Who knows anything about Colony, an allotments management programme?

[john9159]

Manchester City Council have adopted an allotments management programme for secretaries and site managers to utilise.
This means a lot of additional work which I and others do not get paid for.
MCC sent a staff member to explain the package but clearly this person did not know anything about it.
I've asked for access to evaluate it but have had no response yet.
I would like to hear from someone in the UK knows about this package in detail.
Thank you

[KevinM67]

A wee bit more info is needed before anyone can state an opinion, I think.

[KevinM67]

Doing a quick Google - I see it's a piece of software from a company that is supposed to help local authorities in their allotments management (that you stated in your post - sorry).

[KevinM67]

So to get back on point...

I assume that Manchester City Council currently manages allotment sites in their area, so...

Is the gripe about lack of training over the installation of new software ?

A change in working practices without consultation ?

This responsibility has been moved to another section of the council ?

Give us a wee bit more info.

[sparrow100]

We don't use it here (South London borough) as far as I know. Am on C'ttee of our self-managed site. 50% of sites in the borough are self-managed and as far as I am aware we just liaise with the allotments official in the Council over paying yearly rent and our water bill. We sort everything else out ourselves.

[KevinM67]

I'm really sorry - I should have read your post properly first.

Are you a member of an allotment committee that has had this new system put in place for you ?

[john9159]

I'm the site manager of an allotment where I do the accounts, collect rents, bank the money, manage the waiting list, interview prospective tenants, carry out plot inspections, carry out site maintenance and most other things. It is a Society so is self-managed. I do everything as the committee is dysfunctional to say the least. I'm also the first point of contact with all external bodies.
MCC first approached AMAS to whom we are affiliated (Assoc. of Manch. Allot. Societies), a spin-off from the NAS (National Allot's Assoc.) who seem quite happy to tow the line and get all allotments to participate without question.
MCC removed their Allotments Manager years ago so allotment site managers or secretaries deal with day to day matters.
From what I know of Colony, it's a family run concern (alarm bells start to ring already) we input details of plot holders on the program, enter results of plot inspections, number of tenants and that's the sum of my knowledge and all this is stored in a cloud.
Apparently when a problem arises, in a plot inspection for example, it is flagged up so MCC know about it and print off a nasty letter which I'm supposed to send to the tenant. This removes all personal contact with tenants meaning problems cannot be solved by mutual agreement.
We were given a four page document by MCC which had four screen shots, two of which were the same; this meant nothing as anyone can imagine.
Councils pay the Colony folk £10K for the package plus £2k each year.
Mine is a small site with capacity for 32 tenants but I dread to think how sites with 180 or more tenants will cope.
I'm disappointed that AMAS felt no need to question the purpose of it all and the workload it puts on us already. The worry for some is that of data protection; it's all very well for them at Colony to say the info is safe, but just how "safe" is safe?

[Snadger]

I'm the site manager of an allotment where I do the accounts, collect rents, bank the money, manage the waiting list, interview prospective tenants, carry out plot inspections, carry out site maintenance and most other things. It is a Society so is self-managed. I do everything as the committee is dysfunctional to say the least. I'm also the first point of contact with all external bodies.
MCC first approached AMAS to whom we are affiliated (Assoc. of Manch. Allot. Societies), a spin-off from the NAS (National Allot's Assoc.) who seem quite happy to tow the line and get all allotments to participate without question.
MCC removed their Allotments Manager years ago so allotment site managers or secretaries deal with day to day matters.
From what I know of Colony, it's a family run concern (alarm bells start to ring already) we input details of plot holders on the program, enter results of plot inspections, number of tenants and that's the sum of my knowledge and all this is stored in a cloud.
Apparently when a problem arises, in a plot inspection for example, it is flagged up so MCC know about it and print off a nasty letter which I'm supposed to send to the tenant. This removes all personal contact with tenants meaning problems cannot be solved by mutual agreement.
We were given a four page document by MCC which had four screen shots, two of which were the same; this meant nothing as anyone can imagine.
Councils pay the Colony folk £10K for the package plus £2k each year.
Mine is a small site with capacity for 32 tenants but I dread to think how sites with 180 or more tenants will cope.
I'm disappointed that AMAS felt no need to question the purpose of it all and the workload it puts on us already. The worry for some is that of data protection; it's all very well for them at Colony to say the info is safe, but just how "safe" is safe?

Frightening! They'd shut us down within a week of adopting this program! Far too officious for what is supposed to be a leisure activity!