Page 56 - ALG Issue 4 2019

West Midlands
Shropshire, Staffordshire, Worcestershire, Herefordshire and Warwickshire
BDAC Show Report 2019
Firstly, the Allotment show would not happen without a dedicated team of people – they know who they are!
I won’t embarrass them by naming them, but I do wish them a very big thank you for all their efforts.
The BDAC Allotment Show & Growing Competition is in its second year at
the Midland Arts Centre (MAC); the experience of 2018 taught us a lot about setting up in a professional environment and preparation is the key. We were ready for the exhibitors on time, even though we had to wait an hour for
the technician to change the lighting to LEDs. This served two functions; reducing the temperature and LEDs added the wow factor to the exhibit’s multitude of colours. This year the MAC used the air handling to maintain a 16-degree temperature inside the Theatre. We increased the prep area, avoiding the fractious atmosphere
of last year when exhibitors were working on top of each other. We had also increased the space for the floral exhibits by using a two-tiered show bench. Considering the unpredictable weather that we have had this year, the exhibits were of a high standard. Flower exhibits were the main casualty – we had to omit the entire Chrysanthemum section as all entries were withdrawn. The mentoring of newcomers to
showing proved a success thanks to Mark Hanson, who took them under his wing. There was a change in judging this year: Bob Carr, an experienced judge and competitor judged the vegetables, and Jason Smith judged the flowers. However, we still have difficulty with exhibitors not understanding
the schedule. Dave Rawlings did his usual meticulous task of checking
and collating results. Exhibitors were complementary about the standard
of judging and we got extremely complementary comments from the visitors about the display of produce.
The brilliant 28-degree weather for
the Sunday presentation, along with being in a popular park, a T20 quarter final and a Fair, created traffic chaos in which we lost three of our presenters. Chris Smith conducted the proceedings. With a quick bit of shuffling of the order and the help of Councillor John O’Shea – Cabinet Member for Street Scene and Parks – who stood in at the last minute for Darren Rudge (caught in traffic chaos), the presentation was concluded with the John Singleton Trophy for most points in show going to Terry Pullen
by 2 points from Bill Henry. This year was very competitive, and points were spread across the board. All results are available from the www.bdacallotments. co.uk show page.
We have had another very successful show thanks to MAC and everyone who contributed and hope to do it again next year.
Derek Cullen Show Secretary
The National Allotments Week theme was about sharing of surplus produce, and to this end the exhibitors donated all of the exhibits to the B30 Birmingham food bank as our contribution on this theme. This was organised for us by Moor Green Allotment plotholder, Paul Rooney, who has a surplus produce delivery every Tuesday to B30. The reaction from B30 in receiving the veg was as follows:
Hi Paul,
Wow, have you surpassed yourself? The veg we received today is all quite extraordinary. Thank you so much. As always, we will ensure that it goes to clients who would not be able to buy such foodstuffs. Please can you pass on our genuine thanks to the Birmingham and District Allotment Association for donating their show winning veg.
Kind regards,
Nicola Human
B30 Foodbank Management Team
56 Allotment and Leisure Gardener