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AGM
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CHAIRMAN’S REPORT – AGM 2020
On behalf of the management team of the National Allotment Society, I am pleased to welcome you to this year’s Annual General Meeting.
We began the year so well and with great anticipation, our 90th year with planned celebrations, Autumn and Winter meetings in Corby took place with work on revising regional meetings and local federation protocols, with a section on planned shows and possible outcomes! The early spring regional meeting happened, and then just as
the allotments were warming up in March along came Covid, and lockdown. The March management meeting was cancelled.
Government minister, Michael Gove announced allotments were able to
be used given that distancing and sanitising took place. Head office responded wonderfully to lockdown, the guidance sent out to all councils and allotment societies was reasoned and correct. Some sites and the press were confused, so more clarification came
out from the National Society and I think we all did rather well.
Covid and perceived food shortages also impacted on waiting lists and demands for allotments, in my own area, up by 150% in April 2020. Recruitment into the National Society is also up with many more individual members than usual, despite the lack of garden shows.
Gov Regional annual general meetings took place where it was possible, and others were postponed and rescheduled where it was not. The management board began to explore Zoom meetings on the internet, with the first meeting on May 1st 2020 and after some initial difficulty these have become a preferred method of business.
With the lockdown several pressing problems seemed to go away as section 8’s and the like moved to the back- burner, as councils and developers had other things to think about, and workers were furloughed, but undoubtedly, they will return.
2019-2020 has been an interesting year in seeing how the management team coped with the new circumstances, and the opportunities that have presented themselves in lockdown. The management team met weekly
on Fridays through Zoom from the beginning of May, this has now moved
We are in support of any factual and proven research that shows the medical benefits of allotments, we know it is there
to a fortnightly meeting which gives us more time to work on the tasks we are trying to complete.
This has been successful, and one of the reasons for this success has been the addition of newer members to the team from both ends of the country who have brought their different expertise to the meetings and helped us focus more clearly on where we think we should be going.
The management team are looking
at how the general public view allotments, how local governments views allotments and how we can make this picture better. Allotments cannot be seen as “care homes for the elderly”, or “exclusive enclaves” nor should they be seen as an unnecessary expense for the local ratepayer.
It is becoming more apparent that allotments are havens of sanity in an increasingly disjointed world. We are
in support of any factual and proven research that shows the medical benefits of allotments, we know it is there. Many medical practitioners know that “gardening therapy” is real, and the benefits are huge, but trying to get this research into the public domain is hard. To try to do this we are working with Sheffield University to produce a study to “prove” that this is the case, we have worked with Sheffield U. before and they
34 Allotment and Leisure Gardener