A constitution for ECGA

Hello everyone

As I've looked into getting some funding for ECGA projects like the Portobello Town Hall garden, it's become clear that we need to make the organisation a bit more formal. Most funders insist that we have a constitution, plan of activities and bank account.

I've put together a draft constitution, using a model from SCVO, the umbrella body for the Scottish voluntary sector. This would give us a set of rules for running things like meetings and membership, but not fundamentally change what we've been doing.

I'd appreciate it if you could read the draft and let me know if you have any comments/queries/suggested changes.

• Draft constitution for Edinburgh Community Gardening Activists
  

Once I've taken all these on board, we'll need to get as many people as possible together to adopt the new constitution and choose our first office bearers. Hopefully we can do this on one of our workdays in Portobello towards the end of the month or in September. Then I can get on and sort things out with the bank.

At the least we'll need to elect:

• A Chair, to organise and run meetings of members and act as our public face
• A Secretary, to look after our correspondence, list of members and the like
• A Treasurer, to be responsible for the money. I'm happy to stand for this one.

The constitution is quite a long document, but here are some of the key features:

• A two-tier structure of members and management committee, where office bearers are empowered to act on behalf of the group
• Membership is free and open to anyone who wants to join, subject to a veto from the management committee
• The need to maintain a register of members and hold an AGM
• Meetings of members can be called by the management committee, or at the request of ten or more members
• Five-year term limits for members of the management committee.

There are also provisions to deal with other eventualities that may arise in future, such as withdrawal/expulsion of members, conflicts of interest, employees, becoming a charity, and winding up the group.

Thanks!

Big gardening plans, small budget

Most guerrilla gardeners have a miniscule budget. Thankfully, that helpful bunch of people known as the general public regularly assist us by leaving all manner of litter which we can use in our battle.

Larger containers are a positive gift to the guerrilla gardener as they easily be turned into a birdbath or planter.

A plastic bottle can be used as a raincatcher, underground reservoir, cloche, watering can, bird feeders or a humane mole deterrents (placed a little way in soil with lid removed - wind makes a sound moles don't like).

The ubiquitous inside-out umbrella can be stripped of its fabric and the metal frame used as a support for climbers.

It's important to clear any litter from a site that could potential harm wildlife and that especially applies to carrier bags. Don't discard them though...even torn bags can be washed and fused together (by ironing them between two pieces of cardboard). The melted polythene then becomes a tough, sewable fabric useful for windbreaks, weedmats or polytunnels.

The biggest stumbling block we currently face on the Portobello site is funding - or rather, lack of it.

We have utilised whatever happened to be on site (strawberry anyone?) and hope to use the strange metal cage thingy as a cloche.

Lucy managed to get some free pallets from B&Q where she bought nails, posts, hinges etc, to make them into compost bins. (However, the prospect of secure storage looks a long way off unless the gardening fairy drops off a shed.)

If you are looking for ideas, take a look at Instructables or get inspiration from Earthship Fife who run Creative Waste Workshops.

If you can donate your time, expertise or equipment (or just want to say hello), we would love to hear from you.


The 'Sprout a Couch' photo is courtesy of ReadyMade

Save the Honeybee

Neonicotinoids are killing the honeybees.

Please join the Soil Association's campaign to ban neonicotinoids.

Click here to take action and sign the petition

Triumph and Tragedy: West Richmond Street

Hello everyone,

Just a wee update on the site at West Richmond Street. We did lots of weeding, seeding and bulbing and things had been sprouting up left, right and centre! For many years this had been a badly neglected rose garden, full of weeds and a few struggling overgrown untended rose bushes.

Unfortunately some Council gardeners turned up with a whole heap of volunteer schoolkids and sadly they blitzed a lot of the area before we realised what was happening! It was a great shame and a missed opportunity to really teach these youngsters about gardening. We managed to save part of the area we'd planted but sadly rather than a mass of flowers over most of the site, only a fraction remains. We managed to salvage this bit after negotiating with the gardeners. They admitted themselves the area would be covered in weeds within a few weeks and they had no plans to come back to the site or do any new planting. What a waste of so much potential beauty! They also didn't do a very good job of weeding and left the roots of the most pernicious weeds!! However we have been delighted with the mass of flowers that has sprung up and each day there is something new to delight in.

Lots of bees have been buzzing around the flowers which is lovely to see.

The broad bean seeds that Thea planted have grown very well and are looking extremely healthy. Unfortunately the red onions Andrea planted fell pray to the Council gardeners but a couple have survived.

Lots of lovely ladybirds (my most fave wee beastie!) have been visiting the site and keeping the greenfly off the sun flowers we planted against the wall. These should be coming into flower very soon and I'll post some more pictures when they do.














We have had lots of compliments from local residents and people on the way to work. Many folk have stopped to thank us for the work we've done and to say how much it cheers them up on their way to work. We often see folk stopping to admire the flowers. A BIG THANK YOU to everyone who has helped work on this site. There's still lots to be done and I'll set some potential dates/times in August for doing some more work.

Rock Trust Volunteers - Wed 8th July 2009

Hello everyone!

Well another very successful day was held at Porty Town Hall this afternoon. A whole heap of volunteers came along from the Rock Trust along with a few workers from the Trust.

In the photo you can see a couple of the workers from the Rock Trust, Mark and Sarah along with some of their volunteers. All the Rock Trust volunteers beavered away all day doing a lot of clearing at the site.

One of the workers from the Rock Trust Mark got rather a fright when he disturbed a wasps nest! However apart from a few stings he was fine. Though I can't really blame him for the fact that he did run like a girl! One of the volunteers did brave the area later to do some clearing.

Everyone did a fab job of digging up masses of tree roots and the site looks a lot clearer now. Another one of the volunteers did lots of clearance work round the corner of the site. I think we can now finally see the light at the end of the tunnel! They all seemed to enjoy their time at Porty and are keen to come back in a couple of months to do some more work and see how things are progressing. A very big THANK YOU to everyone who came from the Rock Trust. They all worked extremely hard all day and we really appreciate their help.

Jupiter Artland

There's treasure hidden away in a West Lothian woodland. There's a rather special garden called Jupiter Artland.

Having made a fortune in the family business, a couple bought Bonnington House. They've turned the grounds into a sculpture park with works from some of Britain's leading artists.

There's pieces from Andy Goldsworthy, Charles Jencks and Anthony Gormley amongst others. Also, bees! Even the cafe's worth a look: a shining metal 1952 Silver Streak Clipper caravan.

The place opened to the public in May and by all accounts is fantastic.

It's also a labour of love: only a hundred people are allowed in at a time and it's only open three days a week. The couple behind it have admitted they'll never come close to making their money back.

It's open 10 - 4 Friday to Saturday until the end of August. Admission is five pounds each and it's essential to let them know you're coming.

The garden is easily found by car, or by taking the First Bus 27 to Wilkieston and walking the last half a mile.

Well, we should go! Who else fancies taking a day off the gardening to have a nosey?

Sun 28th June - A hard day's work well done!!

We had another fantastic if exhausting day's work yesterday at Porty Town Hall and more new faces than you could shake a large tree stump at!! (Though we did try) 5 new faces! We carried on from all the hard graft from previous weekends of digging up more tree stumps.

Please welcome new faces Caroline, Michelle (Mickey) and Ansley (Ans). Caroline hails from Leith and whilst by her own admission, a total novice, certainly isn't afraid of hard work! Michelle and Ans hail from Port Seton and have quite a bit of gardening experience. Most folk will recognise Tom in the background (couldn't miss a photo opportunity eh Tom?) who is a regular guerrilla gardener.

The 3 of them took on a pretty mammoth task of digging up one of the biggest stumps on the plot. They were certainly pleased when the beast was tamed! They were helped out by another new member who arrived, Cathy who lives at Mountcastle nr Porty High School.

Me, Tom and another new face, Dawn, took on a slightly smaller beast to tame, but were just as pleased when we finally got the thing uprooted! Dawn also hails from Leith and is another novice but really got stuck in - I think she was joking about using semtex in future!

I think the photos show just how much clearing we managed to do in a few hours yesterday and it was fantastic to have so many new folk turn up to help out.

Our next work days are as follows:

Sat 4th July, 2-5pm

Wed 8th July, 12.30 - 3.30pm (along with volunteers from the Rock Trust)

Sat 11th July, 2-5pm

Sun 12th July, 2-5pm

Sun 19th July, 2-5pm

Sun 26th July, 2-5pm

Tom is currently busy looking into different funding sources and it looks very hopeful that we will be able to secure some money for this project. I'm busy drafting up a design for the garden which I'll e-mail round to everyone soon as I want as much creative input from folk into this as possible! Work is progressing well, so a big thank you to everyone who has been helping out.