Moving in

A welcome warm sunny day saw a hive of activity in the Trading Hut this morning. We decided to move as much as we could in from the Barn and start trading properly from the new Hut.

First in were the potatoes, which are a lot heavier than you imagine. Then the seeds were properly displayed and volunteers Maria and Margaret were able to show off our new shop counter.

At the same time Ryan, Doug and Len made a start on the new flat pack shelving.

After a lot of prodding and poking the shelves were ready to go.

Thanks to everyone who helped move boxes, rolls and heavy stuff today – it really was a joint effort.

Next Sunday we need a group of strong people at 10am to move all the compost out of Container 1. We are keeping one container and giving the other back at the end of March but they both need to be emptied first. Please turn up if you can.

Then on Easter Sunday at 10.30-12 we will have a celebratory tea and cakes to ‘open’ the new Hut. Please do come along with your friends and families – and a cake! We are also going to start a bit more fundraising to top up the Hut fund, as we have had to buy a lot of new fittings for the Hut. If you can put some money or a cheque in the ‘collection’ please do.

Despite the gloomy weather a large band of trusty members turned out this Sunday morning to move the bulk of the stored Trading Hut supplies into the new Trading Hut.

All the compost bags, chemicals and pellets fitted snugly into the old Barn. We’re going to keep them there so if you want to buy some, you’ll go to the new counter, order your bags and then we’ll come and get them with you.

It took no time at all to get it all cleared. It was a bit of a squash getting all the little bits and pieces rehomed, especially since some of them will be going back inside the container once it is moved to its final resting place. However, the crew then worked at break-neck speed inside the Hut to turn the ‘mess’ into a real shop. It’s amazing how heavy and fiddly the canes are!

Then it was time for Mandy to take orders for tea and biscuits for all the volunteers, and make it all in our new kitchen.

The pickled beetroot is open!

There hasn’t been a newsletter for a long time, but I hope you have all been following the progress of building our new Trading Hut – there’s lots of info and pictures on the main blog site .

I’m delighted to say that we are now trading in earnest, with everything laid out so it’s easy to see. I hope we have also reduced the amount of humping bags around we used to do by continuing to store the compost in the container. Just order from the pictures in the Hut and then collect your bags!

The building work was overseen by plotholder Charlie Flowerday with his team – Bill, Joe, Terry, Matt and many others along the way. A lot of the decisions were made as we went along, which meant that we got some good solutions – I’m particularly fond of the shutters and grateful that Charlie suggested we could have an extra inside toilet for virtually no extra cost.

The building work cost around £57,000, which included clearing rubbish and the septic tank. We also had costs for hiring the containers and buying the kitchen equipment, some of which was covered by the £10,000 grant from Awards for All.

We are very pleased with our new Trading Hut. We will be providing tea and coffee and cakes every Sunday morning for 50p, so please do come in and have a chat (and buy something whilst you’re there). We’d like people to join the Tea Rota, to makes cakes every now and then and serve the tea. If you are interested, please contact Felicity or Brenda.