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Mayors and other representatives from 14 rural communities met in Italy on 11th March to share their experience in leading small scale renewable energy projects.  The communities are all members of the RURENER network established, through funding from Intelligent Energy Europe, to link together and support rural communities across Europe who are working towards carbon neutrality.  The 14 communities have already made substantial progress, building Combined Heat and Power (CHP) biomass plants, installing wind turbines and solar panels and introducing energy saving measures across municipal buildings.  By publicising their work and tapping in to their experience it is hoped to encourage more rural communities to follow in their footsteps.

Ruralnet Futures, a partner in the consortium which is building the RURENER network, is using the latest collaborative Web 2.0 technologies to bringing the network to life.

Ruralnet Futures’ project manager, David Ellis, returned from Italy inspired by some of the initiatives already in use: “The meeting took place in Tirano, a small town in the heart of the Alps, where a biomass plant, fuelled by prunings from thousands of hectares of terraced vineyards that line the valley, provides heating and electricity for all public buildings.   Previously the waste wood would simply have been burned – now it’s being turned into heat and power, saving on fossil fuels.”

“Across the 14 pilot communities there’s so much experience to share.  However, with the communities spread across Hungary, Romania, Germany, France, Italy, Greece and Spain, the key challenge”, Ellis continues, “is to overcome the language barriers and bring geographically scattered communities together.  We’re encouraging communities to record their progress though their own weblogs, and are providing language tools to translate case studies on the RURENER website.  We’re also developing an online mentoring service to enable renewable energy specialists to advise communities, and offering a knowledge bank of tools and templates to help those beginning their carbon-neutral journey.”

See the RURENER promotional video

Visit the RURENER website

We have just received confirmation from the RURENER programme that we have been accepted as the UK partner to the EU wide consortium. The project is funded by Intelligent Energy Europe and aims to introduce “Carbon Neutrality” across rural communities throughout Europe. Communities are encouraged to introduce themselves to the programme and will have access to a variety of tools and information to help them reduce their carbon emissions on a community level.

Based on a roadmap which will be formally launched shortly, the programme recognises that different communities will have various approaches to ultimately achieve carbon neutrality. Examples of various tools which will be made available include sophisticated carbon measuring techniques designed to be used across communities.

Ruralnet Futures role includes the deployment of a WordPress Multi-User blog, containing several country [sub] sites which sit under the main programme website. This enables the various country leads to update their specific activity in the relevant language, whilst still ensuring the EU wide programme remains connected. To learn more about this initiative, please contact us.

Ruralnet Futures have just been awarded the contract to participate in the Wake Up to the Heart of the Country RDPE project. Working closely with Farmstay UK, Ruralnet Futures will deliver training to farmers throughout the West Midlands to improve their knowledge of the Internet and help improve their B&B businesses. Rob Mannion, Managing Director of Ruralnet Futures said “winning this contract with Farmstay UK is fantastic news and further demonstrates our desire to remain close to our roots. Ruralnet Futures mission is to empower people and help them embrace new internet technologies and this latest partnership illustrates that. We very much look forward to working with Farmstay UK over the next three years to help make this programme a success”.

We are delighted to have re-launched our website today with a new fresh feel for the new year. The WordPress theme sits on our Virtual Private Servers along with our clients services and shows how a premium theme can be customised to deliver a clean professional feel.

With an abundance of quality WordPress themes available, it makes little sense to design the look and feel of a site from the ground up. By choosing the right theme and then customising it, it saves both time and money. The end result is still a tailored solution, but at a fraction of the cost.

Although the outlay was small, working with a premium (paid for) theme really emphasises the old adage “you get what you pay for”. A properly coded, marked up set of templates makes it quicker, simpler and more robust to customise than a lot of the free WordPress themes available.

If anyone is interested in how to build similar services, then please get in contact with us.

Warwickshire LEADER website launched here www.warwickshireleader.net. Having been selected to deliver the Central Warwickshire LEADER programme website in November 2009 we are pleased to announce the site is now live. The Central Warwickshire LEADER programme is one of nearly 100 funding programmes in England benefitting from EU funding designated to regenerate rural areas. The new website is designed to promote the programme, outline the initiative and inspire individuals and communities to participate.  Using Web 2.0 technology the site is rich in functionality and enables the Programme team to be in control of their content at the touch of a button. The site is a prime example of how Web 2.0 technnology can incorporate applications such Google Maps, YouTube, Flickr, Twitter and Delicious to deliver a sophisticated service at low cost. Rob Mannion, Managing Director of Ruralnet Futures said of the implementation, “We are really pleased to be part of the LEADER programme and especially to have delivered the programme website on time and to budget. We knew the timescales for delivery were aggressive, but within three weeks of our initial design workshop, the site was available”.

We are delighted to have learnt today that we have successfully won a competitive tender to deliver the Central Warwickshire LEADER website. LEADER is an EU funded rural regeneration programme running until 2013. The existing Drupal service will be migrated to a new site over the next month and will underpin the projects communication channels under the direction of the Local Action Group (LAG). We are looking forward to working together with the LAG to design a new fresh site to outline the programmes objectives, highlight best practice, implement tools such as Twitter and also join up other similar LEADER programmes throughout the UK.