy saving information. This proved to be hugely popular with people and to read the press release following this event - please click here
Energy Saving Trust Courses
We have hosted a number of sessions delivered by the Energy Saving Trust in the past, these have included a "Green Communities" session on energy auditing in community buildings and a one to one support, energy awareness drop-in session
Following on from the "Green Communities" course, various information was provided