Hillingdon Allotment News 15: Chairman’s Words from the AGM

Thanks go to the Officers and Committee members for their time and commitment over the past year, and look forward to what can be achieved in the next year.

The Federation evening meetings may only be every other month but the committee meets on the alternate months and spends a whole afternoon discussing, deciding and debating what needs doing where and how, prioritising how strategy money may be best spent, and generally working to improve allotments in Hillingdon.

None of this could or would be possible if we did not have Nick Porter our Allotments Officer working with us and the back up of Stuart Hunt, Green Spaces Manager (Ruislip and Northwood), Green Spaces at the Civic Centre. Nick was introduced at last years AGM and we were delighted that his post was made permanent in July this year.

He attends every committee meeting and produces an amazing list of all the projects undertaken and jobs completed on sites all over the borough in every 2 month period, as well as showing around new prospective plotholders and generally giving advice where needed. As a result great strides have been made in all aspects of allotments in the borough.

The particularly pleasing result is there has been an increase of 300+ plotholders borough wide since 2003 of which over 200 have been in the last year. 

I hope that all of you with a computer or access to the web have at some point looked at the HAHF website which was set up and continues to be run by our Secretary Carina Browne. This is an excellent platform to show who, what and where we are, and for many is their first point of contact with allotments in Hillingdon. 

In September we were invited by the Pavillions shopping centre in Uxbridge, for the 3rd year running to set up a stand promoting Allotments in Hillingdon and ‘Grow your own’ at their Food Fair.

I remember finishing last years report hoping for more rain for the next growing season. Well this year has been different, with blight on both potatoes and tomatoes, chocolate spot on broad beans and more rain at times than we knew what to do with. But as usual we have stood up to the challenge and only bowed under the weight of all our well watered crops. I wonder what next year has in store for us. 

Best Wishes for 2008                                                                Marianne Slater   - Chairman

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