Association Dinner

The Association Dinner will be held on Friday, 15th February 2008 at the Berkeley Hotel on Worthing seafront, 7.00 for 7.30pm. The price will be £20 per head payable with your reservation. For full menu and contact details click here.

AGM

Our AGM 2007 was was on Tuesday, 20th November in the Gordon Room, Stoke Abbott Road. All officers were re-elected. Speeches (and/or reports) were given by our President, Arthur Burt, Chairman Ian Dunster, Treasurer Bob Chalcraft and Secretary Terry Edwards. The President's Cup was awarded to Margot Hollingdale for her unstinting work, often out of the limelight, over several years. Needless to say, refreshments for the evening and the raffle were both organised by Margot.

Dutch Bulbfields Trip

A small, informal group is going to the Dutch bulbfields next April with the coach firm, Travelsphere. The coach picks us up at Worthing on 11th April and takes us to Dover where we join our excursion coach which takes us to our hotel in Valkenburg for a 3-night stay. Besides the trip to Keukenhof Gardens on Day 2 there is an optional trip to Monschau on Day 3 and on the way home we visit the lovely town of Bruges in Belgium. We return to Worthing on the 14th April. The £209 cost includes coach, hotel on Bed, Breakfast & Evening Meal basis and entrance to Keukenhof Gardens.If you would like to join us or learn more about it, contact us via the site or ring John Nutt on 01903243114 or Ken Willo on 01903247555.                                                   (Oct 2007)

Great Village ShowSuccess

Report

The 30th annual horticultural show of the Worthing and District Allotments and Gardens Association held on 1st September at the Offington Park Methodist Church Halls was another great success despite the very difficult growing weather this year. For the third year the venue was shared with the Worthing Horticultural Society, providing two shows under one roof advertised as The Great Village Show and offering a spectacle that did not disappoint the large crowd that came to view. The members somehow overcame the worst year in memory for slugs, snails and blight on potatoes and tomatoes to show exhibits of fruit, vegetables and flowers of the highest standard that gave a stunning display. The home made cake stall was a great attraction as was the white elephant stall with its vast array of incredible things on offer, while the children were kept busy with a treasure hunt looking for things that had no right to be there! The public also enjoyed themselves judging the photographic competition.

The number of entrants taking part was even higher than last year's record, with several being new to the show, and with 17 children involved, the show scene looks encouraging for the future, particularly as awards were well spread between the established regulars and the newcomers.

The award for The Best Kept Allotment went to Peter Webb who had an amazing afternoon by picking up trophies for winning the flower section, vegetable section, collection of vegetables and the RHS Banksian Medal.
The owner of The Best Front Garden was John Nutt, who was also the public's choice in the Photographic Competition.
The Best Exhibit of Fruit was by Mrs Janice Shambrook, the Best Vegetables were the shallots of Colin Stowe who also took The Best in Show award.
Mrs M Boyce won Best Floral Exhibit with her fucshia heads and Daphne Rolph was the first ever winner of The Elsie Burt Trophy for the most points in the roses classes.
James Ellis won the Novice Collection of Vegetables, newcomer Brenda Cox took the Floral Art Cup and Jack and Celia Powis won the Wine and Cookery Cups respectively.
The children's section was very well contested with more entries than ever this year. The Most Points Award went to Olivia Johnson, Best Exhibit to Ben Edwards and the winners of the Marigold Competition were Olivia Johnson and Lucy Drake.
Congatulations to them all!

Jack Powis, Show Secretary

Before the Show		Impressive Vegetables
Cookery		People
Flowers		Children's Competitions
Miscellaneous		Presentation Time
It's Peter's Show ›

To see loads more pictures, just click on a caption by a photograph.

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The complete list of winners is as follows:

Fruit

Vegetables

Flowers

Collections

Floral Art

Photographic

Cookery

Wine

Children's Classes

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Horticultural Society Results

Best Front Garden Competition

The Association's "Best Front Garden" competition has been judged and results declared. The winner expressed a desire for website anonymity so I shall respect that. However, I didn't promise the garden any such thing so here it is. And to those of you who think yours is just as good if not better all I can say is, "So why didn't you enter, then?" You can't win the raffle if you don't buy a ticket. I've seen lots of lovely front gardens out there and I'm sure some of them must belong to Association members, so come on, now you know what the competition's like, next year, give it a go!                      Aug2007

Allotment Film
"Grow Your Own", the film about an allotment site in the North of England used in an attempt to integrate a group of asylum seekers, is on at Cineworld, Chichester for one day on Monday, 20th August, starting at 2.00pm. (Aug 07)

National Allotments Week
13th - 19th August is National Allotments week so get down there and get cracking. Take a friend or partner and let them see just how much fun it is; open their eyes. Did you know a recent survey by some farming organisation showed that many kids, especially those from towns, couldn't even tell you what constitutes a fruit or vegetable and what doesn't?

Harvesting spaghetti

For example, some children thought that spaghetti qualified as one of their 5 daily portions of fruit and veg and some believed tomatoes did not. So take the kids down there and show them where food comes from. You never know, you might spark off an interest in a future allotmenteer. (Aug 07)

Award for Highdown Gardens
Highdown Gardens, perched high above the A259 Littlehampton Road, has received its 7th consecutive Green Flag Award. The scheme, which has been running for 11 years, has become a national standard for parks and green spaces and recognises sites on how welcoming, safe and well maintained they are. An effort to involve the local community is also sought. It has always been one of my favourite gardens - it's local, beautiful and free. Also I am reasonably certain that if something grows at Highdown I ought to be able to grow it in my garden. If you want to know more about Highdown Garden click HERE. (Aug 07)

Oak Grove College strikes Gold
Oak Grove College, which is developing a bit of a reputation horticulturally, has done it again. It was one of 16 schools in West Sussex to win awards in the South and South East in Bloom competition in the school grounds section but went one better than most by winning a Gold Award. The only other school in our area to receive such an accolade was St Andrew's Primary School in Steyning. The competition is sponsored by Southern Water and recognised by the RHS. Mark Dunn, of West Sussex County Council, said, “My congratulations go to all the schools and the teams who look after their grounds. The awards show that schools are not just about buildings. The surrounding environment is also important as both an outdoor area for learning and sheer enjoyment.” (29/07/07)

It's the Show!
1st September might seem a long way away but not really. And anyway, before you can enter, you need a schedule and I'm here to tell you they're available now from the Trading Stores or from Jack, our show secretary. With each schedule there should be an insert giving hints and tips on exhibiting but if you haven't got one don't panic as I've reproduced it on our Ramblings page. (July 07)

Flower Show
Worthing Horticulural Society's summer show took place on Saturday, 30th June, on Broadwater Green. We didn't mind the rain because most of the exhibits and refreshments were in the big white marquis and the few that weren't were also under tent cover. There was also a big blue BBC bus full of gizmos and computers as BBC Southern Counties Radio had a stall manned (womanned?) by the irrepressible Jean Griffin. The Southern Counties Orchid Society put on a beautiful display as did our own association of course, albeit no so floriferous. Then there were all the entries including arrangements, special sections for sweet peas, roses, hanging baskets, containers, various fruit and vegetables, baking, jam making, children's "grow a potato in a bag" and onion competitions (sponsored by our association). Needless to see our president, Arthur Burt, won a host of trophies in the sweet pea section again!

Here are a few pictures taken at the show:

                   
       more from Northbrook                                                                                         stands

                 
               more flowers                                                                                          sweet peas

                     
             more from fruit and veg                                                                               cooking

(July 07)

Best Allotment
This year the Association teamed up with the Council to form a new (joint) Best Allotment competiton. We thought the bugger lump of prize money might encourage more entries than we previously had and we were certainly right. The competition was a huge success and I imagine will be run the same way next year. The competition was judged by our chairman, Ian Dunster and trading secretary, Pete Everett and for the record the results were as follows:

Winner: Peter Webb of Chesswood Farm Allotments, receiving £30 top prize
Runners-up (each receiving £10): Brenda Cox, West Tarring Allotments; David Harrison, Humber Allotments; Celia Powis, West Tarring Allotments; Ian Roberts, Humber Avenue Allotments; Janice Shambrook, Dominion Road Allotments.                                                                       (June2007)

Young Gardeners
Palatine School pupils raised around £300 for the National Garden Scheme when they opened their school gardens again this month. The award -winning school will open its gates again in July (see "Dates for your diary" ) (June 07)

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