We are excited to be launching a new Board Apprenticeship scheme to encourage tenants to become members of our voluntary Board of Management.

We are looking for tenants who:
• Can dedicate time (a few hours a month) to prepare for and attend meetings
• Commit to being the voice of tenants
• Can bring the experience of being a Grampian tenant to feed into our decision making and business plan ensuring our services are designed to meet the needs of tenants

What is being offered:
• Training and development
• Buddy/mentoring scheme
• An opportunity to shape Grampian’s services to tenants
• Personal and professional development

Interested?  Want to find out more?  Contact Katie Taylor, Engagement Lead NOW!

T: 01224 202900 | E: [email protected]

Last time we talked about the energy crisis, why our energy costs are rising so quickly and going so high. We also mentioned some of the effects this may have on society and people’s health. The one thing that is important to remember in all of this is that is that there is a link that runs through any debate surrounding energy and its use, and that is Climate Change. You will note that I use the term Climate Change and not Global Warming and may be asking why. The reason is very simple, Climate Change is the disease and Global Warming is a symptom along with glacial melting and extremes of weather.

CLIMATE CHANGE

The term Climate Change was unheard of until an amateur scientist named Guy Callendar in 1938 used the term after his calculations showed that humans were putting enough carbon dioxide into the atmosphere to increase the World's average temperature. Others had made similar claims in previous years but they had been dismissed. Callendar, however, had the advantage of recent data and decades of new data and a model which he was allowed to present to the British Meteorological Society.

The changes from the influence of human beings (anthropogenic) on nature, that were beginning to be understood or at least investigated are still with us today. Although we are more knowledgeable about the cause and effects, we, as a species, still pump carbon dioxide and other gas pollutants into the atmosphere. The result is that the climate continues to warm and the effects of that have been only too visible over the last couple of years. Increasing drought, extremes of heat, some extremely cold winters, flooding and wild fires.

The statistics’ available for the area of forest burned and wildland fires for Europe in 2022 makes for some sobering reading. For the UK, to August 2022, 20,423 hectares had been burned. The average per year between 2006 and 2021 was 6,100 hectares. This will come as no surprise when we have experienced one of the warmest and driest years on record so far. Ukraine have been badly affected with 413,394 hectares burned in 2022, the average previously was 17,674 hectares. Several other countries have been very badly affected, Spain, Romania and Portugal to name just a few. Will this happen every year? No-one can say for certain but for decades extremes of weather and the resulting consequences have been spoken and written about. One important thing to remember is that every single tree and plant that has been turned to ash has released the carbon dioxide stored within it while growing adding it back to the atmosphere.

At the time of writing in Pakistan there is untold suffering and death from the flooding that has inundated some areas of that nation. The unprecedented monsoon rains have caused flooding of the Indus river. Starting in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, spreading South through Punjab, Balochistan and Sindh. They have affected 18 million people and so far, 1,985 people have lost their lives. The number of homes lost or destroyed stands at 12 million and 2,2 million hectares of crops have been lost. Homes alone have not been destroyed and it is estimated that 10,000 schools have been damaged or destroyed. Many households own or keep animals and an estimated 450, 000 livestock have been lost. The floods in Pakistan show how climate change can affect one of the poorest nations in the World with some of the most dramatic and horrific devastation that we can witness.

There are still people around the World that do not believe climate change is a thing. The evidence on show this year with the extreme weather events and the devastation, loss of life and destruction should tell them otherwise. Switching from fossil fuels to greener alternatives is a must or we will continue to see and experience events such as those this year and probably worse.

If you have any pre-loved items in good condition but looking for a new home, please consider donating them to one of these organisations who will sell your items at a reasonable cost to people in need.  Click the link below to for more information.

Reuse, Recycle and Waste Information

We are all aware of the rising cost of living and especially the soaring cost of heating our homes. This becomes more important to us all living in Scotland and the coming winter months where the vast majority of us will rely on gas to keep us warm. Many people are still asking “why are energy bills rising?” The answer is that in February of 2022 the Office of Gas and Electricity Markets (OFGEM) stated that they were increasing the cap on the prices that the energy companies can charge the consumers by 54%. A cap is a form of regulation that limits the prices that utility providers can charge their customers. The cap allows oil and gas companies to ‘pass on all reasonable costs to customers, this includes the cost of buying gas’. With the increase in global prices it was inevitable that prices were going to rise but, the size of the increase is eye watering.

There is no easy fix, no silver bullet because things have gone too far already. But there are things that we can do to help with the rising costs of energy. And fortunately Grampian Housing Association (GHA) has an energy adviser, David Barr, that can help with some free advice that may help keep your fuel costs down. We are fortunate to have a landlord that does care about its tenants. Many of us will have had work done over the last few years to help keep our homes warmer. Projects have included additional loft insulation, cavity wall insulation and new uPVC windows and doors and some of us have been fortunate to have had Photovoltaics (PV) solar panels installed on our roofs as well as storage batteries in some cases.

A staggering fact is that 87% of households in the UK rely on gas to heat their homes. This makes the UK susceptible and vulnerable to the rise in global gas prices. Long gone are the days that the UK was almost self-sufficient for domestic energy supplies. Where we used to be an exporter, we are now a net importer of fuel including Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG), Natural Gas, Crude Oil and Electricity. We import Crude Oil and Natural Gas liquids from Norway, mostly, followed by the USA. After decades of failings by successive governments to invest in insulating existing properties and the failure to heavily invest in renewable energy initiatives has left us with some of the worse insulated properties in Europe. When facts such as these are added to how the war in Ukraine has disrupted fuel supplies to our European neighbours because of embargos placed on Russia and its money making machine it should not come as a surprise that prices were going to rise for us the consumer.

The overreliance on fossil fuels had to and must end at some point because they are a finite resource. But the financial pain and hardship that the current state of affairs has put on society will definitely be felt by those that can least afford it. With some very difficult choices to make this winter between eating and heating many health experts are predicting an increase in some kinds of health conditions this winter to include respiratory infections, bronchitis, stress to the cardiovascular system, asthma symptoms becoming worse or developing and the ever present threat to people’s mental health.