Received in the Post today – Christmas card from the Woodley Mayor
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Category Archives: General
WATA General Meeting – Monday 15th December – Update and Christmas Social
Hi everyone. Our next Association General Meeting will be held on Monday 15th December 2025 at 7.30pm at the Oakwood Centre in Woodley.
Unfortiunaltley, due to some last minute logistical issues, we will not be having a guest speaker. We will instead have another update meeting – and a Q & A session, combined with a Christmas Social with Mulled Wine and Minced Pies available.
Please let us know as soon as possible via readingroadplots@woodley-allotments.org.uk or by replying to this post if you will be attending so we know how many people to cater for.
Looking forward to seeing you on the 15th.
Many thanks &
Kind regards
Mike McNamara
Chair – WATA Committee
WATA – Monthly Meeting Minutes – 10th November 2025
Please find below a link to the minutes of the above meeting.
Whilst, we did cover some allotment business (see minutes). The main event was for listening to our guest speaker, Tony Lack from the Wokingham Beekeepers Association
Another great presentation, I did not know the life of bees were so involved.
Many thanks go to our secretary Wendy Wilkinson for managing to capture all that she did for these minutes.
If you have any questions about items in the minutes, please contact us on readingroadplots@woodley-allotments.org.uk at this email address, and the Committee will be happy to provide any information required.
Look out for information about our next monthly meeting on Monday 15th December.
Many thanks &
Kind regards
Mike McNamara
Chair – WATA Committee
Next WATA General Meeting – Monday 10th November – BEES
Hi all,
Just a short reminder of our next monthly general meeting at the Oakwood Centre in Woodley on the 10th November at 7.30pm,
We will have a short update on Allotment Business items followed by a talk from a Tony Luck who is the Learning & Development Officer for the WDBKA – a local beekeeper association. Tony will talk to us about Bees, their habits and biology and their management. He will touch on the differences between Bees, wasps and Hornets (including the invasive Yellow Legged Hornet) and between Honey bees and Bumblebees.
He will look at the way bees live in synchronicity with plants and trees and with the changing of the seasons. Tony is also a Wokingham Beekeeper who has been keeping bees for over 5 years manages around 15 Honey Bee colonies in various apiaries in the Wokingham area.
The talk will last for about 45 minutes. Looking forward to seeing you at the meeting.
Many thanks &
Kind regards
Mike McNamara
Chair – WATA Committee
WATA – Monthly Meeting Minutes – 13th Oct. 2025
Please find below a link to the minutes of the above meeting.
Whilst we did cover some allotment business (see minutes). The main event was for listening to our guest speakers, Daniel Tyrkiel & Dr. Frida Mariana from the Soil Ecology Laboratory.
What an amazing presentation, it was also great to get some of our Compost/Soil samples analysed in front of us. Many thanks go to our secretary Wendy Wilkinson for managing to capture all that she did for the minutes.
If you have any questions about items in the minutes, please contact us readingroadplots@woodley-allotments.org.uk and the Committee will be happy to provide any information required.
Look out for information about our next monthly meeting on Monday 10th November.
Many thanks &
Kind regards
Mike McNamara
Chair – WATA Committee
WATA Committee Meeting Bullet Points
Please find below Bullet Points from our last Committee meeting. Simply click on the image below if you would like a PDF to download and read offline.
If you have any questions/comments, then please let us know by leaving a comment at the bottom of this post – ‘Leave a Reply‘- or by emailing readingroadplots@woodley-allotments.org.uk and we will get back to you with a response.
Finally, we continue to build up our revised Mailing List, if you have not already joined it, you can opt-in here.
WATA – Monthly Meeting Minutes – 15th Sept. 2025
As our speaker for the September monthly meeting was unavailable at short notice, the Committee decided to proceed with the meeting and present a ‘half-term’ report on the Committee’s activities since the last AGM, held approximately six months earlier.
Please find below a link to the comprehensive minutes of that meeting. You may notice while reading that some of the items discussed have already been addressed; those that have not, are still being looked into.
I apologise for the delay in getting these out to everyone. If you have any questions about items in the minutes, please contact us readingroadplots@woodley-allotments.org.uk and the Committee will be happy to provide any information required.
Many thanks &
Kind regards
Mike McNamara
Chair – WATA Committee
Next WATA General Meeting – Monday 13th October – LIFE IN THE SOIL
Our next WATA General meeting will be held on Monday 13th October at the Oakwood Centre in Woodley, this time starting at 7pm. As with previous meetings, we will start with a general Allotment Associating update on a number of items, followed by a guest speaker.
This meeting’s guest speaker will be Jonny Furze, who is a Compost Scaling Engineer from Soil Ecology Laboratory/Soil Smiths. They are a research company that looks at the best ways to enhance soil quality.
In terms of the evening talk, it will be a general outline of the microbiological life (soil food web) within the soil, introducing people to how the web of life within the soil functions, and how various parts of the web interact with plants to bring nutrition to the plants. There will also be a review on composting, which we think will be of interest to all tenants, along with a few tips.
One interesting aspect of this talk is that they ask you to bring along a soil/compost sample from your plot to have it analysed under microscopes so you can see exactly what is in it.
Their talk will be about 45 minutes long and they encourage people to come along with questions. Once the talk has finished, people can continue questioning them as they start to look through their samples. Hence, the earlier start of this meeting.
Soil Smiths are a commercial company that manufactures and sells products related to the topic of this talk, which they will being along and offer a 20% discount on any purchased on the night. Just so everyone is aware, the Committee have no financial interest in or any connection with Soil Ecology Laboratory/Soil Smiths, we however think it will be an interesting talk for all that attend.
Please let us know by responding to this post as soon as possible or via readingroadplots@woodley-allotments.org.uk, so that we can get an idea of how many people may want to attend.
Many thanks &
Kind regards
Mike McNamara
Chair – WATA Committee
Managed Bonfires and Rubble Disposal
As you will be aware from previous posts, the Committee has been working with WTC on various actions that will assist plot tenants in dealing with the removal of various types of rubbish from their plots (one being the yearly skips that we have on site in the Spring).
With that in mind, please see below an important Special Bulletin that outlines two new schemes that will begin to help with the clearing up of unused Wood and Rubble from tenants’ allotment plots. Simply click on the image below to view the full Special Bulletin.
The Committee expects to make further announcements about other types of rubbish disposal schemes soon. If you have any questions about this Special Bulletin, please contact the Committee by replying to this post or via readingroadplots@woodley-allotments.org.uk.
Many thanks &
Kind regards
Mike McNamara
Chair – WATA Committee
Some nice sky photos across the plots – have you got any to share?
Woodley Allotments Tenants Association at Reading Road 