Michael Dower died on 7th November. He was a co-founder of the Dorset Climate Action Network and over the past couple of years several of us encountered him in action on Zoom calls, some of us worked more closely with him on D-CAN projects and some of us met him in person at D-CAN events. I recently found out that Angela King and Sue Clifford knew him from way back when they were establishing Common Ground and he was the very supportive Chairman of the Countryside Commission. Following his death, Planet Shaftesbury was invited to contribute to a photobook tribute being compiled by his close associates in D-CAN for his wife Nan and their family. I replied with the following message:

"Only a few individuals in the Planet Shaftesbury network had the opportunity to work with Michael Dower directly, more of us 'met' him in online meetings. Individuals' comments include 'inspiring' and 'a lovely man'. But there's much more than that. The greatest impact upon our work in Shaftesbury has come from the wider connections which Michael's co-founding of the Dorset Climate Action Network has made possible. Participating in D-CAN led us to invite representatives of other Dorset groups to contribute to Shaftesbury events as well as enabling some of us to collaborate with like-minded others from the wider Dorset community. We've been inspired and we've felt supported. It makes a difference. I'm sending two images, one of the programme for an extraordinary event we hosted in Shaftesbury which couldn't have happened without the contributions of several other D-CAN groups, and one photo taken at that event and showing the session addressed by Mark Chivers of Zero Carbon Dorset. I'm pleased to offer this as our tribute to the difference that Michael made."