Steffan Messenger is the Environment Correspondent for Wales.
It is raining on the day we visit the town.
A grey sky blends in with the towering slate mounds which surround Blaenau Ffestiniog, whose quarries onceroofed the world and helped it earn Unesco World Heritage status.
One of the wettest places in the UK is located in the heart of Snowdonia, and it is considered a badge of honour.
The residents hosted a Festival of Rain.
They are being asked to come up with ways of adapting to the challenges posed by climate change.
In the largest project of its kind so far in Wales, five climate assemblies are being set up across Gwynedd in north-west Wales to involve local communities in the push towards a greener future.
Amy Karamian was one of the first people to sign up during a door-knocking recruitment drive.
Climate change is a pressing concern for someone working with farmers, she said.
Amy said on her doorstep that it was just constant seasonal updates from growers who were being affected by storms.
She feels it is important for the community to look at providing more growing space and teaching people the skills to cultivate their own fruit and vegetables in case access to food becomes limited in the future.
One of three storms to hit the UK in quick succession in February was the one that blew off the roof of a house nearby.
The impact of wilder weather on the town's stone-built housing stock is something that concerns community councillors.
He said that it was difficult to keep houses warm and dry because of the high levels of rain in the town.
While my son was stuck in a tiny flat in the city, I could have been out walking in the countryside, through tree-clad gorges.
He said the town council had recently declared a climate and nature emergency and had high hopes that the new climate assembly would help them develop environmental policies.
The 19 year old joined a number of young people to sign up as he said it was worrying how much change was happening to our planet.
His hometown is a bit isolated if you don't drive, so he would like to see better public transport to encourage people out of their cars.
She would like to see more parks created and activities for teenagers, so she signed up.
The chef hoped that the focus would be on helping people with the cost of living, as it is getting hard to pay rent.
It was a point we heard a number of times outside the offices of Cwmni Cymunedol.
Ceri Cunnington joked that they call it a parasol, rather than an umbrella, because it's always so sunny here.
Drop in service for people needing advice with issues such as saving energy and finding work is offered by one of the projects.
Ceri said he talked to a person in tears because their monthly gas bill is going to go over 200 in April.
How are people supposed to live like that?
He sees the climate assembly idea as a way of trying to bring about social justice in a place which suffers from some of the highest levels of fuel poverty in Wales and yet has huge potential for generating green energy.
Water flowing down the mountains and hydro power plants in the area create 1/3 of our electricity needs, he claimed.
All of the resources is being taken away. It is a scandal. We can get to grips with some of these issues if we come together with a collective voice.
Organisers of the climate assembly want to focus on actions the community could take themselves instead of a report or recommendation for politicians.
It could involve coming up with ideas and applying for grant funding to carry them out.
The assemblies are for everyone, you don't need to know anything about climate change, you can have any opinions and ideas, and the lottery-funded organisation set up to run the project across G explained that.
There is a UK assembly, as well as for Scotland and at local levels elsewhere in Wales.
One leading academic who has been involved in evaluating the work of other climate assembly said they are still an ongoing experiment in how to involve people in decision making around climate change.
Dr Stuart Capstick, deputy director of the centre for climate change and social transformation at Cardiff University, said that participants tended to feel positive about themselves and galvanised afterwards.
He said that they go from being a bit curious to becoming informed and outspoken as a result.
We know from our own research that the public is very concerned about climate change, but often at a loss about where they fit in.
It can either be presented as a huge, complex international issue or it can be reduced to individual actions.
The value of these types of processes is that they help to bridge the gap and give some context at a local level as to the type of policy measures or local actions that can be taken.
Ceri Cunnington is aware of the dangers that could come from this.
He said it was a talking shop when he got higher up.
Wales is probably the best in the world at writing strategies. Community comes in because acting on them is completely different.
During Covid, we found that the community responds, works together and can come up with solutions.
The Blaenau Ffestiniog area assembly is one of the things being set up over the next two years.
A representative panel of 50 people will be selected to take part in each area if residents sign up in person or online before 4 April.
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