Page 56 - Simply Veg Issue 3 2019

Southern Branch
Chairman’s Report
Welcome to this, my first Chairman’s Report following being elected as the Southern Branch Chairman at the AGM in March 2019. Most members will not know that much about me so a brief resume is very much in order and is set out below.
Born in South East London in 1948, I was the eldest of four sons. The family located
to Bletchley, now Milton Keynes, in the mid 50’s before we returned south to North West Kent in the early 60’s.
On leaving school, I trained as a draughtsman designing conveyor systems for the then GPO, however after 7 years office bound, I got wanderlust and took up a post in the chemical industry for a company manufacturing herbicides for the cereal growers. I swiftly progressed from process operative through Chargehand, Foreman and finally to Shift Manager, where I was responsible for all aspects of production, engineering, material movements and laboratory services “out of normal hours” and for discipline, production, manning and other tasks during weekdays.
I left the chemical industry in 1986 and moved into construction as a Site Manager and worked on many prestigious Projects including Canary Wharf, London Eye, County Hall, Gatwick Airport and others. After promotion to Project Manager I then moved into Healthcare managing major projects within a PFI which included reconfiguration of an A&E Dept, Maternity Dept and many others.
At the end of June 2018, I decided
to retire, only to be called back when 2 managers, including my replacement, left and two Maintenance Managers were absent on long term sickness. With the
management back up to full strength, I finally retired, again, at the end of March 2019.
I am married with a son and daughter
and two grandchildren. We live in Lewes, East Sussex, and only having a fairly small garden, we also have an allotment plot nearby which we have had for nearly 20 years. After starting to show vegetables in our local show, with a modicum of success, I decided to join the NVS around August 2017 in order to improve my growing skills. I recently erected a 20’ x 8’ poly tunnel at the end of 2017 and just over a year on I am still getting to grips with it.
I am a member of the Southern Branch Sussex DA and have helped out at a couple of events at Ardingly. After our Chairman
Ian Clemens decided to retire, I was elected as Vice-Chair of the Association in January 2019, having expressed a willingness to be Chair at some point. Events have moved on somewhat since then as I now find myself as the SB Chairman.
In addition to “growing things”, I am also a beekeeper of about 10 years, where I keep several colonies on my allotment. I am the Newsletter Editor for the Brighton & Lewes Beekeepers Association and I also sit on the Sussex Beekeepers Association Committee (to which the B&L beekeeping Division belong) as a Committee Member and National Honey Show representative. I am also shadowing the Membership Secretary for the National Honey Show with a view to being elected as the permanent Membership Secretary at the AGM in October 2019.
I consider it to be a great privilege being elected as the Southern Branch Chairman and an even greater privilege that as a
branch chairman, I also sit as a member of the Board of Trustees. Whilst not the being an overly experienced grower, and even less from a showing perspective, the skills that I have accrued over the years in my various roles I believe can only benefit the Southern Branch and NVS. If I can have some positive influence over the direction of the Branch, as dictated by the general membership, then that must benefit all.
It is my intention to visit all Southern Branch DA’s at one of their regular DA Meetings
over the next couple of months as a form of personal introduction, as I believe that the personal touch is all important. It is only too easy with today’s electronic communications to lose the personal interaction. Dates have been set for meetings with three DA’s and I hope to be putting dates in the diary for the remaining DA’s very soon.
The Southern Branch AGM was held on Sunday, 24th March 2019 at Ottershaw
and I am pleased to announce that we now have a full compliment of Officers, with congratulations going to Jan Lovell who was voted in as Branch Secretary. A full list of Southern Branch Officers and Committee members can be found in the 2019 NVS Spring Directory on the NVS Website.
Ali Clarke and her Team are doing magnificent work organising the National Championships at the forthcoming New Forest Show at the end of July and I am certain that it will be a great success.
Please feel free to contact me with any queries, questions, requests etc, my contact details can be found on Page 3 of Simply Veg or on the NVS Website.
Norman Dickinson, Chairman
56 simplyvegetables
NVS Hants DA
The countdown has begun for the Nationals. Plenty of stress and sleepless nights are going into the planning to ensure the show
is as good as it can possibly be. Please be sure to read the third and final National Championships bulletin in this issue of SV. It is strange to think that by the next issue of SV, the show will be over and a year’s work will be complete.
Back in April, we invited Ray Broughton to give us another talk from his extensive repertoire, this time on ‘Seasonal Work in the Fruit and Veg Garden’. He brought along a microscope and projected images of plant matter gathered from the village hall car park; so that we could all marvel at the pests and diseases already prevalent at such an early time of year.
At the time of writing, we have just held our annual Hants DA Plant Sale. We thought we might be short of produce so Chairman Jim made an appeal at several meetings for everyone to grow some extra plants for us. I grew more than I ever imagined possible in my modest 6’ x 8’ greenhouse. Previously I had never made very productive use
of it early on in the season,
as being unheated I was always scared of losing to frost anything I put in there. This year, I even risked putting my onions in it and they have never looked so good. It is definitely the way forward.
As it turned out, I think we
had many more plants at our
Sale than ever before; everyone
had pulled out all the stops.
Although we advertise an
opening time of 10am, people
wander in pretty much as we start setting up from 8am to bag a bargain. Sales were going well until about 11am and then it all went quiet. It was slow after that but we still sold masses of plants and
Mobile greenhouse