Joachim – who is the Minister at the Moravian Church has been so kind. When I got back from Spain, I learned that my best friend’s father had died and the funeral was yesterday – and I had a long-standing commitment to unveil the new solar panels at the Moravian Church at the same time as the funeral. I managed to move all my other engagements but was really worried about letting people down at the Moravian. However, when my office rang Joachim to explain that I had to go to a funeral and offered a stand-in – Joachim simply rearranged the whole event to the next day! Very kind.

And so today it took place – with lots of people come to hear how this marvellous project came to be. The Moravian Church (Priory Avenue) now will supply its own electricity from the new solar panels and send extra electricity to the National Grid. Joachim is the driving force who found the company to install it and raised the funds from both a Government scheme – £20,000 – and EDF (Energy) – £15,000 – with the community raising £8,000 themselves. And now it’s in and the Church will save huge amounts of money – not to mention helping save the planet.

This is really a case of the Church practising what it preaches and leading by example in the community on stewardship of our planet. Whether we believe in the Creation or not – we all live in an amazing world and we all need to do our bit to reduce our carbon footprint. Fantastically well done!