Members of the Charlbury Beer Festival committee have decided to give a small share of the overall proceeds of the annual Beer Festival to an overseas project. This idea has been brewing for a while, and reflects the committee’s vision of connecting Charlbury with communities far less advantaged than our own, and ensuring that the funds raised from the Beer Festival are allocated fairly and responsibly across a spectrum of community projects.

The plan is to identify a project working with disadvantaged children in a poor country. The project would have to qualify for our help in the same way a project here does – i.e. to be a recognised charity, with audited accounts and with a need for a small amount of funds for a specific piece of equipment or for an event. The project should have some connection with Charlbury, and at least one member of the committee will be expected to be personally familiar with the project before any funding is given.

With the agreement of Mrs Jane Holt, the Head of Charlbury Primary School, we are also hoping that the recipients will be interested in establishing and maintaining links with the school, to give local children an opportunity to share photos and experiences with children in developing countries.

We have identified Zimbabwe as a priority country for assistance, given the stresses that charities there are under and the many needs of poor children in that country, but our first project will be for a solar water heater for an orphanage in India.

In 2011 the committee is donating funds to the Karm Marg project, to support the construction of a solar heating system for an orphanage outside New Delhi. One of the conditions that we have put on the funds is that the project should be undertaken in co-operation with the pupils of Charlbury School.

As part of this process, we intend to construct a simple demountable solar water heating system at Charlbury Primary school during the summer term and to reconstruct this at the 2011 Beer Festival, where it will be used to provide warm water for glass washing on site.

A sketch of the rig is shown below.