BIA: Sad

Judith and I have been told officially that we are likely to be expelled from the BIA

We are distraught to lose regular contact with people we so admire respect and love. You have become a big part of our lives over the past six years. To witness the blossom of confidence and improved quality of life for some over this time has been a great joy for us.

Fortunately we will be able to continue some of our friendships and to continue tramping with those that want.

Our hopes for the future;

• that good and caring staff like Menna and Diann will find a stable safe place
• that the truth can be disclosed to all members and sponsors without shame
• members are permitted meaningful sway over decisions that so affect their lives
• members expectations can be raised appropriate to the resources intended for them
• members have a place to be and call their own
• that the power of love eventually overwhelms the love of power

Judith and Don

BIA: conflicts of interest

For the year ending April 2014 the Nelson Brain Injury association received over $100,000 in funding from various sources which included $22,178 from the local Health Board. People, often with severe brain damage and receiving care from the Health Board participate in most of the member activities of the BIA.

The BIA has more than once demonstrated and acknowledged issues of governance. One of which is the harassment of a previous staff member by Russ Aiton (see BIA: Sacked the victim kept the bully below). It has a weak committee unable or unwilling to advocate forcefully on behalf of it's membership.

Many of the committee are unknown to the BIA membership and unaware of their concerns. Committee meetings have difficulty achieving a quorum. Joy Aiton is employed by the Health Board, is partner of Russ Aiton and is vice chair of the BIA. I suspect* that both attend committee meetings and have failed to declared any 'conflicts of interest' or to withdraw from participation even when the matters of bullying by Russ and the terminating of his victim's employment were considered. The BIA's contract with the health board contributes significantly to their income and I believe that their primary (only?) concern is continued funding.

I suspect that Joy Aiton has used her employer's funding either implicitly or explicitly to influence and protect Russ's continued employment in a position created for him but not advertised? Even if this is not the case, it is inappropriate that the circumstances to support this suspicion appear to exist and continue to do so.

* attempts to verify these suspicions have been rejected at every turn by the BIA.

More on off grid solar

I have considered the cheapest a system similar to ours might be purchased. Bear in mind that the best thing you can do first is to reduce your energy use. Most home systems would be use 5 or 6 kw inverters and around 3 kw of panels with a lot of storage maybe more than 6kw hours.

If you can reduce your use without reducing quality of life then this will have the biggest payback and allow you to survive off-grid for around $4000 invested using around 3kwhs of power per day. You need to do much of the work yourself and to know what you are doing. We will also purchase a 2 or 3 kw ($400+) generator before disconnecting finally although we have zero use of mains power at present.

The price of $4000 is made up as follows.

solar panels	1500 watt 24v	$1,500.00
MPPT chargcontroller	60amp 24v	$600.00
sinewave inverter	3kw 24v	$400.00
batteries x 6	200 ahr	$1,000.00
		$3,500.00
fuses		$40.00
panel mounting		$120.00
panel wiring		$50.00
panel junction		$50.00
battery leads		$50.00
metering	volts amps and kwh	$20.00
change over switch	20 amp	$50.00
		$3,880.00

You will find that purchases made from China save you heaps but you need to be confident at doing this. I use http://www.aliexpress.com/ and have not been stung badly as yet. You need to choose sellers with good feedback and preferably a brand name product at least for the bigger bits.

Where you live makes a huge difference. In Nelson we are very lucky. You need to be able to mount your panels facing north and the best solution might be to mount them at ground level if your property is large enough. If you bury a rear differential from a car or truck in the earth leaving one hub above ground it might allow you to turn your panels to follow the sun which can increase their efficiency around 30%.

Good luck if you follow this route and I will do my best to help if you contact me - pir8don

at gmail dot com.