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Issue Number 16 |
Autumn 2004 |
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DARTFORD FESTIVAL ALLOTMENTS COMPETITION The Dartford Festival Allotments Competition, organised by the QED Allotments Group, attracted a good number of entries again this year, with honours split between the east and west of the Borough. The prestigious Borough Shield was won by two ladies from the Dartford Road site, Mrs P Robinson and Mrs J Brennan, while the Fred Brown Trophy for best newcomer went to Mr Bernard French, who gardens on the Gore Road site. The Villages Cup was won by Mr Gerardo Defeo. The competition was judged by John Hollands from the Bexley Allotments Federation, who enjoyed meeting many of the contestants on their plots, and the prize-giving ceremony will be held at the Civic Centre later this autumn. The judging criteria for the competition included crop quality, crop planning, good husbandry, waste management within the plot, use of organic methods, and visual amenity. If you have an allotment in the Dartford Borough area and would like to take part in the 2005 Competition, please write to Dartford Festival Allotment Competition 2005, 18 Stanham Road, Dartford, Kent DA1 3AW, stating your name, home address and phone number, your site and plot number, and whether or not you were gardening on this site before January 1, 2004. Entries close on June 1, 2005. SOMETHING FOR THE CHRISTMAS STOCKING ... Chris Opperman's Allotment Folk (London: New Holland, 2004, ISBN 1-84330-497-X, £6.99) captures some of the peculiarities of allotment life in sharp black and white, from the Bristol couple who obtained an Arts Council grant to turn their plot into a living theatre, to the Brazilian women in Birmingham who dyes cloth in her shed, and the man from Bath who saw off the Church of England with a garden fork. Another publication which the QED Allotments Group has helped translate from bright idea into bookshelf favourite. TIME FOR GARDENING LEAVE The QED Allotments Group was formed in 1996 by local allotment associations to promote the environmental and social benefits of allotments gardening to plotholders, the wider public and to government in Dartford and beyond. Over the years we have helped support the regeneration of allotments in Dartford, and we have had an important impact on the attitude of central government and funders towards our favourite pastime. Our Eighth Annual Report (below) shows just how much has been achieved over the past year. We recognise, however, that much of the good practice established by the QED Allotments Group is now embedded in the national Allotments Regeneration Initiative, in which we have been an active partner. At our November 2004 meeting, therefore, the decision was taken to go out on a high, quit while we're ahead, and place the QED Allotments Group in indefinite abeyance. This will be the last QED Allotments Newsletter, and the last Annual Report. Many thanks to everyone who has supported our work over the past eight years. The good news locally is that the Dartford Festival Allotments Competition will continue to run next year (see above), while our commitment to allotment associations around the United Kingdom which have taken advantage of the QED Virtual Potting Shed to show off their achievements and beam inspiration across the internet will be honoured: the QED Virtual Potting Shed can be found at: http://www.btinternet.com/~richard.wiltshire/potshed1.htm QED ALLOTMENTS: EIGHTH ANNUAL REPORT Active participants in the QED Allotments Group over the past year have included the allotment associations at Bean, Dartford Road, Gore Road, and Tredegar, plus individual allotment gardeners from other sites. Achievements since the previous Annual Report (published in Newsletter Issue 14) include the following: € Financial support from QED has enabled members of the group to attended conferences and events. Activities attended have included the Horticultural Geographies conference held at the University of Nottingham, the London Green Group Annual Reception at City Hall, a GreenSpace Community Networking Day at London Guildhall, a Local Food Links Conference at the Kindersley Centre, Berkshire, a North Kent Gateway Partnership Open Day, the annual Potato Day event at Ryton Organic Gardens, an Interministerial Meeting on Allotment Regeneration at the Department for Education and Skills, a Food Access Conference at London City Hall, the launch of Sustain's Bread Street report, and the London Parks and Green Space Forum. € Formal responses have been submitted on the Mayor of London's Draft Best Practice Guide to Preparing Open Space Strategies and Dartford Borough Council's Working Group on Tourism and Heritage Survey. Written advice has been given on the National Qualification for Community Food Workers. € The Dartford Festival Allotments Competition has been organised and prizes awarded (see results elsewhere in this Newsletter). € Talks and workshops have been given by members of the QED Allotments Group at Allotments Regeneration Seminars in Leeds and London, to the North West Counties Association of Allotment and Leisure Gardeners Annual General Meeting in Stockport, at the Centre for Environmental Initiatives in Sutton, at the Greater London Allotments Forum's Second Allotments Conference, and the International Kleingärten Symposium in Shigamura, Japan. A regular column has been supplied to the London Food Links Project's newsletter Jellied Eel, featuring items on allotment vandalism and the allotment shed. € The QED Virtual Potting Shed internet project entries for the Bath and NE Somerset Allotments Association, Stockport Metropolitan Allotment Gardens Association and Spadeworks (Sturminster Road Allotments) have been enhanced. € Advice on the role of allotments in sustainable development strategies and related issues has been given to plotholders in Bexley, Brixton, Canterbury, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Gosport, Gravesend, Grimsby, Hull, Ilkeston, Manchester, Mansfield, Nottingham, Ramsgate, Sidcup, Torquay and Warwick, to community gardeners in Clapham, to Merseyside Constabulary, to Harrogate and Stockport Borough Councils, the London Boroughs of Barnet and Sutton, Newbury and Stone Town Councils and Canewdon and Southfleet Parish Councils, to journalists from the Sunday Telegraph and Boston Globe, The Independent, BBC Radio Wales, BBC Television South East, Endomol Productions, Bloomberg News, the Kent Messenger group, Gateway Publications and Horticulture Weekly, and to students at the Open University, University of Lincolnshire, University of Nottingham and Long Island University (New York). € Members of the QED Allotments Group have provided a variety of support to the Allotments Regeneration Initiative, including participation in Steering Group Meetings, Seminars and Mentor Training, editorial work on Newsletters and Factsheets, and evaluation of grant applications. € Reference to QED's participation in ARI and other issues has appeared in EARTHlines, Womens Environment Network Newsletter, British Youth Council News, the National Council for Voluntary Youth Services Newsletter, the Allotment and Leisure Gardener, Horticulture Week and the Local Council Review. QED's contribution has been credited in Chris Opperman's Allotment Folk and Caroline Foley's Allotment Handbook. € Copies of the QED Allotments Newsletter have been warmly received during the Research Officer's visits to allotments in Uppsala, Stockholm, Malmö and Copenhagen (organised in co-operation with the Swedish and Danish allotment federations) and in Kawasaki, Shimizu, Hamamatsu and Kasama (in co-operation with the Japan Kleingärten Association). € The QED Allotment Group's Research Officer was appointed consultant to the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister's National Survey of Allotments, Community Gardens and City Farms. |
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