I hope with the days getting longer you’re starting to think of those long evenings on your allotment and are all sowing seeds, buying in onion sets and chitting your seed potatoes for the new season. The committee is already planning the next Produce show and we’ve begun our series of evening talks – many thanks to Allan for giving us the talk on beekeeping on the 19-January. For those of you who didn’t come, you missed a fascinating evening.
Regarding preparing your plot for the coming season, please don’t leave it until April to go up and check things out. There’s one plot on the meadow with a shed standing on its roof for over two months. You might also be amused to know that last spring when we had a series of break-ins, one tenant went up to inspect his plot only to find that he had gained some furniture – evidently children had been using his shed as a den, and since he or she hadn’t been up for months, they just got away with it.
The last few months have been busy for the committee; the battle with the Town Council over increasing rents being the main activity. You can read all about it on John’s blog. We get on well with the local councillors but we do have to keep a close watch on every decision that’s made in the Town Hall. The decisions which affect us tend to be made by an ‘executive’ and Town Councillors are busy people with lots of complex issues competing for their time. For this reason we try to get along to amenities committee meetings and stand up at the start to challenge anything we feel needs further discussion. This usually buys us time so a decision will be deferred until the next meeting and in the meantime we can lobby the councillors. I would encourage all of you to attend a council meeting at least once – it’s a real eye opener to see how decision are made ! You can get the dates from the Town Council web site.
You’ll all know about the woodchips delivery by now. These are free for everyone to use, but please don’t take them home. Firstly we want everyone on site to have a fair crack at the whip, and secondly as soon as word gets around that wood chips are available for free everyone in St Ives will be coming up to help themselves. If you see anyone taking woodchips away please ask them politely not to do so.
We also want arrange a bulk delivery of compost for members but this presents more of a challenge. Although the woodchips were delivered for free, even if we can get compost for free to hire a lorry costs around £40/hr. We could pay for this out of members fees but wouldn’t then want non-members taking it. If we do arrange delivery we’ll try and inform you all in advance and make sure it arrives on a Friday so everyone can take their fair share on the Saturday. In the longer term our plans for a communal hut area will include an area for storing compost or manure, which will be more secure and more easily managed. Another project to keep us occupied…
So we’re looking forward to another busy year, trying to move the allotment site and the Association forward with more and bigger events and improved facilities. If you’d like to help out or have any ideas for social activities then please do contact a member of the committee.
I look forward to seeing you all at some point on your plots in 2011.
Happy growing… Richard
