The Summer Show is coming soon!

Hello to you all

We hope you are enjoying the summer in your garden.

This is a reminder that our Summer Show is on Saturday 19th August opening at 2.30pm in the Village Hall. Hopefully, the date is already firmly in your diary but please check and plan ahead with all your entries. Exhibitors must submit their entry forms by 8pm Wednesday 16 August. Entries must be brought along and placed in the hall between 8:30am and 11:00am on Saturday 19 August, then all exhibitors must leave the village hall and judging commences.

We would love our 75th Anniversary Show to be the biggest ever in terms of number of entries. If you haven’t entered before this would be a great time to start. All your favourites are there, Vegetables, Flowers, Floral Art, Cookery and Preserves, and of course the Children’s classes.

A special this time is the ‘Tallest Sunflower’ and the ‘Largest Sunflower head’, so keep the sunflowers well supported, well fed and watered and the judges will visit all entrants on Thursday 17th August to measure and take pictures to display at the show.

The schedule of all classes is now available; paper copies are in the Village shop (a blue cover so look out for it to browse through); to view online within our web site click here. VPA Summer Show – Little Gaddesden VPA (lgvpa.org)

The online exhibitor entry form on our web site will be available soon too. In the meantime go through the class options and take a good look around your garden to see how things are coming along.

We will keep you informed when the online entry form is ready. As a reminder, when an online entry is submitted you receive a copy of what you entered by return email so you can easily print it out to have by you when preparing your entries. You can, if you wish, complete the paper entry form and deliver to Alastair Greene or Phil Bunting but keep a copy of what you have chosen to enter.

It’s time to get excited about how things are growing.

Thanks for supporting the AGM & May Plant Sale

We were very fortunate in being supported by Sheila Das from the RHS at the VPA AGM on Tuesday night, who gave a great talk on Edible Growing at Wisley Gardens. We heard about all the challenges of the project to create a wellbeing zone and an edible garden area, together with the stylish education facilities at Hill Top at Wisley.

The evening began with sparkling wine and ended with a marvellous celebration cake created by Anne Isherwood.

The admin of the AGM was kept to a minimum but the Committee members were elected to serve for the coming year.

June Abraham together with Sheila Das presented Janet Stinton with a Recognition Award from the VPA/RHS for ‘Horticultural support to the village’, and a lovely Rose bush (called the ‘Generous Gardener’) in a pot.

May Plant Sale
We will be manning tables in the Marquee on Sunday 7th May at the Coronation Event. Please be generous with your plant donations. You can bring them along to the VPA Store on Sunday 7th May at 10am (if before then just leave them at the door).

For a bit of fun we will have a Sunflower growing competition this year with the tallest Sunflower and the Sunflower with the largest diameter head attracting prizes at our Summer Show on August 19th. So get planting and Kate has some small plants for sale already growing, if you want to get a head start, buy them at the Marquee on the 7th May.

Reminder 75th Anniversary VPA AGM Tues 25 April 6.45pm Church Hall

If you haven’t already let Alastair know that you would like to attend, please do so so that we can better manage the event (843667 or alastairgreene@btinternet.com).

We are delighted to welcome Sheila Das to our AGM this year, RHS Wisley Garden Manager for Edibles, Education Seed and Wellbeing, what a wonderful job title!

Sheila will present to us ‘Edible growing for the future at RHS Garden Wisley’.

There will be the usual AGM administration to follow but more importantly we would like to celebrate the occasion with a glass of sparkly and an Anniversary cake!

Please find attached the Annual Accounts for 2022. Full year report to follow.


GDVPA-ACCOUNTS-2022

Annual Membership Renewal

Now that Spring is around the corner (although it doesn’t feel like it this week!) it’s time to pay your annual subscriptions please for VPA membership from 1st April.

You will find details of how to pay your subscriptions below – standing order is still the preferred method. If you have any questions on VPA membership, please contact our new Membership Secretary Tim Crossley-Smith at tim.crossleysmith@gmail.com / 07983 585799. Many thanks to Alastair Greene for his stewardship of the role in recent years.

VPA-Membership-leaflet-with-standing-order-form-1-1

Alternatively, you can download the membership form here

VPA Shop opens today

Hi All

Just a reminder that the VPA Shop opens today, (Sunday 26th Feb). Elliott will be there to meet all your gardening needs. Hopefully we have the essentials already in stock for you but we are happy to widen the range depending on demand, so do let us know what you’d like to see in the shop.

Hope to see you there 10am -12noon on Sundays.

A Successful Winter Show

We are absolutely delighted …… we had a very successful Winter Show ….. the hall was over-flowing with supporters coming to view all the entries which numbered around 250 in total.  Thank you to everyone who contributed to making this traditional event such a success for us all to enjoy.  Congratulations to everyone who was able to enter and particularly to the winners of prizes (details listed on our web site https://lgvpa.org/vpa-events/vpa-winter-show/).  We are very thankful to our judges and we now know where to go to taste exquisite sloe gin; taste a variety of delicious cooking; view beautiful pictures and so much more. Scroll down to see a few images from the day.

You will recall the situation that prevailed upon the VPA at the year end but due to several people coming forward, organising a show was the desire albeit on a short time scale to organise the many facets required; consequently an added thank you for rallying round to create entries and apologies for such a short time frame. 

Looking ahead the next events to be arranged are: the Summer Show set for Saturday 19 August 2023;  we also aim to organise an AGM along with a plant sale around the coronation weekend if that’s possible.  The Harvest Supper and Quiz is set for Saturday 30 September 2023. Please mark your diaries accordingly. It is also the 75th anniversary of the formation of the VPA in Little Gaddesden  https://lgvpa.org/about/history/; we are looking for ideas of how we should mark the occasion throughout the year, please send us your ideas?  

The summer show schedule will be reviewed very shortly and made available to aid your decisions on what seeds to plant up. 

For the plant sale we appreciate all donations that you can offer: “Sow a tray for the VPA” please; look out for further details on posters and social media.  

RHS Discount Card

The VPA is an affiliated society to the RHS which has been renewed and as part of our membership we now have a RHS Garden Entry Discount Card which we can make available to share with our members; it offers two adults a 50% discount off entry to any RHS Garden (Bridgewater, Harlow Carr, Hyde Hall, Rosemoor and Wisley); excludes Flower Shows and Glow illuminations events.  If there is interest in taking a day trip to the Chelsea Flower Show in May 2023 please let us know asap: hello@lgvpa.org.

Solely due to the interest shown by Elliot Bachmann the Store will be opening from 26 February 2023; advance requirement notifications welcomed during the year to help with monitoring stock levels and placing orders with suppliers (being a small enterprise we are likely to have a two week processing window) store@lgvpa.org 

A separate communication will be sent out to the kindly folk who have offered their time to support the two hour store opening slot on Sunday’s; get in touch to add your name to the list, the more volunteers we have, the less frequent mornings are required of one person  store@lgvpa.org    If you are available on Sunday 26 February please pop along when a mini-training induction will be available to get everyone started; this will be very low key but ensure you are supported and feel confident in what is required. 

For anyone needing guidance in pruning our friend Alison Townsend can provide a teach-in (your garden or hers) during February and March on how to keep your plants in good productive order.  A donation to either Teenage Cancer Trust or the Hospice of St Francis is requested in return for her guidance.   If interested get in touch with Alison directly, 07490 954980 / gardeninspirations2000@gmail.com. 

Looking forward to seeing you in Store: The VPA garden store NEEDS YOU 👉 footfall must grow. 

From your Committee 

Winter Show 2023
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The Winter Show is on Saturday!

Hi to all our members and friends of the VPA

The new Committee has done a great job in getting everything ready for Saturday and all we need now are lots of entries. We are hoping that every household will contribute to a bumper show. You can make your entry online of course on the web site www. lgvpa.org or collect an entry form from the shop or a committee member and drop them into Alastair Greene at 1 Pond Lane or Janet Stinton at 5 Ringshall Cottages.

Our photographic judge has offered some 1:1 sessions as prizes so get your photos in.

We can’t wait to display some lovely handicraft for you (not in the competition of course, just exhibits), and we are looking forward to seeing your children’s craft exhibits and all the lovely baked items.

So let us know what you are planning to enter by completing the entry form by Wednesday night and the Village Hall will be ready for you to bring the items along between 9am and 11am on Saturday 4th Feb. Judging will then take place, doors will re-open at 2.30pm and prizes including some generously donated raffle prizes will all be presented around 3.30pm by our very own County. Cllr. Terry Douris.

If you have any queries about the show please call June Abraham on 07760 144057

Some of last years cookery exhibits

Two weeks to prepare for the Winter Show

Here we go, and we are off (please read all of this news item for full details of the Winter Show and we would love you to take part). We are hopeful that a few people may have the odd vegetable left to enter (including ugly ones!), but there are plenty of other classes to consider, all the regular favourites.

Continue reading “Two weeks to prepare for the Winter Show”