This month’s bulk oil price is listed below along with the highest and average price quoted.

Highest price quoted by a supplier – 67 Pence Per Litre

Average price quoted by suppliers – 61.5 Pence Per Litre

Member price – 56.45 Pence Per Litre
(All prices are plus 5% VAT)

The savings for 1000 litres are:

Savings against average price – £51.00

If you would like any further details please see the bulk oil buying scheme page for contact details.

This month’s bulk oil price is listed below along with the highest and average price quoted.

Highest price quoted by a supplier – 70 Pence Per Litre

Average price quoted by suppliers – 60.2 Pence Per Litre

Member price – 54.9 Pence Per Litre
(All prices are plus 5% VAT)

The savings for 1000 litres are:

Savings against average price – £53.00

If you would like any further details please see the bulk oil buying scheme page for contact details.

Between Wednesday 14th December and Friday 23rd December 2011 the offices will be open between 9.30am and 5pm.
The offices will then be closed between 3pm on Frday 23rd December and Tuesday 3rd January 2011 at 9.30am.

This month’s bulk oil price is listed below along with the highest and average price quoted.

Highest price quoted by a supplier – 66.95 Pence Per Litre

Average price quoted by suppliers – 61.50 Pence Per Litre

Member price – 55.50 Pence Per Litre
(All prices are plus 5% VAT)

The savings for 500 litres are:

Savings against highest price – £57.25

The savings for 1000 litres are:

Savings against highest price – £114.50

If you would like any further details please see the bulk oil buying scheme page for contact details.

Calor FREE (Future of Rural Energy England) is a rural energy advisorship programme, aimed purely at off-grid communities across England. The programme aims to bring practical, independent advice and information to residents regarding fuel choices, energy efficient technologies and carbon reduction measures. It will help individual households to focus on reducing their energy consumption and fuel costs, and also encourage local communities to work together to promote best-practice in energy efficiency and carbon reduction.

The idea is to recruit local volunteers as Energy Advisors who will conduct an audit on households to monitor their energy efficiency and fuel consumption. They will produce a report for the householder, making recommendations of improvements that could be made and where money could be saved.

If you are interested in geting involved in this project, please come to our free training session on Thursday 1st December 2011 at The Hunsbury Hill Centre, Northampton. Or call Beth Milne on 01604 825889 for more information.

Calor training poster

This month’s bulk oil price is listed below along with the highest and average price quoted.

Highest price quoted by a supplier – 68 Pence Per Litre

Average price quoted by suppliers – 59 Pence Per Litre

Member price – 53.97 Pence Per Litre
(All prices are plus 5% VAT)

The savings for 1000 litres are:

Savings against average price – £50.30
Savings against highest price – £140.30

If you would like any further details please click on the following link for contact details:
Bulk Oil Buying Scheme

NORTHAMPTONSHIRE ACRE LAUNCHES NEW COMMUNITY OIL-BUYING SCHEME

Northamptonshire ACRE is looking for local co-ordinators to help run its new bulk-buying scheme for domestic heating oil.

The scheme is aimed at bringing communities together to make the most of joint buying power so that greater savings can be made and passed on to customers.

We want the scheme to be rooted in communities – because that’s the way that Northamptonshire ACRE works – and are looking for local volunteers who will act as ‘go-betweens’ for us. Their job will be to tell us each month how much oil the people in their village want to order, and then telling people when the oil will arrive and how much it will cost. ‘We’ve made it as simple as possible because we know people are busy’ said Beth Milne, Rural Officer. ‘Local co-ordinators won’t have to do the negotiating with the oil suppliers and won’t have to deal with any money, so we don’t expect this to take much time’.

Northamptonshire ACRE believes that finding a way to keep fuel costs as low as possible is particularly important in rural areas, where many households don’t have mains gas. Research commissioned by our national RCC network has shown that in Northamptonshire, more than half the people who live in fuel poverty (ie with fuel costs that are more than 10% of their income) live in rural areas. This is out of proportion to the number of people who actually live in rural areas (37.7%). We don’t think that’s right.

The scheme will also help to reduce the carbon footprint of the actual delivery system. Every time a tanker comes out to make a delivery, it’s using a lot of fuel – a full tanker may only get about 8 miles per gallon! So if deliveries are organised so that one tanker can reach as many customers in as small an area as possible, the fuel consumption is reduced.

Full details of how the scheme works are set out in two leaflets – one for local community co-ordinators,
and one for members of the scheme

Membership Application Form

Please note that this is not an online application. If you cannot print this form please contact us and we will send you one in the post.

What is it?
Village SOS is an exciting initiative by Big Lottery Fund and the BBC to launch a rural revival and inspire people to start community businesses that will breathe new life into their areas and create jobs.

How?
Tools, support and expert guidance are on offer to help communities take a step towards starting their own businesses and guide them through the journey from their initial idea to transforming the area.

Where can I find out more?
Please click on the link below for more information.

http://www.villagesos.org.uk/

PPL (Phonographic Performance Ltd) is the music licensing company which, on behalf of 42,000 performers and 5,000 record companies in the UK, licenses recorded music. Revenues are distributed and paid to PPL’s record company and performer members. These include featured artists as well as session musicians, ranging from orchestral players to percussionists and to singers.
Our understanding is that the proposed new tariff which is ‘under consultation’ relates to Specially Featured Entertainment (SFE). SFE involves the use of the sound recordings in a more prominent manner than the use of the sound recordings as background music.
PPL’s view is that a public performance of its sound recordings will be SFE where:
· A DJ is used to play the sound recordings at the venue; or
· There is dancing in the venue (or the provision of facilities for dancing with the reasonable expectation that dancing will take place)
SFE is based on the number attending, the duration of attendance and the number of functions.
The second consultation is now under way on this. Under the proposals, an event lasting 3 hours and attended by 60 people, which would previously have cost £5.53 under the old tariff would, following the transitional period proposed by PPL, cost £75.
This represents an increase of some 1,360%. If a licensed premises had 30 of these events per year it would mean them paying an extra £2,084.10.
The website relating to PPL and their proposed new tariff is:

http://www.ppluk.com/en/music-users/SFE-Consultation/

The deadline for comments on PPL’s proposals is Friday 14 October 2011.
Northamptonshire ACRE is concerned that these new charges will have a hugely detrimental effect on public houses in rural areas and members` clubs, and would urge anyone who is affected by these proposed changes to fill in a response form, if they have not already done so. The form can be accessed via the website above and can be completed online.
This comes on top of PPL’s announcement that from January 2012 rural community buildings with an income over £10,000 with have to pay 1% of their income for an annual PPL licence for the building. Halls with an income under that amount will pay a flat rate of £42.00
The Government has often articulated policy support for local rural services including pubs and a proposed increase of this scale appears contrary to that policy.

Citizens urged to ‘make their voices heard’ to help secure local match funding.
As part of the Government’s £530 million investment in the UK’s broadband network, Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt today announced how much money has been allocated to each English county (PDF 153Kb) and to Scotland.
English counties are set to receive £294.8 million, and Scotland £68.8 million.
This investment will ensure that the UK has the best superfast broadband network in Europe by 2015, with 90 per cent of homes and businesses having access to superfast broadband and for everyone in the UK to have access to at least 2Mbps
Source: Department for Culture, Media and Sport (16th August 2011)
An indicative amount of £4,080,000 has been allocated to Northamptonshire to roll out its Superfast Broadband, a significantly smaller amount than was bid for. For further information, the latest news, to see what was in the bid and to sign up to Northamptonshire’s petition visit the Superfast Broadband projects dedicated blogsite:

http://superfastnorthamptonshire.wordpress.com/

For further information on Superfast broadband these websites may be of interest to you:

http://www.northamptonshire.gov.uk/en/councilservices/environ/bigidea/pages/superfastnorthamptonshire.aspx

http://www.acre.org.uk/our-work/Digital+and+Broadband/ACRE+Policy+Position+Paper+Digital+Inclusion

http://www.culture.gov.uk/what_we_do/telecommunications_and_online/7781.aspx