Thank you to all of you who made it out last night, for what was a fantastic evening, to celebrate the installation and registration of the array before the proposed deadline. Over 60 people attended, which given that at the start of the event we had 71 members in total, was an impressive turn out.
Ben Whittle and Eithne George, as directors from Leominster Community Solar spoke, to explain the history of the project and the roller coaster that the last few weeks had been, due to the government’s FIT consultation. Naomi Andersson, manager of the Hereford branch of Southern Solar, located in Leominster also spoke and accepted a gift from the Co-op for all her efforts in ensuring the project happened to schedule. Likewise James Cooper, the project manager was thanked for his efforts and the whole Southern Solar installation crew – which at times had included even their sales manager, in the bid to get it up in time! Councillor Adrian Blackshaw also attended and gave his support to the initiative, along with Cllr Felicity Norman, who has been very instrumental in getting the project up and running and spreading the word amongst the green community locally. Andy Talbot, Technical Director from Halo, gave an overview of the energy reduction strategy that he is pioneering at Bridge Street, that he is rolling out to all the other Herefordshire leisure centres in his charge.
Thanks also to Southern Solar, for providing the locally sourced refreshments.
Questions were taken and a number of people decided to increase their original investments, whilst other new members also came forward. Collectively this meant that £27,750 was received in cheques at the event – bringing us within about £6,500 of reaching our target on the share offer! And there are still 8 days to go before the end of the share issue. We are confident now we will reach the target, particularly with pledges that have been made, but we would urge anyone locally who is still thinking about investing to get their cheques in as soon as possible, as there will be priority for local members in the event we are oversubscribed.
Thank you everyone – it is a great feeling that we are nearly there!