[corynsboy]

One of our members works for the local probation service.  She asked if she could have a couple of the community service lads down on the plot to help her dig over the plot out during the winter.

Our Secretary & our Treasurer contacted the local probation service and now once a week, every week we have a group of up to 8 lads and a probation officer visit the site from 10 am until 3:30 pm. 

You have to have toilet facilities, and provide water and basic refreshments (tea coffee milk sugar squash). We spoil ours with coffee and doughnuts for breakfast and kitkats with their tea breaks.   

You need at least one member of the committee there to organise and plan the works and you have absolutely no jurisdiction over any of the offenders and you liaise with the on site probation officer.  Terms and conditions of work can be agreed upon depending on your particular needs.

We've been using the teams to dig over new member's plots and tackle the communal tasks on the site.  It's been a real eye opener and there are very few problems.  The overhead is about £10 per visit in refreshments.  Worth every penny. 

We don't have Tony Soprano cutting our grass or anything, these are just regular people, not dissimilar to you and me, that have fallen foul of the system for one reason or another and have been asked by a magistrate to make amends.

It occurred to me that some of you might have a load of jobs on site  that need doing and none of your members have the time to help out so they get left year after year.  This may be the answer.

Give your local probation service a call and see if you can get them on board.  They are usually looking for outside work for low risk offenders and our allotment sites are just the sort of thing that the probation service have in mind as suitable work.

This also ticks loads of community boxes that you might need for grant applications etc. 

[Yorkie]

Thanks for that CB

We've already have the probation service doing more concrete jobs round the sites here e.g. painting railings but it's a useful reminder 

[johnnyboy]

"digging over new members plots"............no
"communial tasks" ........yes
"worth every penny"..... Now, this is the part of the post I dislike the most. "just regular people, noyt dissimilar to you and me".... but, you want them to do your Donkey Work.

How about showing the YO`s what we do on our allotments. Let them prepare their own piece of land, sow some seeds......reep the harvest.

"This may be the answer".... No its not, its just exploiting YO`s. Whilst I truly believe that YO¬s should repay society, having them dig over a piece of derilict ground, is far by "the answer".
If you want them to dig, Im sure there are lots of elder peoples gardens that need doing.


Totally against this form of community service. I can think of 1000`s of other thing that they could be doing that would be more beneficial to society than digging over an allotment plot.
I normally finish my posts with IHTDO, but in this case I will abstain.
Regards Johnnyboy

[zazen999]

What's IHTDO?

[mike1987]

when i was on comunity service a fair few years ago (by the way it worked ive never been in trouble since) we did quite a few large unkept comunial gardens i was singled out for most of them because i worked as a groundsman the only problem is that private gardens bussness areas can not be done by them also if the job would and should be done by someone who is payed by the council im not sure if vacant plots come under this but for some reason the boundry fencing does?? as for digging your plot over there may be a ruling about that however you could contact the local probation services to see what they say

[corynsboy]

I'm not getting into this Jonnyboy.  You are way off topic.  My point is not whether this is right or wrong and I'm not canvassing personal opinion.

This is an available resource for allotment societies that by and large do not have a lot of money.  I thought this might be of interest to those of our members who run allotment societies as I imagine that we all suffer the same issues.

In my case our groups are not young offenders.  They are offenders.  All ages, both sexes.  Hence the "people like you and me" statement.  It was not my intention to make value judgements on the people that make up our visiting groups, only to assure the people that make decisions on allotment societies that the groups are always made up of low risk individuals.   I apologise if I came off as anything other than this, it was not my intention.

I am lead to believe that there are many initiatives across the country specifically dealing with agriculture and horticulture as training and rehabilitation courses for young offenders.  I understand that they are also very successful for for occupational therapy for people suffering from depression.   That is not what we are doing and that's not what my post is all about.

I'm sorry if I've struck a sore pointed with any one.  This post is about available local resource for committee members.

[mike1987]

can i alos add that in my area there are many youth inclusion groups run by the fire brigade that have been working on comunity growing projects these seem to be great as they get a sence of achevement (now how to get them to help clear my plot lol)