Minutes of AGM Monday 24th October 2016
Apologies: Kath Lanning, Janice Dreisbach, John Church, John Dando, Paul Butt
Summary of the past year: Brian Snellgrove said that during the past year, an e-mail newsletter and website has been introduced. He encouraged anyone with anything to say to write articles which could include photos whereupon they would be published.
Annual hosting of the website was offered for the price of £10 and was noted.
There was some turbulence earlier in the year to bring certain plots up to standard but for the last six months no incidents have been reported.
Use of the new stand area: this was provided by the council and is designed for manure and wood chips. Apart from two free loads promised, future loads will be available at £1 per barrow load to cover the £30 delivery cost.
Acceptance of accounts: the accounts were agreed. The manure net profits were stated but it was requested that the costs and income be included. The meeting was advised that the costs were £90 with an income of £140 received. The accounts for 2016/17 will be changed to show this information. 
Constitution and vote: generally accepted but agreed that the cycle for people staying on would be three years and not one
.Committee members for 2016/2017: the present three members agreed to stay on. The secretary asked for volunteers for being correspondents, people prepared to give a commonsense view on the day-to-day matters that we have to consider. Four people volunteered for this.
It was agreed that the present system of deciding if a tenant is to be asked to leave remains with the committee. It was pointed out that the rules are all documented in the tenancy agreement and since there are three letters sent out before a tenant is removed, there should be no difficulty in understanding what was expected of them. The constitution will be amended to document the letter process. 
Any other business: it was agreed that we try a swapping shed and that we located it next to the notice bord in the middle car park area.
A plan for a communal store for bamboos was not taken up
a suggestion that we have a meeting halfway through the year at the beginning of the season, perhaps two weeks after the Easter holiday, would be appropriate and this was agreed.
A suggestion for seed swapping was considered and in the meantime seeds and items could be placed in the swapping shared when it is built. The constituion will be amended to reflect this.
Viability of the various crops were discussed. Suggestions were made that Charlotte, Pilot and Epicure potatoes were less susceptible to eating by eel worms and slugs. Excellent spinach crops can be grown using leaf beet (perpetual spinach) as it has a very long season and doesn't bolt. It was agreed that growing sweet corn was a waste of time as the badgers eat the lot.

It was requested that the council be approached to trim the trees at the bottom of the site as they were  now growing very high and obscuring the sunlight.