Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat
Growing => Grow Your Own => Topic started by: Sprouts on September 26, 2012, 18:37
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I am secretary of our allotment association I have seen this on various sites www.mycolony.co.uk have signed up for the free trial but seems a bit pricey when the trial ends
Anyone used it or any other software?
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Gosh, someone is trying to make a bit of money out of allotments ::)
I too am the secretary of an allotment association and would never have even imagined that I would need a piece of software to do it.
So no - never used or tried (ore even heard) of it.
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I use Word for the minutes, and we use Excel for the accounts.
Why would you need anything more complicated?
Edit: have now looked at it. I see what it covers. I'd spend the next 14 days finding out what features it has, and then put it into Excel to manage.
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Sounds just like a 'simple' ??? managment programme, with the words allotment ::) added to bling it up to sell it.
Like where you can hi light days in a calendar to remind you to do something / send a letter?
Surely there'll be a free app/programme out there to do exactly the same thing?..... :nowink: ::)
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I don't run an allotment, but I do help run the local community centre. I created a dedicated Gmail account for it. It's free and has email, calendars, task lists, reminders and Google Drive, which you can use for documents and spreadsheets.
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I have a comprehensive spreadsheet which runs on GoogleDocs, which is good not least because all my committee members can see or update it in real time. It is good not least because it automates the calculation of rents, and can answer questions such as if rents go up by so much then what is the effect on the bank account. It includes a visual map of the plots with the names of who rents each plot.
Andy
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Andy,
Could you provide a link or a couple of screenshots?
Ive heard great things about google apps and can grasp the spreadsheet side of things but a visualization of how you do the 'extras' would be nice.
Cheers,
Balders
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I hope I can do better than pictures. If you send me an email at andyswarbs at gmail.com then I will invited you to a copy that I will call EAA Demo Spreadsheet. I will spend a bit of time sanitising this to remove a lot of personal information to protect my plotholders before sharing.
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Please remember that anything offered on our forums must be foc. or for a non monetary swap.
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;)
Thanks Andy _ have mailed you...
Might send you an artificial bitcoin... ;) (though I understand the need for the warning)
Cheers,
Balders
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The Blackpool Federation of Allotment Associations which manage six sites across Blackpool use Colony, we find it very good but then we do have a lot of data to manage.
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We have over 300 plots on our site and I would not want to explain to the plot holders that we were using £210.00 of their association fees a year for a piece of software. I have been secretary and am now treasurer and have always used Word or Excel. I would be wary of sharing on Google docs any personal info on the plot holders as this is subject to the DPA.
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I have written my own MS Access database to manage our allotment site. It was simple and free :)
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It is good to raise the issue of the Data Protection Act. I would ask if you have any concerns of sending any details, say via Email? Also if a committee uses MyColony what is its DPA risk assessment?
I would argue that many, if not most committees will share personal data by sending an email attachment, for example as a word document. Also I would argue that the difference between sending an email is equal to the same DPA aspects, and in many ways is a more risky solution.
As for MyColony that is an online solution, and so probably has a similar DPA profile as GoogleDocs.
Sharing with GoogleDocs has at least one advantage that I can share with a group called "EAA Committee" and as those members change over time they have access granted or taken away automatically. I use same group to send out emails to the committee thus if I am sending committee emails out to the correct people then de facto my GoogleDocs eaa committee folder is protected correctly.
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The council is considering going onto dedicated allotment management software for its 16+ sites and 1200+ plots. I have seen a demo of the full Colony suite. Whichever software is acquired, it will be hosted behind the council's firewall with secure log-in details. As one of the site secretaries for the council, I will only be able to access data about my site and not the others. Neither will I have access to the sensitive data e.g. concessionary rates for the tenants on my site.
GoogleDocs is as risky as email as it is on the internet and thus less well protected than the council's firewall.
In the meantime we use email to advise the council when plots are allocated to individuals, and the council likewise uses email to notify us of new people onto the waiting list.
When the software is up and running it will be far more secure than emails.
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I would be surprised if any technician would regard MyColony behind a council's firewall as significantly superior to googledocs, excepting that certain committee members might not be able to access certain details eg working vs retired. Like all databases what matters more than the database security is the security profile of the people using it.
Do I trust anyone in my committee to know who is retired and who isn't? Do my plotholders care? And there comes the rub. Providing one understands the risks of any computer system and explains those risks clearly to the community you serve, and especially take care of personal details then what is the problem one is trying to solve.
I can understand a council taking a very strict & uncompromising attitude. A council has a right to be totally paranoid about such matters. But they do so at considerable cost - and a cost that gets passed down to plotholders. And also, sadly my guess is that their attitude may work well as far as a computer system goes, but will break down when it comes to an allotment committee.
(Let me just add that some of our plotholders do like to keep their life very private. These members are very paranoid about privacy. Such people do not have their data stored. Such data would not even be added to myColony.)
After all, ALL allotment committee members worldwide will - even if they use mycolony - share personal data by email. That's a fact. So any security embedded in mycolony, no matter how it is deployed breaks down to the level of GoogleDocis when one considers the human aspects.
I consider myself computer fluent. With no disrespect intended, some of my committee members struggle to use the Internet & Email. That, my guess struggling with the Internet is true of most allotment committees. These are not professionals paid £000s by councils with secure contracts. They are volunteers.
So you pay lots of money for a secure system and then put it in the hands of ... Is the result secure? My guess any sense of security worthy of GCHQ would be a whole charade.
My allotment committee works hard to justify spending £50. The idea of spending several £100s annually for myColony - well it will never happen.
I am not saying that myColony is not good. But GoogleDocs is brilliant. For instance on my Android phone I can walk around my allotment site and annotate details via my phone on the live spreadsheet such as plot condition, trees that may need maintenance, fence maintenance etc. Also if someone makes a complaint I can log that on the complaints spreadsheet. All done over a secure connection.
The safest system is pen & paper. Add a computer and you increase risks. Add the Internet and you increase risks again. But most people accept these as a trade off for functionality.
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Each to their own.
You do a disrespect to committees elsewhere by saying they all share tenant data though. Some of us abide by the DPA.
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I hope I do not disparage anyone. Certainly that was not my intention. If that is the way my post has been interpreted then I can only apologise.
My goal was to make clear that it is within the scope of the DPA for committees to legally use email.
Sharing tenant data as such is not against the DPA: it all depends who you share it with. If you share it with the world at large that would be wrong. If you share tenant data with non-committee members that would be wrong.
However if you share it with fellow committee members so they can fulfil their duties that would be right It does not matter whether you send emails, using GoogleDocs or myColony. Within the committee, these are all examples of tools to help allotment associations function effectively. And they are all entirely within the law.
There are even specific exemptions for non-profit organisations (such as allotment associations) to ensure they can function with less bureaucracy than a normal company. For instance they do not need to "register" with the Information Commissioner.
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Thank you for your clarification.
I think a committee needs to be very clear who needs to have access to which data.
Nobody on my committee needs to have access to the records of tenants so it doesn't get shared. With regard to this data I am covered by the council's DPA situation. There is no need for me to have access to sensitive information on a routine basis and therefore I don't.
I do not need to have access to association membership records and so I don't.
Just because someone is on the committee doesn't mean the data can be shared with them, particularly if it is sensitive data.
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It is the same with our committee, only the allocations officer and the site secretary have access to the records of tenants. As I am treasurer I do not need, or indeed have, access to these records. We also get new tenants agreement to shared emails. All important information is put on the notice boards for those who no not want/do not have, email.
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I guess it depends on who does what task. Our treasurer is in full charge of all letting matters relating to money. The core input for the treasurer is the plot list, which includes who is retired, names & addresses & telephone numbers. With those details our treasurer chases people who have not paid or have paid the wrong amount.
Eventually if people have still not paid their rent then she relays that information back to the committee for escalation and thence back to the plot management team who will, if all else fails, re-let the plot to someone new.
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Absolutely, andy - the task dictates who needs the access :D