“I liked CEW’s Conference so much, I joined the organisation!”

This is my update on Victor Kiam’s story.

Those of a certain vintage may recollect Victor Kiam’s advert from the late 1970’s where the serial American entrepreneur ran a bunch of adverts for his company Remington with the strapline ‘I liked the shaver so much, I bought the company.’ Here’s the advert from YouTube for anyone who misses grainy, pixelated ads.

Well, a similar thing happened to me last summer (OK, it’s a leap, but it helped with the blog’s title)! Having recently left Welsh Government and worked alongside several community energy groups in that job, I wanted to find out more. I wanted to understand how groups were making tangible differences to their communities, how they got over challenges to take an idea from concept to commissioning and most importantly, I wanted to understand how important local, democratic ownership is to Wales’ journey to a carbon-free future – I had a community energy itch to scratch – I wanted to attend Community Energy Wales’ Annual Conference, so attend I did.

What I found was thoroughly enjoyable and informative – lots of networking, sharing of ideas; a useful and engaging two days. But I can’t talk about conference without a word or two about the friendliness of the event. From the team who run the Centre for Alternative Technology (CAT) where we’re based again this year, to the delegates and the brilliant team at CEW – they were all so welcoming. Whatever your level of interest in community energy, it was clear conference was the place to be last year, and I know the same can be said for this year too.

So, if you also have a community energy itch to scratch here in Wales, I would urge you to come to conference this year on the 10^th and 11^th of June – the programme is almost complete and can be found here.

Tickets are still available for members and non-members and if you would really like to attend but the ticket prices puts you off, we still have a small number of ‘solidarity tickets’ available – email gwenno@ynnicymunedol.cymru if you would like to apply.

What about the shaver story…..? Well, unlike Victor Kiam, I didn’t buy the company (we have a thing called democracy in the way for starters), but I did join the Company and this year I’ll be part of the crew welcoming you to what I’m sure will be a brilliant couple of days. If you can make it, we would love to see you.

After all, “I liked the conference so much, I joined the organisation!”

Mark Hooper, Business Development Manager.