Old Park Farm Garden Holders Association

Following a couple of recent incidents might I remind everyone of the following.

All of the committee members of the association are volunteers.  None are paid and all work, of which there is plenty, is carried out by some of them purely on a goodwill basis.

This work takes many forms from administration of the gardens as a whole including the following:

• Rent collection, management and delivery of bills, chasing up of late payers.
• Management of tenants details.
• Banking of cash, money management and account keeping.
• Seeking, interviewing then hiring and firing of garden holders.
• Dispute management.
• Ordering, taking delivery of and storage of supplies.
• Selling of and accounting for supplies.
• On and off site meetings with council officials.
• Organising gardeners to comply with changing council standards.
• Organising social events.
• Running social events.
• Organising deliveries of chippings.
• Organising deliveries and removal of skips.
• Organising communal areas / storage of recyclable materials.
• Removal of dangerous materials from site such as asbestos.

This is just a sample of the many administrative​ tasks required and does not take into account the recent lengthy work to renegotiate the ​current lease which remains ongoing since 2007.   This has entailed the establishment of company status for the gardens and the need for policies to be established complying with company law.

All of this of course does not touch on the physical maintenance of the gardens and grounds such as

• Hedge trimming.
• Grass cutting.
• Gate and fence mending.
• Plumbing excavation and repairs.
• Road maintenance.
• Pallet collection storage and distribution.
• Collection of dangerous materials.
• Tree maintenance and removal.
• Until recently communal fires now stopped because of garden holder abuse.

This is not a definitive list.

All of this work is done free and gratis and done for the garden membership as a whole with no expectation of thanks.  Could we therefore ask those of you who wrongly think that this is done for our own personal reward to think again.  We are not your employees and  we too have our own gardens to maintain in addition to all of the above.

A little thoughtfulness before presumptions are made about our roles would be appreciated along with the occasional provision of some of your time to help with the upkeep of the estate.  The gardens are a community and just as much your responsibility as that of the committee.