Many will already have heard of the death of Sarah Green on
12th December 2021. She was a former Chair and the
website designer for Sustainable Crediton.
I first met Sarah at a Sustainable Crediton public meeting about
solar panels in 2011. Later that year Sarah, a website designer,
volunteered to help the SusCred Core Group revamp its old website.
The revamp was a long process requiring lengthy and detailed
facilitation by Sarah with our Core Group and Action Groups to
determine our needs. Then there followed about six months of
detailed design, website building and training of Action Group
members in how to add content to the website. This was all carried
out with professionalism, good humour and great patience. In August
2012 the new website, which is an archive of Suscred's activities,
an information resource and newsletter generator, was launched.
Additionally, Sarah transferred all the information from our old
website into the new one over the course of many months so that the
new website captured our entire history.
Later in 2012 Sarah joined the Core Group as the member
responsible for maintaining the website and compliance to data
protection rules. Today the website has tens of thousands of pages
and the newsletter it generates goes to several hundreds of
members. That it looks as fresh today as it did in 2012 is a
testimony to Sarah's design skills.
In August 2015 Sarah became SusCred's Chair following the
departure of John Skrine and the standing down of some long
standing Core Group members. She instigated a wide ranging review
with the membership and Action Groups about how the Core Group
should work and what should be the organisation's role and
strategy.
In 2015 Sustainable Crediton became a member of the Mid Devon
Local Action Group (LAG) for the EU LEADER programme. This provided
grants to help rural groups and businesses expand and provide more
services for rural communities across Mid Devon. As a
member of the LAG Sustainable Crediton were part of the Board
responsible for assessing & approving applications for the
LEADER grants. Sarah joined the Board for REAL Devon in 2016 as a
volunteer panellist. Dominie Dunbrook (Mid Devon Programme
Manager 2015 - 2017) said " Sarah bought her usual enthusiasm to
the role, being a real ambassador for those who don't normally have
a voice in funding decisions - ensuring we considered genuine
equality and environmental issues with each project put
forward. Sarah was bold, challenging, witty, and brought a
lot of thought provoking ideas to the Board and she was such a
pleasure to work with for those reasons. "
During her time as SusCred Chair numerous successful events took
place including the Crediton Climate Challenge in the run up to
COP21 in Paris in 2015 and the 2016 Climate Action Week events both
of which she personally coordinated. During 2017 there was a hiatus
in the Core Group activity and in 2018 Sarah in conjunction with
the Core Group revised the Sustainable Crediton Constitution to
allow a more streamlined organisation to emerge. Sarah handed over
the role of Chair to Dee Ross in May 2018, but continued to take
care of the website until her sad passing.
Sarah made a big difference while she was with us and will be
missed.
Charles Mossman