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Voting Starts Saturday 27 February

We’ve just had details through of how to vote in the Tesco Bags of Help community grant scheme.

Tesco’s customer will be able to vote for their favourite local project between Saturday 27th February and Sunday 6th March.  The voting is really simple. Each customer passing through the checkouts will be given a token. You then simply pop the token into the box of the project you most favour (hopefully you’ll pick us!). 

At the end of voting, the project with the most amount of token votes will be awarded £12,000, the project with the second most amount of token votes will be awarded £10,000, and the project with the third most amount of token votes will be awarded £8,000

You can vote in the following stores: 

ELMERS END

BECKENHAM EXPRESS

HIGH STREET PENGE EXPRESS

CROYDON RD PENGE EXPRESS

PENGE HIGH STREET EXPRESS

ANERLEY RD CRYSTAL PALACE EXPRESS

BROMLEY EXPRESS

ST PAULS CRAY EXPRESS

BROMLEY PLAISTOW LANE EXPRESS

BROMLEY

BROMLEY HIGH STREET EXPRESS

ORPINGTON EXTRA

BIGGIN HILL EXPRESS

SIDCUP

We will use the £8000 grant to improve access to the Secret Garden by renewing pathways within the garden and from the car park to the garden. We will also rejuvenate planting and renovate wooden structures as well as improve and extend our educational facilities which are used by local schools, allotment members and their families and our visitors.

If we win the additional funding through the voting we will use the money to pay for community art projects at our Annual Open Day in May.  Ideas so far include paving slabs with handprints, painted tiles, or willow structures. If you have any thoughts about the type of community art project you would like to see let us know!

 

Bags of Help

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Bags of Help – please vote for Dorset Road Allotments

We have been really lucky to make it through to the voting stages for a new grant to continue our work to improve Dorset Road Allotments for the community.Bags of Help

Tesco has teamed up with Groundwork to launch its Bags of Help initiative across England and Wales. The scheme will see three community groups and projects awarded grants of £12,000, £10,000 and £8,000 – all raised from the 5p bag charge.

Bags of Help offers community groups and projects in each of Tesco’s 390 regions across the UK a share of revenue generated from the five pence charge levied on single-use carrier bags.

The public will now be able to vote in store from 27 February until 6 March on who should receive the £12,000, £10,000 and £8,000 awards.

The grant we receive will be used to improve access, rejuvenate planting and repair structures in our beautiful Secret Garden.  The garden was created by a former member who used it as an inspiration for his art work (you may have seen one of his paintings in our clubhouse).  When he left we decided to keep it for use by the community. It is a well-loved stop for visitors on our allotment trail. Unfortunately time has taken its toll and this grant will help us to restore the garden to its former glory and improve access at the same time.

So if you visit one of our local Tesco stores please vote for Dorset Road Allotments.

To find out more about the scheme visit the Bags of Help website

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Wassailing the fruit trees on ‘Old Twelvey’

Wassailing is an old English custom dating back to the time of the Anglo Saxons.  The word ‘wassail‘ comes from the Anglo-Saxon phrase ‘waes hael’, which means ‘good health’. It usually involves sharing a drink made from warmed cider, wine or ale blended with spices, honey and sometimes egg all served in one huge bowl.

It was celebrated on New Years Eve and Twelfth Night (6th January or on 17 January ‘old twelvey’ if using the old Julian Calender) and took two forms. The more familiar form is going from house to house singing in exchange for wassail – you’ll probably recognise this today as Christmas carolling.  The other, which is still practiced today on Old Twelfth Night in apple and cider producing regions of Somerset, Herefordshire, Devon and Kent is wassailing the fruit trees.

Wassailing the fruit trees is to drink to the health of the fruit trees and to encourage a good crop. Toast dipped in the wassail would be placed on branches and the roots of trees would be sprinkled with wassail.

This year we will be wassailing the fruit trees on Old Twelvey – if you’re around come and share the wassail and helps us drink to the health of our fruit trees.

You can read more about this tradition here: http://resources.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/customs/xmas/wassail.htm and here: http://www.historic-uk.com/CultureUK/Wassailing/