Dear members and donors,

I hope that you and your loved ones are safe during this time of global turmoil. In a charity as diverse as BCSEA, some members, donors, and volunteers may feel the impact of the ongoing war, more than the rest of us. The volunteer communication channels of the BCSEA alone has over 280 individuals spanning across 10 time zones. To those of us impacted, our hearts and thoughts are with you.

For many observers, the impact of the recent events on access to energy was easy to spot. So far, the news has ranged from fossil fuel prices soaring, to Germany halting the certification of a pipeline. Such events have an impact on the Quality Of Life in many communities depending on fossil fuels. 

While these appear to be happening far away from BC, their impact is being felt here too. In the same way, I believe that our actions towards creating a more resilient and equitable future with sustainable energy will travel around the world. Starting from our community, we can inspire more communities to become self-sufficient.

The equity and resilience Sustainable Energy provides, is not just good for socio-economic reasons. The recent years, and especially 2021, reminded us that we should expect more extreme climate events. It was only a few months ago that flooding cut access to many communities and heavily damaged our infrastructure in BC. The past extremes are the new business-as-usual.

To share a story about the word “business” itself. Like many of us, English is not my first language. Rather it’s a language that I learned after childhood. I recall, one of the words that initially struggled to spell correctly was business. That was until realizing that I can remember it as “busy-ness” — the state of being busy. This may be obvious to many of you, but I had not connected the dots until then.

I would like to close this message by wishing that we all get to stay busy with things that are meaningful to us. On that note, we would like to hear your thoughts and priorities. BCSEA newsletters now have questions in them for you to answer. Your responses will help us better plan the journey to full energy sustainability.

On behalf of the BCSEA board of directors, I extend my thanks to all members, donors, and volunteers for staying engaged with us along this journey.