Is your Church on mains gas and do you want to save money on energy costs? Micro-Combined heat and power might be the answer.

The principle behind the technology is that as electrical energy is lost during transmission, it is more efficient to distribute natural gas through the gas network and then generate electricity locally using a micro combined heat and power plant (Micro-CHP).

The heat energy produced while generating electricity is then available to heat a home, business, church or community building with the electricity generated either used in the building or fed in to the national grid for local consumption.

The Government's Microgeneration Strategy has identified micro-CHP as one of the key technologies offering a realistic alternative to centrally generated electricity and it has recently introduced the Feed-in Tariff, which offers funding generation opportunities to organisations and households that use these technologies.

If you are interested have a look these websites:

www.bluegen.info/What-is-bluegen-UK/

www.baxi.co.uk/products/combinedheatandpower.htm

So, if your building has a gas connection or if there is a gas main close by it might be worth exploring this option as a way of reducing your energy costs.

Responding to the ongoing flooding in the South West

The past few weeks have seen a huge amount of supportive activity from across the country, including the Yorkshire area, in response to the ongoing flooding in the South West. Help has been offered and given by many Businesses, organisations, Churches and individuals for both communities and farmers.

The situation is certainly something which farmers and communities in Yorkshire can relate to.

There is a huge amount of goodwill and good intent, but for the help to be most effective, it should be carefully guided to provide what is needed, when it is needed.

This message, based on information from the National Farmers Union, is an attempt to bring together a summary of how support can be given. The links below give comprehensive details of how help can be given – whether it be cash assistance to the Farming Help Charities (Royal Agricultural Benevolent Institution, Farming Community Network and The Addington Fund) or in how the farming community can help with donations of animal feed/fodder/bedding etc.

Make a donation

• The Addington Fund is supporting farming businesses by making a contribution towards haulage costs so there is no hold up in getting vital supplies through. Donate here.
•  The Farm Community Network’s volunteers provide practical and emotional support to farmers and farming families affected by severe flooding and, in the longer term, will also be able to help stand alongside people needing business support. Donate here.
• The Royal Agricultural Benevolent Institution can support farming families in Somerset and elsewhere in England and Wales by giving grants from its Emergency Fund to meet the domestic costs of badly affected farmers with no savings to fall back on. Donate here
• Donations can also be made to the Royal Bath and West Show Society and the Somerset Levels Relief Fund,  which are raising money towards water management and for individual, bespoke support respectively.

For further information see:

Information from the Arthur Rank Centre   (Contains lots of useful links) 

Flooding how you have helped:

How you can help:  (updated regularly)

Sunday is the Loneliest Day of the week for One Million Older People

Sadly Sunday is the loneliest day for one million older people recent research conducted by ICM for the Royal Voluntary Service has revealed.

The ICM research reveals that loneliness and isolation experienced by older people is compounded by lack of contact with their family, with 13% saying they always feel lonely on a Sunday because it’s such a family day. For 10% of older people, their nearest child lives more than an hour’s drive away (40 miles plus), making that daily or weekly contact even more difficult.

Many older people, particularly miss sitting down to a meal with their family and don’t enjoy a meal when they cannot share it with someone else and may even eat poorly becoming malnourished as a result.

There is a challenge here for churches to make their services more hospitable with food like in Messy Church and to build community though hosting community meals. An excellent example of this is the Church in the rural community of Barningham, which periodically holds the Barningham Parish Lunch.

It’s such a shame that although in the early church, eating together was an important part of church life, today it’s been reduced to a tea or coffee after a service and communion has been reduced to a sip of wine and a chew on a wafer. 

Perhaps we need to demonstrate the generosity of our invitational God and rediscover the true meaning of feast days; hosting community meals and creating the opportunity for people to enjoy eating together and each other’s company.