Page 14 - ALG Issue 2 2015

Snippets
tips&titbits
A Plot for all Ages
This year the campaign will run in the second week of August and we will once again be encouraging sites to open their gates and invite the local community to share in the benefits of allotmenteering. The support of the local community will be essential if your site is ever threatened with disposal. Contact natsoc@nsalg.org. uk for your NAW poster and events guide which will be available from 30th June 2015.
The theme of this year’s campaign is “A Plot for all Ages”. The aim is to celebrate the way that allotments help to share knowledge across the generations and confirming our commitment to protect sites for future generations. Over the next few months the Society will be searching for:
• The oldest plotholder
• The youngest plotholder (16 and
upwards)
• Youngest grower on parents plot
• The longest continuous family rental of
a plot
• The oldest site
• The authority that has built the most new
plots over the last 5 years
Please get in touch if you can you help us with our search.
National Allotments Week will kick off
in the South West region with a pop-up allotment outside the Guild Hall in Plymouth city centre, followed by local events at member sites and conclude with a National Allotment Society stand and presentation on Sunday 16th August, during Vegetable Weekend at Barnsdale Gardens in Rutland.
National Allotment Week 10–16 August 2015
Notes for Site Secretaries
We hope that you have all found the site secretaries information page on the website. Please email diane@nsalg.org.uk if there are
any documents/forms that you
feel should be on there. We have recently added a change of contact details form; please fill it in and email to natsoc@nsalg.org.uk when association contact details change; this is especially important when site secretaries change as this can avoid parcels of magazines ending up in the wrong place.
We note that many of you
are circulating the quarterly e-newsletter; many thanks for this and please do let us know what you think of the content; email marketing@nsalg.org.uk with feedback.
More
work
needed to
protect all bees
Writing in the Journal of Applied Ecology, researchers at Royal Holloway University have discovered that viruses common
in honeybees are also affecting bumblebees. They have also found that wild honeybees have almost been wiped out by diseases and mites and say that more must be done to protect all bees. Biologists at the University of Sussex have published a paper in the journal of Science calling for more practical measures to be taken. These include quarantine measures for bees shipped from abroad and better monitoring of wild bee populations.
14
Up for a chat?
Dear NAS,
When my children were little many years ago, I had an allotment in London.
It was an important part of our family life, but the best time for me was when I was able to steal some time away there by myself. Sometimes it would just be for 20 minutes, but it was a very precious 20 minutes. The only difficulty was that a person on her own in the allotments was like a magnet for the sweet old pensioners who liked nothing better than a chat. I never knew how to tell people politely that I wanted to be left alone.
Moving on some 30 plus years, I now have an allotment in Yorkshire. I was up there the other day (it’s on a steep hill) and was delighted to notice the arrival of one of the younger tenants. Oh good, I thought to myself, someone to chat to.
She was polite and friendly, but she did tell me that she only had 20 minutes before she had to go to work. Well, that brought back memories! So then I had a really
good idea. Each plot should be equipped with a flag pole, on which there are two pennants: a green one and a red one. If you’re up for a chat, you raise the green one and if not, the red. That would save a lot of awkwardness. Will the idea catch on?
Yours faithfully,
Peggy Thomas, Steepfields Allotments
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