First Thursday continuation session - April 29th April 27, 2010
This date was agreed by Bala, Graham and Clement when we ran out of time on April 1st. I spoke to Graham today, and he and Clement had just finished a yahoo chat in preparation for Thursday.
The meeting has been arranged to enable these activists to continue their discussion, but it is not only for them. We can all learn something by listening to the discussion, and we are all able to chip in to ask questions and share relevant experiences.
Discussion areas
My personal hope is that we will get enough information about the simple prototype "bucket" version of the stove to see if it is worth trying out at Fantsuam - just to get some experience of how well sawdust and other available biomass fuels perform.
I hope we will also touch on the "proper" (purpose built) version of the stove. If the biomass fuels perform well in the "bucket stove", and if people thought there would be a local demand, then we could explore possibilities for a small business producing the proper stoves.
Local relevance
We should be aware that this idea for the stoves has been offered to Bala and the appropriate power Special Interest Group (SIG) in Nigeria as an idea that is working elsewhere and may be of interest. The SIG in Nigeria is interested in exploring new ideas about power, but did not specifically ask for a way to use biomass for fuel, and did not ask for an alternative cooking method to the ones currently being used. This means there are many practical issues to be considered around the stove's possible use.
Electricity from biomass
More sophisticated biomass burners are being used to generate gas, and hence electricity, but that is a different level of complexity and best looked at on another occasion.
Apologies - Lino and Marcus would have liked to attend but Lino will be flying and Marcus will be working. We will try to publish the chat archive for them.
Essential information
Date:Thursday April 1st.
Time: I have put the local start times below for the places that "First Thursday people" are most likely to log in from.
08.00 EDT - Eastern Daylight Time
12.00 UTC - Coordinated Universal Time
13.00 WAT - West African Time
13.00 BST - British Summer Time
14.00 CEST – Central European Summer Time
15.00 EAT - East African Time
15.00 EEST - East European Summer Time
17.30 IST - Delhi for Vijay
20.00 MYT - Kuala Lumpur for Dary
Logging on - log on at http://www.worknets.org/chat/base/ If you are new then this additional information on using the chatroom may be helpful.
Come earlier or later for informal chatThe main session lasts about an hour. You are welcome to turn up earlier to meet and greet other early arrivals and to stay on later to continue chatting. During the main session we are aiming for a more focussed discussion - not quite as formal as a meeting with an agenda - but heading in that direction.
First Thursday in May
The First Thursday in May will be May 6th (general election day in UK!).
If you have a preferred topic please let me know beforehand. I plan to select one topic at the start (depending who arrives first) and focus on that topic for the first part of the session. About half way through we will agree the topic for the rest of the session (something different or continuing the same). Topics that have not been discussed, or that people want to continue discussing can be carried forward. Either they can go on the suggestions list for June First Thursday, or we can repeat what we did in April and have some extra Thursday sessions in May. (In April we agreed two sessions where the topic was twitter, and one for the sawdust/biomass stove).
Meeting structure (for "First Thursdays" and "Topic Thursdays")
We try to start the session on time, but the chatroom is open earlier if you want to meet and greet any friends there beforehand.
There is also the possibility of continuing the core discussion after the main one-hour session... but informally because the chairman probably needs to leave soon after the hour is up.
Once the main session ends it is a good opportunity for everyone to chat informally before leaving the chat room.
I look forward to meeting you in the chat room.
Pamela