I Know what you’re thinking. Is that the new folk or the spuds in that photo? Well its the spuds!
I went to the site this morning to meet and greet new people – I like that part. Already though, issues have been raised that I hadn’t considered.
The first related to the fee we are charging. As we are a new association there are costs involved in setting up the site. I don’t know what they are all going to be but I can think of:
- security gates, posts and fitting plus labour and delivery of items
- access gates plus labour and delivery of items
- locks
- pathways clearing, weed membrane (?) covering (bark). plus labour and delivery of items
- car park clearing, and creating some type of hardstanding
- rubbish removal such as skips
- possible water supply or at least have the water board survey the site.
There are probably lots more but as we are new to this, we don’t know. We have also found that although people have said they definately want a plot , some aren’t turning up to work on them and certainly aren’t helping with clearing the site – it ends up with the same people (less than 5…) to try to do all of it. At the last meeting we decided to ask people to pay a fee (£50) to secure their plot, show their commitment and it would also help to pay towards the items we need to purchase. Considering our council are charging more than double this amount annually, the fee seems fair although this could change when we’ve assessed everything involved. If the fee isn’t paid within a specified time limit (mid September which gave them 2 months) they will lose their plot.
One of the newcomers asked me how long the £50 rent lasted for and when he’d be required to pay again. I explained that our constitution says the fees are paid annualy in January (which is when the council request the rent) he suggested that as he wasn’t having the plot for a full year, the fee should be reduced. I wasn’t prepared for questions regarding fees and struggled to find answers on the spot although I did explain that we were all paying the same amount for the same length of time and that trying to regenerate the site costs money that we all had to contribute to. I didn’t suggest that he pick up a fork, rake, scythe etc and actually do the work with the other few of us for everyone, in his own time and for free like we are! I didn’t think to change his perception that the fee he was paying was an annual rent and he didn’t seem satisfied my reply. He suggested that the annual fee was a priority we should be sorting out and advised that we came to a better agreement at our next meeting. I felt as if I personally was trying to rip him off – probably an over reaction. After discussing the issue with other plot holders, I feel that I responded correctly. The fee is not an annual rent but a holding fee that goes towards securing a plot and clearing the site – we personally have invested a lot more and if you include time and labour… well… At our next meeting we are going to try to make this clear.To be honest our priorites hadn’t been fees as we weren’s expecting new people to come along yet and if they did, we (well I) was assuming they’d feel the same as us that the site and it’s clearing etc was to be shared between us all. Our priotities so far were getting the council to agree to us using the land, then getting insurance and an official association in place so that the council agreed, then trying to clear the site and then discuss gates etc and thats as far as we’d got until people got wind of the site and turned up wanted a piece. Maybe new people see us as “a landlord”?
Anyway that was one issue. The other was plot sizes. I have been trying to measure and plan the plots on my own (well with DSK) and I think I’ve done ok. There are still 2 plots to mark out but you have to clear the land before you can access it with a tape measure! Like me, people want to know exactly where their plot is but again, I couldn’t give a definate answer. They had been told that the plots measured 10.6 metres by 27 metres but this isn’t correct. The site looks like it tapers so my plot which is midwaymight not be 27m long so those further up could be even shorter. One plot holder wanted to increase the width of the plot because of how much shorter it looked by eye but we’ve plotted the width of the plots and there will be people either side of him so that wouldn’t be reasonable. I suggested that once we know the annual running costs of the site, and calculated average fees, we could charge per total area instead of per plot ( I hope that makes sense, I’m getting tired and I’ve had a couple of lagers! lol). Anyway, when everyone was gone and the regular few people were there, I told them what had happened and said I’d be there in the morning to try to clear the 7-8 foot high bramble covered debris to mark the plots which means making a pathway 20 something metres back, then another 11.6m across, then another 20 odd metres back again and then repeating it). The regular reliables immediately offered to come down in the morning to help. So the plan now is to forget the sunday lie in, grab a brushcutter and get our thick clothing on and try to clear the perimeters of another two plots or three … What fun and who will appreciate it? No one, the way I feel at the moment I’m expecting complaints about the size and the fee but I am tired and grizly ao I could be miles out ! Oh yes. The plot that wants a reduced fee is the biggest on the site…
On a lighter note, my Bambino Winter potatoes came today from Dobies.
The catalogue says:
“Potato Bambino
Good all-round disease resistance
In field trials Bambino was one of the highest yielding varieties and showed good all round disease resistance which will suit those who prefer to avoid using garden chemicals. The tubers are round, medium-sized with creamy-white very tasty flesh. “
and
“Bambino – Organic Salad Potato
It is a light and creamy but less waxy variety to other new potatoes. It has good resistance to tuber and foliage blight and scab.”
There was supposed to be 20-30 tubers but there is more like 40. The courier gave them a bashing despite the fragile stickers all over the parcel and some of the tubers are damages. Now I’m gutted because I’ve spent so much time on everything else thatthe ground isn’t prepared for them and I have to try and dig a very large plot asap!
Just another snippet. It seems that our plot is inviting all sorts of interest. We were told tonight that a neighbour to the site stopped a few teenagers from carting off with some of the water butts. We knew that uninvited people had been on site taking the old metal but hadn’t realised that others were on site too.
Other visitors – or possibly residents – we have are rabbits (well at least one which has been spotted on many occasions) a fox, pigeons, a dead rat (live ones too more than likely but none spotted) cats, and I think a perigrine falcon, sparrowhawk or hobby which swooped the length of the site low to the ground last night, skimmed over my head and landed on my shed. It looked at me for a second or two and was gone agian. Whatever it was looked like a grey bird of prey.
