Message from the President.
It is now time to get those seeds and prepare for registration. Our AGM will take place at 7:30 pm March 19th at Louis Riel High School.
Your executive group has met over the winter months and reviewed all of our operations.
One area where I want to alert 2019 gardeners is our fee structure. We are raising fees this year by $10.00 per full plot and $5.00 per half plot. Our 2019 fee structure will be:
Full plots – $70
Half plots – $35
With the benefit of generous grants from Just Food and the Friends of Mer Bleu, we essentially broke even in 2018. However, we are committed to major road repairs in 2019 and expect other cost increases. Even with these increases, we anticipate that we will have a deficit of nearly $5,500 for the 2019 year.
Those commitments include necessary roadwork at Orient Park which was started in the fall before freeze up and will finish in the spring.
At the Anderson site significant maintenance work is ongoing with culvert repair, some drainage and for 2019 – deer fence repairs and tree/undergrowth removal.
Additionally we are anticipating increased costs for tilling, compost delivery and grass cutting.
To cover these costs we will have to use some of our reserve funds even with the fee increase. The board does not want to erode our reserves too much and we need to plan for future exceptional costs.
Please plan to include these increase in your registration planning.
A copy of our 2018 financial statement and budget for 2019 is available here.
Here’s to a successful season.
Regards
John ApSimon
President
