Minutes of the ABAS meeting held at Astley
Bridge Cricket Club
On 9th
April 2018
Present:
Apologies:
Jeff Gibson, Carol Deplitch
Minutes of the March Meeting
The Minutes
having been posted on the Association Blog-site and there being no corrections anyone
wished to make or points anyone wished to raise, it was moved that the minutes
be adopted as correct.
Matters Arising
No society had
as yet received an amended OMA from Malcolm Russell.
The majority
of Secretaries present had sent in March monthly reports with the additional
updates asked for.
ABAS Membership
A number of
societies have still not yet paid their annual subscriptions to the
Association.
Current
membership still stands at 399 plot-holders.
Allotment Competitions
The
Fairhurst, Greenhalgh, New Tenant and Rosebowl Competitions will again be run
by ABAS in 2018
Judging
Criteria are available First Round Judging will take place in in week commencing 25th June
Second Round Judging will take place in in week commencing 23rd July
Additional information has been placed on the blog-site
Terry passed
out the entry forms for the Competitions to those present – the forms will be
posted onto the blog-spot.
ABAS ONION, LEEK AND VEGETABLE SHOW
The Annual
Vegetable Show will be held on Saturday 4th August at Trinity Church, Tonge
Fold
There will
be 25 Vegetable Classes and lists and schedules will be available
NWCAA
The NWCAA
AGM was held on 8th April at Greenhall Sports and Social Club, Alder Hey Rd.,
St Helens, WA10 4DN– unfortunately we could not provide a Bolton representative
Please note
the new NWCAA email address:
nwcallotmentassociations@gmail.com
The NWCAA
website is www.northwestallotments.btck.co.uk
We trust
that minutes of the AGM will be posted on that website in the near future.
Secretaries
were urged to visit the NWCAA website to sign up for NWCAA Newsletters
NAS INSURANCE SCHEME
A short
analysis of the pros and cons of the proposed NAS members’ insurance scheme was
presented by Martyn Swain (Rawlyn Road)
He has
prepared a longer analysis which he has presented to the Committee.We will place a precis of that analysis onto the blog-site as soon as possible.
We would like to thank Martyn Swain for his work and his report.
GM SPATIAL PLAN
Spring 2018 News and updates about the Greater Manchester Spatial Framework.
This summer,
Greater Manchester will be asking for the public’s feedback on a rewrite of
last year’s spatial framework. The plan will set out a strategic plan for
sustainable development between now and 2035, exploring potential sites for new
homes, employment opportunities and transport links to get our city moving and
growing.
In March
they published data revealing the land identified for future housing and
employment developments. Between now and 2035, Greater Manchester’s
councils estimate that there is potentially enough land across Greater
Manchester for around 175,000 homes.
GM is trying
to increase the land available for development within existing towns and
neighbourhoods, while minimising the impact on our green spaces.
Supporting
this approach is the Mayor’s Town Centre Challenge – an ambitious new
initiative designed to both regenerate urban centres across Greater Manchester
and help meet the demand for housing.
The Combined
Authority's ‘One Public Estate’ programme is also exploring whether various
public sector organisation estates – facilities, space and buildings – could be
better shared, perhaps co-locating or sharing some public services across
Greater Manchester in order to free up more land for homes.
For further
information visit
GMSFconsultation@greatermanchester-ca.gov.uk
Where you
can view their data maps of the land supply identified for homes and jobs
A meeting of
Greater Manchester Allotment Federations has been organised (by the Salford
Federation) for April 24th. Jeff and Terry will represent Bolton at
that meeting.
WHAT’S ON IN 2018?
We continue
to maintain the section of the blog site that highlights events being organised
at or by allotment groups within Bolton (and possibly further afield).
Additional
Events are:
Tonge Fold,
Plant Sale, Saturday 12th May 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Harpers Lane,
Annual Open Day and Show, 12th August
POINT OF INFORMATION
Financial
Data (relevant to the later discussion about grants).
Since 2010
Bolton Council have withdrawn all / severely reduced any subsidies to
Allotments and we now operate on a Balanced Budget of some £30k annually.
BMC Accounts
for Fiscal Year 2016/17 indicated the following:
Income Rent £32k [Balanced Budget]
Expenditure
Total
Expenditure £ 32k of which:
Day to day
Maintenance/Repairs
£9k
Water
Charges Metered
£8kWater Charges Un Metered £0.5k
Contract Services [Chemical Toilets] £9.5k
(BMC are to
provide the Allotments Budget for 2018/19, Abas to review.)
As will be
noted there is potential for cost savings by reducing water charges and the replacement
of Chemical toilets by composting toilets. Any such cost savings should result
in more funds for maintenance and repairs, and/or improving clerical / admin.
support.
It should be
noted that the Budget does not include an item for staff / admin time at Bolton
MBC. The Council regard the costs of this time as the subsidy to the allotments
provision.
GRANTS ETC.
There has
been a meeting between abas and Lesley Turner, a Grants Officer at the Council.
Ms Turner’s
team offer a free service as long as they can show that the bids they write
support Department of People priorities around, Starting Well, Living Well and
Ageing Well. Ms Turner feels that Allotments fit this perfectly. However, as
the team has only 2 members it would be unreasonable for them to offer to write
bids for all our societies. She would therefore like to proceed as follows:
Training Session
To begin
with Awards for All grants which are up to the value of £10k. Ms Turner would
offer a free 2 hr Awards for All workshop at a date and time of our choice to
which we can invite members to attend. It is likely that this workshop would be
held one evening at the Hub in Bolton Town Centre. Ideally they need people who
are willing to “have a go” at writing their own Awards for All for their own
society. The team can offer free ongoing support after this initial training in
terms of proof reading and advice. Potentially if all 18 societies applied this
could generate up to £180k into the local allotment economy per year.
It was
agreed to ask Ms Turner of this training session could take place on the
evening of May 14th. The session wold thus replace abas’ May
meeting.
Composting Toilets
Secondly,
the Grants team can consider a joint bid on behalf of a number of societies for
the installation of composting toilets across a number of the borough’s
allotment sites. Given sufficient support Abas can then seek to obtain a ball
park costing for the project so that Ms Turner’s team can look at potential funders
to get a collaborative bid completed through ABAS.
Tonge Moor
allotments who already have a composting toilet agreed to share their
experience and knowledge with other sites.
The
Secretary will also try to aggregate data about composting toilets.
In the
meantime Secretaries were asked to canvass their societies to see how many
would wish to participate in this joint bid.
Grant Co-ordinator
As members
will recall there was a suggestion that abas pursue grant funding to employ our
own Grants Co-ordinator. This requires more serious consideration if we are to
go down the route of employing a person and all that entails.
MEETINGS
SCHEDULE
The
following meetings are planned
Monday 14th
May
(may be replaced by the Training Session at
the Hub and is likely to be moved in any case)Monday 11th June
Monday 9th July
Monday 13th August
Monday 10th September
Monday 8th October
Monday 12th November (THE AGM)
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