2017
Slopefield allotments and our partnership with Airyhall school and The James Hutton Institute featured as a case study in the '20 years of Action For Biodiversity In The Northeast of Scotland' booklet compiled by the North East of Scotland Biodiversity partnership which highlighted the 20 most important biodiversity projects being carried out in this area.
A new community swap area was constructed from scaffolding boards and relocated to the bottom carpark.
Although our new website was uploaded in 2016 it has been continually added to and improved throughout 2017 with new pages including, Newsletter, Awards, Slopefield Frogs Project, Managing Your Allotment, New Zealand Flatworms, MYHarvest, Fruit and Vegetable Growing Guides, Automatic watering, Crop Protection and Sponsors.
One very interesting personal project highlighted in the Biodiversity section of the website is 'The Slopefield Frogs Project' carried out by Loraine Milne from plot 40. Loraine took some frog spawn from her small pond home and photographically documented the life cycle of the frog from spawn to adult frog.
During the year we received a number of deliveries of woodchipping's from Granite City Tree Surgeons.
Aberdeen City Council delivered 15 tonnes of granite dust which is being put to good use maintaining the Slopefield roads by Terry, Gordon and the roads team. The council also carried out major drainage improvements which should benefit the lower car park.
This year Keep Scotland Beautiful had a theme of 'Birds, Bees and Trees'. The children of Airyhall school produced lots of lovely paintings and drawings on this theme and then we created a 'Bird and Bee' poster trail around the site and also a community Birdfeeder area within the trees abounding the lower car park.
Our efforts went down well with the IYN assessors as yet again we achieved a level 5 'Outstanding' and a 'Certificate of Distinction' in the 2017 'It's Your Neighbourhood' awards scoring 96 points out of a possible 100.
Bob McGregor and Terry Stott picked up the award at the 'It's Your Neighbourhood' conference in Stirling in October.
Another successful annual bonfire in November got rid of lots of wood and plant waste.