Introduction by Chairman Mark Shaw
Chair – Address and Agenda
Welcome to everybody
Informed the group that Patricia Scott resigned unexpectedly, recognition and thanks expressed for all her hard work.- with hindsight more assistance will be offered in that role in the future.
Informed the group that the treasurer Bill Curtis will be retiring
2017 should see a new expanded committee with a purpose to improve allotments in Stockport. We intend to continue discussions with SMBC
Last years AGM minutes were approved by Steve and Amanda Evans and seconded by Jeff Bohan
Apologies for absence – Roger and Fay Bravey, Deborah Beckett, Jeff Bohan
MATTERS ARISING
We received assurance from Councillor Sheila Bailey that there are no allotments in Stockport that require redevelopment. However new elected councillors may change these policies. The KKP report appears to have been lost. 400 green spaces were visited by KKP (a big team) but we can only assume that they only sampled some and not all sites.
This was proposed by Richard King and seconded by John Besh
Officers reports – we have not had a secretary for over 6 months, so there is no secretary report.
TREASURERS REPORT (Bill
)
Total income £4,500.00
Expenditure £4,710.00
Net surplus of income over expenditure is £709.00. We didn’t get as much as expected in donations and expenses were up slightly. Currently have capital of 13,724, made up of Current Account £8,400.00 and Business Account 288. We have been audited by Stephen Willcox.
John and Ian Gardiner propose approval to the accounts
ELECTION OF OFFICERS AND THE MANAGEMENT COMMITTEE
3 OFFICERS NEED TO BE ELECTED; Chair, Secretary, Treasurer. Mark Shaw proposes to stand again in2017 as Chair – vote taken – Mark Shaw is voted in as 2017 Chair. Fabian Guyot has volunteered as Secretary for 2017 – Sandy Palmer from Green Lane has offered her assistance. Vote taken – Fabian Guyot is voted in as Secretary. Bee Gallagher has volunteered to be treasurer. Vote taken – Bee Gallagher is voted in to be 2017 Treasurer.
No minimum requirement for number of people on management committee so Mark Shaw suggests that there are as many as possible….. i.e Deputy Roles, etc
People that have volunteered Sandy Palmer, Deborah Becket, Ruth Lomax, Robin West, John
Grimshaw, John Gare, Anne Hosker, also re-standing is Roger Bravey, Ian Gardiner
Mark Shaw expressed thanks to the great assistance that Steve and Amanda Evans contribute to the committee and asked if they could carry on coming to the meetings and to continue their research on constitutions. Amanda and Steven Evans are voted in to perform these roles.
The next meeting is to be as soon as possible where it will be discussed how the member roles will be managed in future. Group are due to meet with the council in April.
Final item on Agenda – any business or proposition submitted a member or members before this meeting – there were none received
Member asks Chairman a question – do any of the allotment associations have any corporate identity…..like we are going for a cooperation ‘Allotment Stockport’ Do any of your associations have any sort of company agreements that they behold?
Chair answers that most will be set up by unincorporated associations, there are sites around the country that are set up as limited companies usually by guarantee but I am not aware of any in Stockport.
Chair – we had a meeting regarding rules and disciplinary, which some of you here and myself attended. We have drawn up some draft proposals for disciplinary. The next step is to have a look at those and get them out to the associations to have a look at and I also want to review them with the council as well. we will have a meeting with the council to do that. John Grimshaw looked at Health and Safety and we have a substantial document for that. I think that we will make significant progress taking over the management of allotments within Stockport
Chair declares formal AGM meeting has finished.
Allotments Stockport 
I left my allotment and have since been able to easily use enough land to seriously grow enough food to see some sort of self reliance appear, without all the interference and politics.
When you begin to realise land produces food and that plants and trees and animals can feed us without asking for much in advance except love and mercy, all the fees, obsurd rules or regulations were not born out of love but enmity. It really helps you to understand the real politics behind all these changes that are creeping into society and the real reasons behind land “ownership” as an ancient concept.
Man obviously needs to eat, to do this he can either locally grow his family their own food, keep chickens, livestock, keep bees etc or he can be kept alive by the false gods who put a price on this fundamental requisite of life. Call it an offering, voluntarily given as a tribute for the security of convenience the false god sells.
What you gain in convenience you carry in burdens as you sell your ability of self relience. It is as simple as that!
The food you buy at a supermarket chain has still required land somewhere to fullfill the principle use of keeping you alive, but kept out of view. Supermarkets have more clout than the allotment site or allotment collective as a network and the common man or woman on the allotment site who lobbies (begs) to his “council” has already given much tribute to this false god. The false god in question, wherever sets up its stall had the forsight to use this tribute to pay the “council” for permission, which is an exercise in power above the reach of the genuine land user. When the little man with his “plot” begins to realize that his dependance rests upon both the “council” and the false god heavily, it is to late.
Modern day commerce (including food) is incorporated into a unit of exchange (money) and can be manipulated using the concepts of scarcity, insecurity, war and modern slavery dressed up as fair trade. Much yeast is used to make this convienient bread rise.
But you already know this right?
If you seek a plot you have probably come to the realisation that growing your own food can be fun and sociable at the same time. It can save you some money in food costs but I am yet to find a single allotmenteer who has managed to regain self reliance without interference or one who has not had to sell his time elsewhere first to pay his tribute. The whole point of people having to pay to use land that is already theirs to use seems backward to me and my experience of having plots on many different sites amounted to the same outcome of questioning.
Sites I had the experience of sharing plots on were in all honesty nothing more than hotbeds for political expression, giving rise to the same elements of productive efforts used where they were not voluntarily given and gave the little man (or woman in many cases) wanting to rule over his/her brothers freedoms or journey into self reliance, with the council or some arbitrary group using their pc backing, acting as some kind of wise guide.
Committee groups can shape and impose a model the future allotment site effectively just by using interferance, however subtle and by applying pressure to individuals who either oppose their outlook of political thought. I was brought up to understand that if you seek power to gain personal development at the expense of your fellow mans freedoms you were the least deserving of that role or at the very least your motives were questioned. People seem far to gone along the path of securing the site to conformity that it gives little in the way of preservation to individual freedom or even as simply not fitting in face remove “their” enemy using due process.
I guess it all depends on your understanding of inheritence.
Kind regards.