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Scottish Allotments and Gardens Society

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Message from the SAGS Board

Dear SAGS members

 

The original version of SAGs was formed in 1917 - The Scottish National Union of Allotment Holders (SNUAH) - and was eventually to become a SCIO (charitable association) in 2020. 

 

Over the years, SAGS has kept gardeners (and allotmenteers) up to date with the news and trends, helped new allotments to develop, and faced impacting issues. In recent years, SAGS has been instrumental in helping the Scottish Government develop the Community Empowerment Act, Section 9, with the aim of providing more allotment spaces across Scotland for those wanting to grow their own fruit and vegetables.

 

Whilst we continued to engage with the government, using the Tri-Partite Group as the vehicle for communication, it has become clear that the CEA Section 9 is not the ground breaking solution to allotments that it should have been. 

 

Aside from that, in the modern era, SAGS has spread to many areas of Scotland and developed to be more than a central belt focused organisation, bringing new challenges with regards to face-to-face meetings and events.

 

SAGS continued to evolve and offers many great connections with gardening companies and nurseries, giving our members fantastic discounts on seeds, bulbs, fertilisers, insurance and much more. However, this is nothing different to the UK wide National Allotment Society, and, until recently, a lot of SAGS members have also been members of NAS.

 

The SAGS board is made up entirely of volunteer members. Unfortunately, in this current era, people are less likely to get involved in the management of organisations such as SAGS and, as a result, we have not been able to attract any new blood to join our board for the upcoming elections. With the current members stepping down by rotation, this leaves SAGS in an untenable situation. We are currently in a consultation period with our members which runs until 5th March. If we cannot recruit enough volunteers to serve on the board of SAGS, we will be asking our members to ballot to dissolve SAGS.

 

As a result, we will no longer be accepting new membership applications or membership renewals. SAGS members will continue to enjoy the discounts we have negotiated using the codes on our members only page.

 

SAGS members can take part in our consultation via the members only page. If you want to be considered for the SAGS board, please click on the link below: