Welcome to the Summer 2011 newsletter

I hope you are all managing to get some produce from your plots after the long dry spring, and the cool start to the summer. If you are a member of the gardening club I hope that your garden is bringing you suitable rewards for all your hard work. 

I was really pleased to see so many people turn up for the 'fun' day on 12th June. Again the weather wasn't perfect, but we still had fun. Thanks to everyone who made cakes, teas or ran an event for the kids. We had not planned to raise money at the event, but after the plant sale and a number of donations, we found ourselves comfortably in pocket at the end of the day !

For those of you who are new allotment members we don't organise meetings in the summer, for the simple reason that most evenings, people are busy either watering plants and harvesting produce, or conversely hacking at the weeds which may have overgrown the plot. However the committee will soon be giving further thought to winter evening events, but it is most important that YOU tell us what you want to see, or hear about. Please mail a member of the committee with ideas.

Well done to anyone who was placed in the St Ives In Bloom competition. Unfortunately as I write, I don't know who the winners were, as the SIIB Committee have not told us, but thank you anyway, to everyone who took part.

A bit of bad news is that the lottery application for a communal hut was not approved by the Big Lottery Fund, but we shall try again. If there is anyone out there who can help us and particularly has had experience of preparing a successful bid in the past, we would love to hear, and also to learn from you.

In the meantime, our crack team are very active planning our second Flower and Produce Show which is going to be bigger and better than last year. Some of you may have seen the stunning posters around town, designed by Andie Smith one of our committee members based on a dahlia flower. In the remaining few weeks, I hope that you are all pruning your dahlias, to time flowering to perfection for the 3rd September, and you have already made most of the strawberries, raspberries, currants etc to make jams and jellies to enter into the preserve classes (oh and don't forget that Colin is expecting stiff competition for his lemon curd...). Print off the schedule from the 'Produce show' page on the web site and see how many classes you could enter.

See you all in September !

Richard