The team hard at work. The community room above the famous Pete’s Eats cafe in Llanberis
What do I, Paula, Alun, Maldwyn, Gwyndaf, Emlyn, Ifor, George have in common? We are now directors of an Industrial Provident Society. The purpose of which, is to harvest renewable energy from our community for the benefit of our community. Its been an interesting 12 months to date as pervious blogs have attested to. Legally thanks to the Welsh Cooperative Society, Renew Wales, Gwynedd Werdd, Cooperative Enterprise Hub we are now a legal entity and registered with the Financial Conduct Authority. All this legal stuff is there to protect all involve in terms of liability but also to enable us to develop, raise funding, share capital and so on. It’s the foundation. But it has also been a paperwork and contractual slog to get us here. (please don’t underestimate the mountain of jargon and acronyms)
What can i say? Some of the meetings have been enabled by the chip butty and pint of tea facilitation tools. Pete’s east comes to the rescue at the end of a day at work. Its part of a my calorie controlled diet!
…and what next? We are working with a few partners and have a three good projects on the go. A PV system and of course some hydros (what else would you expect me to say!)
The latest in a long list of possible projects (a storm drain. Lots of pulse’s but also the odd “I don’t know”?) I was out with the hydro hunting team walking around the valley looking at this candidate site which was highlighted by Alun. “not another flipping hydro i could hear grumbled all the way round by the team”!
The hydro hunting team for the day. Discovering the comfort of moss bedding. I now have to ‘not tell the full truth’ every time i take them out. But once they see steep terrain and flowing water i usually hear a collective groan. “not another hydro”!
