On July the 9th 2005, Rosemary and I set up our frame tent
for the Gwydir and Milford Street Community Party and using a computer borrowed
from Cambridge Architectural Research and the Carbon Gym CD from the Centre forAlternative Technology, we offered to discuss climate change and calculate the
Carbon Footprint of passers-by.
The idea had come from the ‘Trajectories’ conference, organised
by Peter Harper at CAT to celebrate his 60th birthday. Rosemary had
presented a talk on climate change and psychotherapy, and on the train home we
mused about the progress that the environmental movement had made over the past
40 years. Perhaps we needed a new way to talk about climate change. We thought
we could use the Carbon Calculator, being developed by Peter and Alex at CAT to
initiate a conversation about climate change, explore the possibilities of
personal carbon reduction and help explain some of the options.
We calculated the first 41 carbon footprints at the Street Party and within days we had launched Cambridge Carbon Footprint, applied for a grant from the Cambridge City Council and created a web site. We had also met Shilpa Shah, who worked with us to develop an outreach approach for the BAME communities in Cambridge and created the Akashi project, which was funded by the DEFRA Climate Challenge fund.
The last 10 years have been an adventure, both positive, meeting a new wave of environmental/political campaigners and the creation of the Carbon Conversations project, and disappointing that the understanding of the challenge of Climate Change has been so slow, especially since the failure of the Copenhagen Conference in 2009.
1 comment:
Unfortunately, the current CCF trustees did not think it worth the effort to celebrate, but have arbitrarily designated a party in July 2016 as a tenth anniversary.
I cant say I am impressed by their explanation:
On 06/06/2016 17:47, Andy Brown wrote:
> Dear Jane,
> Thank you for your reply.
>
> We find it strange that CCF is celebrating the formation of the CCFL company, and not the creation of the Cambridge Carbon Footprint organisation in 2005, as CCFL was created hurriedly in March 2006 to enable the already well established organisation to apply for major government grants. It was not a particularly significant event and the M&A's were completely rewritten in January 2009 with charity registration.
>
> We are also surprised that few of the initial volunteers, partner organisations and donors seem to have been included in your communications about this event or invited to it. It is a pity that your celebration "to thank volunteers and supporters" has ignored the group that were so important to the initial success of CCF.
>
> Yours sincerely,
> Rosemary and Andy
>
> On 4 June 2016 at 20:01:58 BST Jane Frank wrote:
>
>> Dear Andy and Ro,
>>
>> Thanks for getting in touch with us about the CCF anniversary.
>>
>> We were aware of the discrepancy about timings - the CCF management team discussed a potential event last year. However, at the time there was a lot going on and it felt like too much to add another event into the schedule. Trustees agreed to postpone and celebrate 10years from incorporation instead, allowing plenty of time to build it into the 2016 schedule and not divert too much from ongoing projects.
>>
>> Admittedly this has not been at all clear in the communications but the website has now been altered. I'll request any future communications also refer to the 2005 start up.
>>
>> I hope this goes some way to reassure you?
>>
>> Of course CCF as an organisation relies on its volunteers. As a group of trustees we felt a party was a good way to celebrate this fact, to thank volunteers and supporters, and provide an opportunity for all involved in CCF to celebrate what we have achieved, and reflect on the ongoing challenges.
>>
>> Wishing you both well,
>>
>> Jane
>
>
> On 02/06/2016 17:59, Andy Brown wrote:
>> Dear Trustees
>>
>> We were very surprised to hear that Cambridge Carbon Footprint is planning to celebrate its tenth anniversary this July as the organisation was founded in 2005 and is thus not ten but eleven years old. Plans were developed for CCF in April 2005, in July that year its constitution was adopted, its first events were held, core principles and values were defined and the website launched. The first grant money was received in August 2005 and numerous events were held throughout the summer, autumn and winter of that year. Rosemary wrote about this in her blog last year, https://rorandall.org/2015/07/20/carbon-anniversaries/
>>
>> We hope that this is an innocent mistake and we look forward to seeing it corrected promptly.
>>
>> yours sincerely,
>>
>> Rosemary Randall and Andy Brown (founders of Cambridge Carbon Footprint)
>>
Post a Comment