WALTON ALLOTMENT ASSOCIATION

 (HALESOWEN)

Affiliated to The National Society Of Allotment & Leisure Gardeners Ltd

Membership No. S2694A

Minutes of Annual General Meeting of The Walton Allotment Association

Date March 2^nd 2009

Location: - 73 Windsor Road Halesowen @ 7pm

Attendees: - Matthew Cooper, Chris Coxon, Alan Crowshaw, Grace Jones, John Kay,

                    David Lear, John Reynolds

Apologies: - Ian Jackson, Alec Czardybon Arthur Nicholl

 Secretaries Report

1)     The Association was formed in February 2008 and almost immediately we lost a Trustee, and the Committee Chairman when Chris Hulston decided he could not remain if he had to pay any rent. Apparently there was a group of tenants who thought that when the Association was formed, they would pay little or no rent.

2)     Grace Jones took over as acting Chairperson while John Kay joined the Trustees.

3)     Over the last 12 months or so we have had a number of new tenants: - namely Natalie and Ann, David and Jan, Robert, Matthew and Jeff. Unfortunately we had to terminate the tenancy of one of our tenants because of a failure to cultivate it to the Committees satisfaction and another voluntarily terminated because she could not cope.

4)     The waiting list for a plot now has 25 names on it. On the list is Age Concern of Dudley who wants to run a project where older members of the community take over a plot and are helped to cultivate it by younger members of the Community.

5)     We have had two skips provided by Dudley to dispose of rubbish. We’ll have another one in a month or two and we also are taking delivery of some green wheelie bins. They will be available on the basis that if you use them you have to take your turn wheeling them to the bottom of the path to Wall Well

  We were successful in our first application for a grant of Dudley and we purchased the  Mantis tiller. We are looking for suggestions for our next sortie into grant application

Alan Crowshaw suggested we should ask for a grant for a petrol-powered strimmer.

Treasurers Report  (Unaudited)

Election of Officers:  Chairperson. Grace Jones proposed by John Reynolds, Seconded by Chris Coxon. No further nominations. Grace Jones elected unanimously                                          

                                     Secretary.  John Reynolds proposed by Grace Jones, Seconded by Chris Coxon. No further nominations. John Reynolds elected unanimously  

                                      Treasurer.  Chris Coxon proposed by John Reynolds, Seconded by Grace Jones. No further nominations. Chris Coxon elected unanimously                                                                                  

Rents for 2009-2010: - There has been an increase in the cost of the insurance, the     membership of the NSALG and in the Water Charge payable to Dudley Council. The rents this year will therefore be increased to reflect these changes. The total rent of most plots will increase by approximately £1.20 but please note there will be no discounts for early payment this year. Bills will be issued shortly and payment will be due on or before April 1^st 2009.  The 2009/2010 Rents were accepted by the AGM.

Concessions. A number of Allotment Associations offer concessions to certain groups of people i.e., pensioners, the unemployed etc. The Secretary proposed that this Association started to offer concessions and suggested that we begin this year with the tenants who are 80 years old or more and who have been tenants for 10 years or more.  The proposal was that anyone in this group would not be liable for the ground rent part of the total rent but paid the insurance, membership of the NSALG and. water charge only. This concession would only benefit two tenants at the moment and we could look at further concessions at next years AGM.  The Secretary made the proposal, which was seconded by Chris Coxon and accepted unanimously by those present.

Any other business

Tidiness of Plots/shed

One of the Tenants, who could not attend the meeting, had expressed concern about the tidiness of some plots. The Secretary pointed out that it was each tenants responsibility to keep their plots tidy. The Committee had powers to deal with anyone consistently failing to do so. The shed is in a mess and needs tidying up. Firstly we need to know what belongs to who. Chris Coxon will distribute some tags which you can write your name/plot number on and fix to your tools and equipment. After a date in April, yet to be decided, any untagged tools and equipment will be removed and disposed of.

Communications. In future all communications from the Committee to the Tenants as a group would be via a notice pinned to the shed notice board or by posting the notice on the sites web pages.  Messages to individual tenants would continue to be hand delivered or sent by Royal Mail

Waiting List. Our Waiting list now has 25 names on it. I have e-mailed Daniel Fildes at Dudley, asking if we can close the list for a year or so, or until the number of people on the list reduces to 10. A reply is awaited.

Poly Sheeting. The Association has a quantity of poly sheeting, which for the last 6 months or so has been in use on plot 14. David Lear says he has now finished with it and it can be moved elsewhere.

Cultivating Plots. Tenants have an obligation to cultivate their plots. Failure to do so could lead to action by the Committee. New Tenants are given three months to cultivate their plots after which they will be included in the Committees inspection.

The Next Inspection of all plots is due in June.

Horse Manure: - John Kay asked the situation with horse manure. Was it safe to use or still contaminated with herbicides. The Secretary could not recommend a safe source of manure but Chris Coxon undertook to post the details of his source of manure on the sheds notice board.