Topic: Views on NSALG

[saddad]

Pleased to hear it... glad it suits your site Kea...  :)

[tonybloke]

Hi Kea,
say 'hello' to Karen from me!
Tony, General Secretary, Great Yarmouth & Gorleston Allotments Association.

[tonybloke]

coincidence?
the Allotment magazine (box full) just arrived!!

[Kea]

Any moment now then....I guess they're not going to fit thru' the letter box this time...so it'll be a trek down to the post office to collect them if they come tomorrow :(

I might get to say hello...my guess is that as i'm the lowly Treasurer I won't get a look in as i'm elbowed aside by the others.....only joking!!

Do you think she prefer's chocolates or wine??

[tonybloke]

Any moment now then....I guess they're not going to fit thru' the letter box this time...so it'll be a trek down to the post office to collect them if they come tomorrow :(

I might get to say hello...my guess is that as i'm the lowly Treasurer I won't get a look in as i'm elbowed aside by the others.....only joking!!

Do you think she prefer's chocolates or wine??

chocklit is always a winner!

[pumkinlover]

I was surprised to see this thread still going strong.

I would like to say that since starting this thread the NSALG has stuck a foot into the 21st century and now puts the magazine online so we can give our members a password to see it. Now we have more members we get more magazines which we can target at the people who are not online. The King's order was fairly well taken up though it's 'complex'?! order form seemed to be too much for most people and I spent hours sorting it out before sending it off...not one person spotted that they got a discount and one lady ordered 4 potato varieties 25KG of each...fortunately I knew her plot was 1/4 the size of my own and queried that!

As to insurance well last year we paid a small fortune just to run out Flower and produce show this year our insurance will be cheaper and the best deal we could find as well.
Karen Kenny is visiting us next week and will give a talk to interested members.
At my insistance we checked out other associations and found that this was the best choice. The free insurance included with SWCAA was not extensive enough to cover our needs for Association events through the year.
So though I was a bit negative when I first posted regarding NSALG i'm am now much more positive about it's benefits.

I think it is good that it is still going strong, some of the recent posts have been more positive about NSALG and that is good.
As our site has moved to another organization I am watching with interest as nothing stays the same.

[Kea]

1 magazine!!!

The problem is people take such a long time to pay their subs but they did last year so technically the majority were still members anyway. Obviously NSALG only counts the year as starting at one point and we took out membership in December with 10 people then paid another chunk in February which has happened again this year though the second chunk went off welll before the magazine arrived...2 1/2 weeks. 54 members and 1 magazine :(. Usually the first to borrow never returns it.

[tonybloke]

our site Secretaries leave them in the site huts, folk can sit out of the rain and have a read.
give them a call, ask for more magazines.
do you access the magazine on line?

we collect subs in Jan / Feb, and send off payment in March / April

[Kea]

We have our agm at the end of October. We then joined NSALG last december with the minimum 10 members to get started. Unfortunately people are slow to join/pay their subs so the next batch were joined in February last year. This year people paid a bit faster and I sent off subs for 10 (mainly committee members who are faster to pay subs) in December in response to NSALG's reminder. Then the next lot of 40 by the 3rd week of January, I expected that we'd get more magazines than one as we paid membership for people as late as April so technically they're still members but obviously only the December payment counts. We can access it online but have some people without computers, not many. Mind you I wouldn't read it online.
Karen Kenny visited and we found what she had to say VERY interesting. Our Town Clerk maybe in for a difficult time this year :)

[Trevor_D]

This is an interesting one.

We pay NSALG in December, so the list I send is - obviously - the current membership. But our fees are due on January 1st, with a cut-off date of the AGM which this year was on January 31st. But two plot-holders have given up; are they still members? And what about any new members who join during the year? Do I really have to contact NSALG every time I sign up a new plot-holder? If we all did that, they'd have to take on extra staff!

As I see it, the Society is affiliated, and at the time of affiliation for this year we had 90 members. In December, we re-affiliate and there'll be a slightly different figure. Surely that's good enough? Or am I missing something?

[tonybloke]

Kea, have you 'phoned Donna @ NSALG about this matter? I know they usually issue 1 magazine per 10 members ( well they do to our association)
rgds, Tony

[Kea]

I attempted to ask Karen but she misunderstood and someone decided to talk over me at that point...we'd only got the magazine about a day before ...over 2 weeks since I had registered another 44 members but even so most of those where members from last year and another 20 paid in April so effectively they're NSALG members until then. Though the number of magazines we received (1) suggests they only count the ones registered at the point we registered first.

I'll have to contact them and find out...it's going to take awhile for the one mag to pass around about 80 odd members!

Well we have found the Town Plan 1974 which tells us that 6 hectares was put aside for Statutory Allotments, when we were talking to Karen we didn't know whether our site was statutory or temporary as the Town Council appropriated a large chunk to extend the cemetery. Anyway I did some research and discovered that they shouldn't have helped themselves. We've got 60 plus on the waiting list and we lost half our site...Hmmm!!!

Plus the TC groundsman are using a plot to burn waste from all over town on it...again this is another oops! for the TC...the look on the Town Clerks face at our next meeting is going to be priceless!

[Kea]

Well speak of the devil....just typing away while my husband is listening to Radio 4 in the next room and suddenly I hear our Town Clerk speaking. Friend of my son has just made history by becoming the youngest town councillor and was being sworn in by TC.

[saddad]

I'm impressed he got elected as an independent, Kea.
Less so if they appropriated Statuatory Allotments... get the NSALG onto them straight away...  >:(

[Kea]

St Ives made history at the last Town council elections by going against the grain at the last local body elections by ousting the Tory candidates (who had held the balance of power here for ever!) in favour of mainly Independent candidates. This was because the tory council was going to sell off our Corn Exchange and the town got very cross about it.
Unfortunately two of those independant's have had to retire due to ill health and one has shown his true colours (blue) at the following national elections. Fortunately the replacement, Tom is also independant.
My son is Chairman of the youth town council...he might have stood if he had been 6 months older. Tom's Dad is on our Allotment Committee, though he doesn't have an allotment.

It's the Town Clerk that pushes stuff, the councillors would do as she says if we didn't constantly lobby them. We managed to reduce the proposed allotment rent increases recently. 

[tonybloke]

I heard the piece on R4, well done to the young man!! I was bemused that he was warned about what he could and couldn't put on Facebook / Twitter!!

[Kea]

I heard the piece on R4, well done to the young man!! I was bemused that he was warned about what he could and couldn't put on Facebook / Twitter!!

Yes that is the Town Clerk who gave the warnings...she often amuses us (sic)!


Well the bad news is I've looked through records and found that no one was on the ball and the change of Statutory Allotment land to cemetery was applied for and allowed by the secretary of state before the existence of our allotment association.
So with 3 large new housing estates currently being built and no new allotment provision plus 60+ on the waiting list that is one big fail :'(