Going into our 8th year we are very encouraged seeing our efforts for awareness of the benefits of clean and safe renewable energy starting to pay off.

It helps to draw comparison with other jurisdictions like Germany where wind and solar energy already is in widespread use, not just in large, but very much in small residential and co-operative installations. Of course there the big difference is the degree of government support. The coordinator was fortunate in bringing back valuable information after spending the Holiday Season with relatives there.

Our display at the January Organic Conference at Guelph University was focus of great interest. With help of 2 of our board members, Andrea and Vitold, we were able to sign up several new members. The coordinator was happy to follow invitations to speak to students at the Cobourg Collegiate Institute and the Park Manor Secondary School in Elmira. He also made a repeat visit to Guelph University to present at the Environmental Symposium there in March.

CFRE displayed at a number of events like the OntarBio AGM in Formosa, Green Party nomination meeting in Caledon East and the Environmental Forum in Owen Sound. We were unable to staff our prepaid display space at the Eco-Festival in Oakville early April because of a winterstorm blocking the roads.We had better luck at the Dandelion Festival in Waterloo and the Federation of Naturalists AGM in Port Elgin in May.

Our own Annual General Meeting(AGM) and workshop at the YMCA Paradise Lake Outdoors Centre, last Sunday in May, was well attended and the presentations well received. Our previous board member Hans Albarda travelled by train all the way from Nova Scotia to give us his wisdom of off-grid living.

At the afternoon business session members heard of CFRE's sound financial status and a motion was tabled to set aside a portion of the budget to cover long-term membership commitments. It was passed and has been acted on in the meantime. We were happy to have the commitment from all our board members to serve again for the next term. Our thanks goes to Vitold, Andrea, Charlie and George for their help and dedication!

More than 18 months after applying, our distinct "Happy Face" logo was finally registered as a Trademark! It is not that we are a business but we wanted to protect it from duplication by other sources. At the invitation of the World Council for Renewable Energy(WCRE), headquartered in Germany,we joined as member organization # 172. CFRE also became a full member of the Ontario Sustainable Energy Association. In early June Peter Nelson and George Wright staffed a CFRE display at the Health Canada Environment Fair in Ottawa while the coordinator attended the Great Lakes United(GLU) AGM in Sault St. Marie. We also had our second micro-hydro workshop thanks to our generous hosts at the Trick Creek Mill near Clinton.

Bill and Thea Trick had gone through a lot of preparation to make the workshop a success, expressing their hope that small-scale hydro will once again produce a substantial amount of Ontario's clean energy as it did long ago. We also were invited to display at the Wind-Fall Eco- Festival in Newmarket, the Toronto Smog Summit and the IICPH Symposium on Childrens' Health at the University of Toronto.

After a quieter month of July CFRE was present at the Stadtlander Farm Organic Feast in August and the coordinator attended the Solar Energy Society 3-day Conference in Kingston taking place just after the big Blackout!

In September he was fortunate to have help from a German university student, Nina Harsch, who came as a volunteer and provided much needed computer and office assistance. She also accompanied him to the International Joint Commission(IJC) Biennial in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where he presented a resolution on "Nuclear Installation Safety and Security",sponsored by CFRE, to the Commission at a public hearing. Nina also supported the coordinator making 2 submissions to the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission(CNSC) in Ottawa on the licence renewal of Bruce Power's A&B generating stations.

Following an invitation the coordinator debated the president of the Canadian Nuclear Association(CNA) in an event dealing with a comparison of Renewables versus Clean Nuclear generation at Mohawk College in Hamilton. And then CFRE had their impressive display at the Green Power Trade Show of the Independent Power Producers Conference at the Metro Convention Centre. With the great help from Andrew and JP we were able to promote CFRE's vision to a prominent audience.

Our quarterly newsletters #29-32 went out on schedule and we prepared an update to our May 2001 publication ‘CFRE: You asked us', which is now available.

The large-scale membership survey, which went out in September , gave us an indication that our work had made a difference in the decisions for conservation and renewable energy applications of many members. We were encouraged to see a 96% approval rating of our work and are going with new dedication and inspiration into the new year 2004!

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