Site tidy days and motivation

[alldigging]

How do you motivate people to come and help on communal tidy days?

Suggestions so far include:

- Give people who come and help benefits such as free use of allotment machinery (1 session earnt per session worked)

- Give people who come and help first dibs on free materials that get dropped at site.

- Give people who come and help something nice to eat for helping. tea, cake, BBQ

- Give people who come and help a discount on plot fees (You could always up everyones plot fees by £20 and expect them to come to 2 sessions a year earning a £10 discount for each one they come to, with max set)


Anything else?

[zazen999]

Which bits are they tidying? We don't have any community areas at our plots so we just have our own area to deal with.

What about buying some seeds in bulk, packing into smaller packs and them getting a lucky dip of one packet per half hour tidying time?

[alldigging]

Well on our site it'd be communal areas - we have carpark, paths, orchard, loo area, and a couple of borders that could be planted up (One has some fruit in)

Some sites might want plots cleared before letting though.

[zazen999]

Put it in the agreement that everyone then has to volunteer say 6 hours a year - otherwise the same small number will be doing it all.

[Two_Sheds]

everyone then has to volunteer say 6 hours a year - otherwise the same small number will be doing it all.

Great idea, actually. You're right, the skivers will skive, and the doers will do it all, otherwise. As you give out the Tenancy Agreement, on the back of it have space for 12 half-hour "tidy" jobs: to be dated and signed as and when they have been done


I plant flowers on our communal (weedy) bits, and someone (on the committee) sprays weedkiller on them, or strims them down