It’s Spring again, and I can’t believe I’m half-way through my term as chair of the RCCP. The board met this morning, which was great. There is a busyness and anticipation about the Partnership at the moment…not surprising given all that is going on this year.
These last few months I have been focused on building capacity in the Partnership. Developing this website is one part – it has been labour of love for me so I hope you like it! And it going to play an important role as the container for our climate change strategy, and all of the information and events that come out of that.
The other thing has been working out how we hope to shape the Reading Climate Action Network, which will hopefully continue to grow and grow, as more people and businesses get involved with getting Reading ready to face the challenges of climate change. The development of our 3rd Strategy is going to be important in helping to build up the network. It will give everyone a really important thing to focus on.
In a couple of months we will have the public launch event, which is going to be really exciting. Groups will then start gathering people and ideas together, and crafting action plans that we make a real difference over the next 5 years. It’s something I hope lots of people get involved with. And by Christmas I look forward to seeing a really powerful strategy for our town.
Meanwhile, I am going to be busy helping to guide the development of Reading’s first Adaptation Plan. I’ll share more about this over the coming months. This Plan will paint an important picture of some of the challenges we face and what we can do about them. And this will mirror the work that Ben is doing, in the RBC, which will guide us on how we can cut our carbon emissions. Both plans will stand alone as important resources for the town but they will also be ready to feed ideas into the new strategy.
So yes, there is a lot going on, which is great! And the declaration of the Climate Emergency will hopefully add even more fuel to the fire. It is interesting (for me at least!) to look back at the Vision I set for us last year. We had just picked ourselves up from a very low point (and many thanks to my predecessor, Dan for guiding us through that!). So my vision was very much about growth. There is still much to do but – at this half-way point – I think we are doing really well.
Our timeline is certainly nice and busy right now…
With many thanks to my RCCP partners, and everyone else who is supporting us in making this happen.
Chris Beales
RCCP Chair