Climate Action Thornbury and Surrounding Areas (CATSA) CIC was established in October 2024 to deliver community initiatives helping the residents of Thornbury and the surrounding areas to benefit from sustainable energy  use, storage, and generation. 

We aim to:

• raise local awareness and provide advice on green energy technologies and practices; and understand local needs and opportunities for sustainable energy production;
• deliver community energy initiatives; and
• act as a central point of co-ordination between community groups and a wider local national network, providing advice on relevant initiatives.

As ever, the challenge is engaging with a broad range of the community, and particularly those who are not aware of how retrofit, community energy and the energy transition can benefit them, or how they can start their own retrofit journey. To achieve this, we undertake a programme of community engagement aligned with our community energy aims. This includes hosting in-person and online events alongside spreading the word via our digital channels (social media, website blogs and newsletters). Perhaps most importantly, we are looking to boost our presence in the community by having a CATSA representative ‘on the ground’ who is keen to attend existing events, meetings and get-togethers, to engage with conversation about our work and its benefit to the wider community.

We are looking for someone who:

• recognises the importance of addressing climate change and biodiversity loss and wants to make a difference;
• enjoys building relationships with new people and is interested in renewable energy;
• is digitally literate;
• can work independently; and
• is available and willing to get stuck in – through regular, in-person engagement – with our community.

• organising and delivering a programme of community engagement events focused on retrofit and renewable energy, that identifies and engages with a wide variety of local community members;  
• working with Directors and specialist contractors (web design and social media) to promote CATSA’s online presence;
• establishing partnerships with local organisations;
• organising volunteers and building community life through events and social media;
• providing regular progress updates to Directors;
• seeking and collation of feedback from events; 
• supporting Directors with the development of grant applications to seek further funding; 
• establishing and maintaining CATSA’s mailing list and production of newsletters (Mailchimp);
• maintaining and providing content for CATSA’s website (WordPress);
• input into CATSA’s grant funding reports; and
• general administration around the management of CATSA’s community engagement activities, including managing email enquiries and maintaining document management systems (Cloud)
  
  Essential skills:

• effective time management;
• strong, confident communication and influencing skills (in person, social media, press releases, publicity material, email);
• ability to act as the face of the company and actively promote our mission though both online and in-person interaction with members of our community;
• ability to build relationships with stakeholders;
• ability to make informed, timely decisions;
• comfortable working with data and managing information; 
• IT literate and familiar with core requirements of data protection; and
• a proactive mindset and a positive can-do attitude.