As they say, the sun always shines the virtuous and so it proved at today’s BBQ. Thanks to all who came and made it such fun and to Gill for coordinating things for us.
Tag: News Page 43 of 52
In only our second year of participation, GFAA has achieved an “outstanding” award for our site as part of the It’s Your Neighbourhood Assessment Exercise.
Awarding us a total of 89 points, Assessor Jim Henderson noted especially our successes in community participation, as well as improvements in the areas environmental responsibility and gardening.
Jim’s Full Report is available and makes interesting reading. Thanks to all who gave of their best on their own plots and looking after our communal areas and so contributed to this achievement.
GFAA plotters enjoyed an evening of great successes in the Beach Ballroom yesterday when the individual awards to plotters and gardeners were announced. Sandy and his wife did exceptionally well with Second Place prizes for both garden and plot.
GFAA dominated the individual plot awards with Sandy in second place, Gill in fourth and Stuart and Alastair (Stewart) placed fifth equal. Beyond that, a full handful or more of our plotters were presented with certificates of merit.
Perhaps the best moment of the night, however, belonged to Gill who was named as the Best New Entrant in the competition in recognition of her fabulous fourth place in her first year in the competition and only her second year on the plot.
The Lord Provost presented a commemorative engraved hand-trowel and framed certificate to every winner and Aberdeen City Council are to be thanked for hosting the prize-giving and buffet supper in great style.
Thanks go to Stuart too for nagging us all into entering! Hopefully we will see even more entrants and success next year.
Stuart, Gill and I attended this event earlier in the week on behalf of GFAA. The event was hosted by Aberdeen City Council as part of its efforts in the Keep Scotland Beautiful competition. ACC brought together many of the local groups who contribute to the cities efforts, giving us the chance to meet and share with the competition judges.
The event gave us the chance to give an outing to our new GFAA display board, purchased with monies provided by the ACC Small Projects Fund. The board can be borrowed by any plotters for events advancing GFAA.
Stuart asked me to pass on this story:
Jim Henderson visited with us this week to complete his IYN assessment of our site.
It is always a pleasure to meet with Jim who is never short of a story or two to tell or good advice to pass on from his own plot or others he visits. We were not blessed with the best of days (surprise, surprise), but our whole site did look wonderful as did many of the plots. Thanks go to all those who helped get the site and their individual plots into shape for the visit.
GFAA achieved a “thriving” grading last year and we have high hopes for this assessment after adding many new features and activities over the last 12 months. We should have the final result in a few weeks. Watch this space.
On Thursday afternoon Carole Baxter for the BBC Scotland’s Beechgrove Garden came to call. Carole was on site to record materials for a new BBC Radio programme and interviewed a number of our plotters.
On hand were Harry and Leo with Mum, Anne. When asked what they liked eating most on the plot, Harry knew just what to reply – chocolate! Leo on the other hand went for carrots: good answer, but they are better still if dipped in chocolate of course.