news&views Covid help
2 solar projects
FOR Coronavirus advice in Devon and latest updates see www. devon.gov.uk/coronavirus-advicein-devon/
Covid artistry
RAMM have commissioned Exeter artist Amy Shelton to create a new work in response to the lockdown Biophilia: The Exeter Florilegium. It will be an artwork from a herbarium collection of pressed plant specimens that she has been compiling on daily walks in Exeter collected between March and October 2020, coinciding with restrictions imposed by Covid-19. Plus pressed flowers contributed by staff and patients from the RD&E hospital as well contributions from the gardens and window boxes of people self-isolating.
Covid support
SAMARITANS: 116 123 SANEline: support@sane.org.uk MIND: www.mind.org.uk CRISIS: Text SHOUT to 85258 CALM (for men): 0800 585858 (5pm-midnight) SILVER LINE (age 55+): 0800 470 8090
Talk to the Frog
EAT That Frog, the community interest company who have training centres in Newton Abbot, Torquay, Paignton and Plymouth, are reaching out to anyone who is stuck at home and getting bored, stressed and isolated, by providing access to free online courses to help them manage their health and wellbeing. Everyone who books a place will get telephone support from friendly tutors and access to short, fun, modules that can be accessed from a computer or smartphone, with topics such as Sleeping Well, Managing Healthy Relationships, Personal Safety, Diet & Fitness and Emotional Resilience. Eat That Frog are also helping people who need to find work during the crisis, with free online support for Job Applications, Interviews and Writing Your CV. The short modules are achievable in a few hours and give people tools to help them manage through this difficult time – local residents who have taken up the offer of support have found it’s really helped their wellbeing. The courses are available to anyone in Devon who is in need. l If you’d like to take advantage of this free support, please call 01803-551551 or email info@eatthatfrog.ac.uk. More details can be found at: eatthatfrog.ac.uk/online-adultcourses/
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Exeter Street Arts Festival returns
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USIC in Devon Initiative (MIDI) have successfully brought the city centre streets of Exeter to life each year for the last four years with the ever-popular Exeter Street Arts Festival! But then, COVID hit and all plans for their 5th birthday celebrations this year came to a halt…Until now! The organisers of the annual event held on the last bank holiday Saturday of August, are planning to hold all activities outside in line with new government recommendations, activating space in the city in a safe and interesting way by bringing music, art and street culture back for free to everyone. The non-profit community interest company, who exist to provide opportunities for musicians in Devon, usually pay 100 or so artists, a team of freelancers, university interns and volunteers to pull the festival together. It usually takes 11 months to organise venues, programming, promotions, websites, social media platforms, pitches, traders, sponsors, promotions
and headliner negotiations. Altogether it costs around £30k to put on. This year, the MIDI team are starting with zero budget and are calling out to performers, artists, arts organisations, local government and local business to come together with the MIDI team and bounce back out of lockdown and deliver a scaled down, but nevertheless inspiring event to bring the city back together as it emerges from lockdown and all within a fraction of the budget ESAF usually requires. Since lockdown the Devon music industry has seen cancellations of all live shows, incomes evaporating, careers on pause and the loss of jobs and contracts. MIDI’s aim with this crowd funder is to ensure all of the monies raised go towards artist fees and festival production as a way to help pump some much-needed life blood back into our valuable yet deprived arts network. l If you want to get involved in any way please email info@musicindevon. org
THE two Exeter Community Energy projects at Westbank and The Beacon have been completed ahead of the deadline and despite the problems of lockdown. They are among the UK’s last solar projects to get government feed-in-tariff subsidies. “Community energy projects like this make a real difference to our local area,” ECOE director Andy Extance says. “They are helping local economies and reconnecting people to the energy they use, so they become producers as well as consumers.” Together the new sites should save 35 tonnes of CO2 emissions per year, roughly the carbon footprint of seven UK people. This important but small impact underlines society’s collective responsibility, including on energy efficiency and less use of fossil fuel-powered transport. The projects are now part of the Exeter Community Energy (ECOE) portfolio, with ten sites generating power and returning wealth to the city and Devon more broadly. The solar panels at The Beacon have 29.9kW peak generation capacity, and could generate 22MWh of power per year, the equivalent of about five homes’ annual electricity consumption. Westbank has 45.9kW peak capacity, and the potential to generate 43MWh of power per year, or about ten homes’ worth of power. With its other sites, this brings ECOE’s peak output capacity to 484kW.
Share shed goes mobile
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NE of our favourite projects, the Share Shed - Totnes’ library of things, is changing how people think about consumption and engage with each other at a community level. They have launched the world’s first mobile library of things in Devon. Totnes’ Share Shed has gone mobile serving Buckfastleigh, Ashburton and South Brent in a van, specially converted with the help of the National Lottery Community Fund and the Network of Wellbeing (NOW). Mirella Ferraz, NOW’s Project Coordinator, says: “The Share Shed supports people to get things done in an affordable and convenient way, whilst helping to reduce the resources we use. With the mobile version of the project, we’re excited to make the Share Shed accessible for even more people.” Over 700 people have signed up as Share Shed members since 2017, when the project was founded, enabling them to borrow things that they don’t use regularly, and consequently saving money, space and resources. The Share Shed’s collection is versatile and includes things such as camping equipment, gardening tools, musical instruments, household appliances, bicycles, things for when a baby comes to
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visit and much more. The most popular items include carpet cleaners, pressure washers, electric drills, strimmers, and sewing machines. Share Shed Manager Mark Jefferys says, “Everybody we meet seems to understand the concept of ‘borrow, don’t buy’, and it’s a great feeling when we can help somebody out with the things they need to complete a task; be it putting up a shelf, or getting a house ready for a sale. Expanding this possibility to other towns, and facilitating even more sharing is a great and exciting next step for us.” In the UK, the Share Shed is one of 14 established projects facilitating this kind of sharing. Some projects, like the Edinburgh Tool Library, are solely focused on tools (in this case, with an impressive offer of over 1,500 tools), whilst others are all about baby-related items or simply toys.
Mark Jefferys, Share Shed Manager and the Mobile Share Shed The good news is that this is a growing global movement, which acknowledges the importance of a different way of being and consuming, whilst fulfilling the need of those who want to access things rather than own stuff. Such a shift is supporting people and communities to become much more resourceful and sustainable. After all, why buy when you can borrow? l People can already become a member of the Share Shed by paying a membership fee (sliding scale between £5 and £30), and place reservations online. To see everything the library of things currently offers and for further information, visit www. shareshed.org.uk. For any enquiries, contact info@shareshed.org.uk.
