The annual general meeting will be held at 7.00pm on Thursday 21 November 2024 at the Scottish Mask and Puppet Theatre, 8 – 10 Balcarres Avenue, Glasgow G12 0QF. Tea, coffee and biscuits will be available from 6.30pm. All KAA members should have received an email with full details and all the relevant documents for the AGM attached. In case this email has gone astray, the documents can also be downloaded from the web site (by members who remember the password) at this link.

In addition to the formal business of the meeting there will be a presentation from Emma Plant, a research student at Glasgow University, on the research project on pollinators that she undertook at the Kirklee site this summer.

On this occasion there will NOT be the opportunity to pay rental and membership fees. Glasgow City Council have moved from Calendar to Financial years for the payment of rents and they have not sent out the missives. The committee will contact members when the missives are received.

We were bathed in sunshine at our June book group meeting: 9 of us gathered around a table  on the Kirklee site, 4 of us with plots at Julian Avenue, 5 of us with plots on Kirklee. The home-made, allotment-grown rhubarb cake disappeared quickly. We’d shared around three titles by Raynor Winn that we’d borrowed from the library, people reading one, two, three or none of them, so we had lots to talk about.

Our next meeting will be on Sunday 14th July, from 5 – 6pm, at the Kirklee site. We’ve got copies of ‘The Chronicles of a Cairo Bookseller’ by Nadia Wassif from the library – let us know (e.g. email the committee or leave a comment) if you’d like to borrow a copy and come along for the discussion. This autobiography describes the experiences of three young women who set up an independent bookshop called Diwan in 2022. Hachette says: ‘Frank, fresh and very funny, Chronicles of a Cairo Bookseller is a portrait of a country hurtling toward a revolution, a feminist rallying cry, . . . . above all, it is a celebration of the power of words to bring us home.’

This year the Julian site open day is on 22 June and is to be part of WestFest, the Glasgow West End summer festival. The organisers are lead by the Julian Site Manager, Maggie McLellan, who is looking for all the helpers she can get. So if you have any time to spare on that day, please sign up as a helper on the list in the green cabin in Julian. You do not have to be there all the time. We need as many helpers as possible – people to help set up, people to man stalls for a period during the event, people to meet and greet and guide visitors, people to clear away at the end. We are also looking for ‘stuff’. Prizes for the tombola, produce from the plot, including seedlings and plug plants and flowers, to be sold, baked goods for sale and to accompany teas and coffees, jam for sale ……. The open day is our main opportunity to make enough money to cover the site maintenance and improvement tasks that are not covered by our Council landlords. if you can contribute anything it can be brought on the day or left earlier in the green cabin (preferably close to the actual date if it is perishable!)

Firstly a reminder that the monthly Clear Up (or Maintenance Day) will be on Saturday June 1 at both sites. Kirklee from 10.00am to 12.00pm and Julian from 11.00am to 12.00am. Do come, meet your fellow plotholders and contribute to making the allotments a natural and beautiful environment. Tea/coffee and biscuits will be on offer at 12.00pm. Julian is particularly looking for people to help with painting. If you are willing to take part in this please come in suitable clothing. There will not be any overalls available to borrow.

The second plot inspection of the year will take place the following weekend on Sunday June 9. Please check that your plot number is clearly displayed by this date. Remember that plotholders are responsible for keeping the paths between plots clear and accessible. On the Julian site a plot holder is responsible for the shared path on the side closer to Julian Avenue. On the Kirklee site a plotholder is responsible for the path closer to the toilet hut.

The next maintenance day/clear up is Saturday May 4th on both sites. On the Kirklee site the clear up runs from 10.00am – 12.00pm, on the Julian site it is 11.00am – 12.00pm. At both sites participants can relax with tea or coffee at 12.00. As usual it is recognised that Saturday mornings are not convenient for everyone and so a list of tasks that can be undertaken in a member’s own time will be posted.

Our next book is The Island of the Sea Women by Lisa See

Set on the island of Jeju to the south of South Korea, the novel starts with the local culture of female diving collectives, and covers the period from Japanese colonialism of the 30s and 40s, through the second world war and up to the Korean war. A gripping read, a human story, based on historical events.
We have a few library copies of the book, so let us know if it appeals to you and you’d like a copy. The book group continues to thrive, welcoming new readers from Kirklee and Julian Avenue, whether for a one off visit, or regularly. Always a good blether, nice cake and hot drinks. The date for the next meeting is Sunday 7th April, 5 – 6 pm, in or outside the communal shed near the big gate in the Kirklee plot. 

The Glasgow Allotment Forum(GAF) AGM is to be held on Monday March 18th from 7pm to 8.45pm, at the Garnethill Multi-Cultural Centre , 21 Rose Street. Click here to download the poster as a pdf file.

The AGM is open to all Glasgow’s current plot holders and also to those on waiting lists. At the moment GAF is working very hard on behalf of plot holders to influence the new Glasgow Allotment Rules and Regulations which are still under development, particularly with regard to the role of Allotment Association Committees, so a good attendance would be much appreciated.

Storm Isha meant that we had a cosy meeting in a warm house for our last book group. Although we prefer to meet on the allotment, it was nice to be safe and warm on a wild night. We loved ‘O Caledonia’ by Elspeth Barker, and had a good chat about it – interesting for those among us who hadn’t read it, without giving away who dunnit. They left with copies of the book, intending to read it after hearing what others thought.

Our next meeting will be on Sunday 3rd March, from 5 – 6 pm, hopefully back on the allotment, if the storm season is over. The book will be ‘Surfacing’ by Kathleen Jamie. We have some library copies, so if you’d like one, just email the allotment address and we can arrange for you to pick one up.

Glasgow City Council (GCC) is obliged by the Community Empowerment Act passed in 2015 to develop Rules and Regulations (R&R) for the management of the allotments that it lets out to Glasgow residents. They have recently published a proposed new set of R&R and these are now out for consultation. The consultation ends on October 30th.

You can read about the consultation on the GCC information page by clicking here. You can download the complete set of proposed R&R as a pdf document from the link on the information page or by clicking here and you can then take part in the consultation by clicking the Take Part button on the information page or by clicking here.

If the proposed R&R are put in place it could make a huge difference to the way GCC allotments and waiting lists for allotments are managed. Many people who have read the proposed R&R think that this difference could be very negative. It is therefore important that as many people as possible who are interested in allotments take part in this consultation.