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Community energy and luck

Hello,

I am Alex Hartley, one of the ten SELCE Directors. Thank you for you interest and support of South East London Community Energy from myself, members of our co-op and the other voluntary directors. I want to share this post with you about SELCE, our share offer and luck. As unfashionable as it is to say I feel rather lucky to be involved with our community share offer. It closes this Wednesday 11th November. Here are four fantastic reasons why a combination of luck and you, can make South East London Community Energy’s vision a reality……

Luckily - our community share offer is unaffected by the proposed changes to the Feed In Tariff (FiT) as we pre-registered our sites just under a year ago. (So we are guaranteed to FiT rate for December 2014 for 20 years).

Luckily  - our community share offer is one of the last community energy project to raise investment from the community with tax relief under the EIS (Enterprise Investment Scheme). This means not only do UK tax-paying investors receive 30% of their investment back via tax relief (T&Cs apply etc.) but their investment is exempt from inheritance tax.

Luckily - I work with a dedicated, knowlegable and experienced group of people in our energy co-op and we are a pragmatic and resilient bunch. Frankly, it couldn't have been much more of a difficult political landscape for us to work in as we promote our inaugural community share offer. However, we are now in the last few days of the offer and we have raised over £155,000, but need more to help us put solar panels on four primary schools in South East London. We now have over 60 shareholders who have chosen to become pioneer investors and help develop a cleaner energy future. The minimum investment is £250, the maximum is £20,000. If you can afford £250 then that is great as it all helps and we will be delighted to have more members of our community energy group.

Luckily  - we have had some wonderful support from organisations like the GCDA (Greenwich Cooperative Development Agency have a nice new website!) who have incubated us throughout the project, Ashurst LLP who have given us pro bono legal support as well as many local South East London community champions and ambassadors. The core team has also put in over 4,000 hours of unpaid time to make this project happen.

However - we are not quite at our final investment goal of £250k and I hope that we are lucky enough to have you, reading this, to invest in our project be it the minimum of £250 or the maximum of £20,000. We will be lucky to receive this and so will the planet (as our project reduces greenhouse gas emissions) and so will the people and children involved with the schools (as their energy bills will be dramatically reduced). So too will the vulnerable people in fuel poverty who we assist via a fund we will put aside to support our projects to help them save money and energy. I also hope investors will also feel lucky not only to help people and planet but receive 4% annual interest on their investment.

To invest you can visit the Microgenius website and pay online or you can fill out the downloadable application form and pay by bank transfer or if you are very quick, by cheque.

Please invest now-we can all be lucky.

Alex Hartley One of ten SELCE Directors w: www.selce.org.uk/invest p: http://www.microgenius.org.uk/project-investors/south-east-london-community-energy-39 t: 0208-269-4882 e: info@selce.org.uk

The photo on the right is of the previous Mayor of the Royal Borough of Greenwich Mick Hayes and the Leader of the Council Cllr Denise Hyland along with two of my fellow Directors- Chair Camilla Berens and Dr Giovanna Speciale along with myself earlier this year receiving an award from Royal Borough of Greenwich for Business and Innovation.

Stay warm and healthy,save energy and money

We offer free training for frontline workers or we attend events or we can run workshops in the community.

People who may be worried about high bills can get help. Are you invovled with a community group that caters to the needs of people with young children, older adults, disabled people, carers or long-term health conditions? People can either pop in to one of our People Power Cafes at the Green Man in Lewisham Mondays (10-4.30pm) or Woolwich Common Community Centre on Thursdays for the next month to get specialist support. Or phone 02082694882 or email alex@selce.org.uk and we will come to your meeting or we can put on a workshop to save energy and money. There is help out there so please get in touch!

www.SELCE.org.uk