Green Skibbereen is hosting their first public webinar on Monday, February 1st. The webinar will last for approx two hours and all details for registration can be found on their website www.greenskibbereen.ie . Green Skibbereen is developing proposals in consultation with the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart (MSH) for the development of a Climate Action Centre based at Myross Wood House and grounds, at Leap, Co. Cork, currently in the ownership of the Order. The Centre of Excellence for Climate Action and Sustainability at Myross House will be developed with inputs from the local community and other stakeholders.
This is a busy time for the group as they also submitted their application to the European Green Deal H2020 fund this week. Directors, Jose Ospina, Brendan McCormack and Noel Casserly took part in a Green Deal H2020 Virtual Brokerage event back in October 2020. This event brought together over 2000 potential participants from all over Europe.
“It was a very successful event for Green Skibbereen.” Noel Casserly said. “We joined up with a consortium of 30 partners throughout Europe and have now submitted our funding application. We hope to bring a substantial investment to Myross House in Leap, West Cork.”
“Our Green Deal H2020 project aims to implement innovative solutions, specially designed to address the existing investment gap in the building renovation sector via green retrofitting. This will help us understand how to achieve climate targets through a variety of cutting edge technologies at Myross House and to create informational events and seminars for the wider West Cork community.”
Green Skibbereen received funding in 2020 from the West Cork Development Committee under the LEADER Programme. This enabled them to engage two consultants, Exodea Europe Consulting Limited and Brady & Mallalieu Architects, to develop feasibility studies for the financial and architectural future of Myross House. Angela Brady will be speaking at the webinar about the vision for Myross House and it’s potential future as a Centre for Climate Action and Sustainability.
“We believe this is the way forward to inform people how they can retrofit by example,” Angela Brady said. “We can learn new ways of going green to cut our carbon footprint and help with positive climate action. We believe that this new centre with community involvement can create jobs and become a beacon for sustainability in the wider Cork area.”
Also speaking at the webinar is Catriona Courtney from NCE Energy Hub. Their team has huge experience in facilitating Better Energy Community (BEC) programmes and Catriona will be talking through some of the projects they have been involved with. Many projects in West Cork have benefited greatly from NCE’s support.
Jim O’Donnell, Green Skibbereen Chairperson, is looking forward to hosting the webinar and the discussion on the night with attendees.
“It has been very difficult in the past year to engage directly with the public and we hope that we can begin this process on February 1st. We very much intend to be driven by community engagement and collaboration.”
“The night will be informative as to what we have done so far and what we plan to do in 2021. We hope to find projects to collaborate on, communities to meet with, and we hope also that we can begin to invite donations towards the running costs of this important new community resource at Myross House.”
The webinar begins at 7pm on Monday 1st February and is free and open to all members of the public. You can contact Green Skibbereen directly at info@greenskibbereen.ie
