low_carbon

Hazelhurst Community Supported Agriculture co-op with Heeley City Farm wish to appoint a Growing Team Leader to lead the cultivation and organic growing at the Hazelhurst Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) site. Salary. £17,161 p.a. pro rata Hours. 26.25 average per week including some evening and weekend The post is for an initial 12 months with a possible of extension subject to the Co-op maintaining a successful business. For an application pack send a large s.a.e. (A4 with 75p stamps) to: Hazelhurst CSA c/o 104 albert Road, Sheffield, S8 9RA or email: [email protected] We encourage you to make informal enquiries to:Joan Miller, Chair of Hazelhurst CSA on 0114 249 8613 Completed applications must be received by 17.00 hours, Monday 19th November 2012 Interviews will take place on Friday 30th November 2012 at the Hazelhurst site and Heeley City Farm. The job description and person specification are on the Hazelhurst website: http://hazelhurst.coop/news/

quick reminder about this event tonight...

Hazelhurst Community Supported Agriculture (CSA), just south of Norton is launching its share offer on Thursday Feb 2 2012 at the Quaker Meeting House. Finger food will be available from 6:30 with the main event starting at 7pm. Rebecca laughton, author of "Surviving and thriving on the land" will be coming to given a talk. We are hoping that the Sheffield community will support this community scheme by becoming members, buying shares or sharing their various skills with us in other ways. For more info about the event or about Hazelhurst CSA generally see our website: http://www.hazelhurst.coop/ Hope to see you there

The job advert is now posted here: http://www.hazelhurst.coop/#news It has become a bit buried on Heeley City Farm's website. Application deadline is 5pm Tues 3rd Jan 2012.

Hazelhurst Community Supported Agriculture co-op with Heeley City Farm wish to appoint a Growing Team Leader to lead the cultivation and food growing at the Hazelhurst Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) site in Norton. If you know of a qualified grower who might be interested the job details are on Heeley City Farm's website: http://www.heeleyfarm.org.uk/ The deadline for applications is Tues 3rd Jan. Please spread the word.

Heeley and Districy allotment shop sells seaweed meal. See http://heeley-allotments.wikispaces.com/Allotment+Shop for details of the shop opening hours etc

With woodash it is best to compost it because it is washed out of soil very quickly and composting help to make it much more slow-release. I don't know whether the same applies to chicken poo. I've just got 6 chickens so would be glad to hear what others think about this.

Meersbrook allotment shop (end of Meersbrook Road). Open 10-11 Sunday and Thursday

Meersbrook allotments has a shop: http://heeley-allotments.wikispaces.com/Allotment+Shop

I'm pretty sure the Old Haywoods site was badly flooded in the recent floods. I think the allotment service are trying to find an alternative site. I check through my minutes. Good work MC

Gleadless Valley Wildlife Trust (I'm sure Sheffield Wildlife Trust will be able to give you details of others if this is not near to you).

As many of you have allotments and are keen for a good service from the Council, I thought I'd let you know that an Allotment Officer post has just been advertised by Sheffield City Council following retirement of the current officer. Follow the link below for details: https://jobs.sheffield.gov.uk/job_details.asp?VacancyID=12111&NAV=G The closing date is 09/12/2009 so not much time. Please spread work far and wide. We want this to reach as many people as possible so that we have a communicative and forward-thinking allotment officer for the next 30/40 years. Kevin

Welcome to Meersbrook allotments Hisknibs. Hope you enjoy working your plot. There is a shop on site, green portacabin next to the main gate of Meersbrook Road. Currently open 10-11 Thursday and Sunday. You can get a subsidized seed catalogue from the shop. If you want to order any seeds you'll need to get your order in by Jan. Go and talk to Pete (shop manager). There is a £3 (ish) fee to join for the year and it is open to non-allotment holders too. The catalogue also stocks an increasing range of organic seeds. I'm down by Rose Cottage in the bottom corner (heavy soil and pigeon heaven) but out of the wind a bit. There is also an allotment society meeting on the first Sunday of every month starting at about 11.15 (we meet next to the shop). Once you're settled in pop along for a chat. Kevin

If you want to get started then maybe consider the Meersbrook organic plot. Their details are here: http://heeley-allotments.wikispaces.com/Meersbrook+Organic+Growers they may be slightly out of date but contact Heather. They do now have a weekend slot I think. Kevin

The Society: 1) Runs the shop 2) Applies for funding (to replace the rotting wooden building next to the shop etc) 3) Liases with the Allotment Office to organize skips 4) Organizes social events (e.g. allotment soup last year) 5) Undertakes yearly surveys to assess the state of the site 6) Runs a fundraising stall at Heeley Festival 7) Has representatives on Sheffield Allotment Federation Has representatives on Allotment Advisory (quarterly meetings with the Council) 9) Organizes clear-ups of the site. 10) Has monthly meetings that tenants can come to with any issues. And many other things.. The Society needs committed, enthusiatic peope to help out - there are many improvements to be made but we could do with a hand to get them done. Kevin (Meersbrook Society)

Are you fed up with the vandalism and lack of progress with the fencing around the site? Then come to the Community Assembly meeting this Tuesday (2nd June) at 6:30pm, Methodist Church, Blackstock Road. Community Assemblies are about giving local people a voice - come and get yours heard. We need the fence to be finished to make the site more secure - the vandalism has not stopped. A good turnout will really help our cause.

Afternoon tea (nettle presumably) sounds like a great idea. Will have to investigate the possibility on Meersbrook ... Nice one.

Waiting list around 200 - 2 year wait on average - despite our survey this week which showed 110+ plots totally unmworked.

Draggletail, Looks like Lunaria annua (Honesty) to me. As the name suggest it has flat, circular, moon-like seed pods. I think it's a lovely plant too. Kevin

This is such a difficult problem, I don't know where to start. We have done two years of our own site surveys on the Meersbrook site and are about to do our third next month. We found that there were many sites unworked but that they were not entirely the same plots in the two surveys. I.e. people were taking over plots but for whatever reason were not touching them. This may be because they had just taken them on or because their circustances changed or because they were overwhelmed etc. It is virtually impossible to draw any meaningful conclusions from these statistics other than that the office does appear to be sending out notices to quit. How many of these NTQs actaully resulted in terminations? - I can't believe it is 90%. I certainly get the sense on our site that things are changing slowly, that several long-staning unworked plots are being worked, this may be because people are more determined having waited for such a long time to get the plot or are just placing more importance on food growing. Plot splitting and sharing have to be priorities. The policy review meetings that were held recently highlighted the massive task that the allotment service have. I'm sure they anticipate that this boom in food growing will soon come to an end and allotments will once again become semi-forested. I hope I'm wrong.

I asked John Martin this question over a year ago and he claimed that the number of plots per allotment officer were comparable with other cities but I've never checked.

Henrietta/Rob, Growing food without paying the rent - an outrageous idea. As Vice-President of the Allotment Fedeartion I could of course never endorse such vigilante action (tut tut). It is clearly much better to play the system and join the lengthening waiting lists whilst the system allows so many plots to return to our native forest state. I hope you feel sufficiently reprimanded and will never coutenance the idea again.

You may already know this but there is a community organic plot on the Meersbrook site. Details are here: http://heeley-allotments.wikispaces.com/Meersbrook+Organic+Growers you could try talking to them about their experiences. Good luck, Kevin

Should mention that the society hut is the wooden building next to the green portacabin we currently use as the shop (main entrance at the end of Meersbrook Rd). Kevin

This Sunday (3rd May) is the AGM of Meersbrook Allotment Society at 11.45 in the society hut. We would love to have a couple more people prepared to help run the Society. Not very onerous but there are occassional bits to do. What we can do depends on how many people want to get involved. If anyone has particular issues they want to discuss about the site or has ideas for improving it then come along and share them. See you then, Kevin