SHARE AGM
Our AGM on September 22nd was well attended, firstly at an informal “board report” session outside the Parish Hall, to show what we do and progress made during the past year. The second, more formal part of the meeting was conducted inside the Hall, and was rounded off with drinks and snacks so that people could continue to chat.
It was especially good to meet and put names to some new faces. Membership continues to grow and now stands at 109 full members and 77 associate members.
Draft minutes of the meeting are being circulated to members who were present, and will in due course be published on our web page (https://south-hill.co.uk/share/share-member-area/)
Insulation, insulation, insulation!
There’s a great deal of talk about “retrofit” just now. Houses built without a high standard of insulation (and this includes many being built at this very moment) can never hope to be truly energy efficient without addressing this problem.
At the recent Cornwall Home Improvement & Self Build Show at Wadebridge, Sue went with the intention of finding out more about retrofit, but was a bit disappointed to be honest. There were plenty of stands selling solar PV, air and ground source heat pumps, even MVHR (mechanical ventilation and heat recovery) systems, but besides being expensive to install, without high standards of insulation in homes, these can also be expensive to run.
Sadly, we missed a recent talk given by Kate Royston of TEC (Tamar Energy Community), “Retrofitting your home – What’s this all about?” . Kate has kindly made available the presentation used for her talk – see attached. She says costs are coming down all the time, and the ones in the presentation are on the high side.
Kate would be happy to come and talk to our members about this. Please contact SHARE@south-hill.co.uk if you’d be interested.
Out And About
We’ve been thinking about possible visits to places of interest.
One example is the tree nursery and a new rainwater harvesting system at Meeth Quarry near Hatherleigh in Devon (https://www.devonwildlifetrust.org/nature-reserves/meeth-quarry)
This Devon Wildlife Trust site has been developed from an old clay quarry whose industrial past has produced a fascinating landscape for wildlife today. With 150 hectares of nature reserve we should be able to have a good walk and observe abundant wildlife too.
We’d also like to visit Trebartha, near Launceston, where as well as extensive gardens they have a hydro-power turbine installed in 2015. Trebartha Estate opens its gardens to visitors through the NGS – National Garden Scheme. The next open day is in May 2022.
At a recent open day we learned that “water comes from an intake area, through a 1.2km stretch of pipe dropping 90m down to the turbine house. The turbine is a 4 jet vertical shafted Pelton wheel with a 350kW generator. It is estimated to generate an average of 1000MWH of energy per year – enough for about 200 homes – which is fed into the national grid.” Naturally we’re interested in this as it links to our own hydro feasibility study.
There may also be an opportunity for us to learn more about methods of farming which are more in tune with the environment – fans of the Archers may have heard talk of “herbal leys” and such like! Example: https://www.facebook.com/LeanneBarriballbiz/videos/1033684474135257
If you have any ideas for SHARE visits, please let us know.
Website: www.south-hill.co.uk/SHARE email: SHARE@south-hill.co.uk