Annual General Meeting 2024
Talk "Growing Beans" by Susan Young
Sunday 25th Feb at RISC, 35-39 London Street, Reading RG1 4PS
The meeting started at 4:40pm with a seed swap, followed by the AGM at 5pm.
The agenda for the AGM was
- Chair's Report
- Treasurer's Report
- Election of committee
- AOB
The committee from 2023 was Michael Bright (chair), Lindsey Brown (treasurer), Beth Scott (secretary), Karen Blakeman and Liz Kerry. Liz has decided to stand down, and the remaining four members were re-elected without any objections. We would like to thank Liz for all her help over the last few years. The chair also noted thanks to Karen for all the seed swaps (real world and postal) over the last year.
The committee would welcome new members so please consider joining us. If you would like to join, please contact secretary@readingfoodgrowingnetwork.org.uk
The report mentions our work on Incredible Edible Reading, and anyone interested can find out more on the Incredible Edible Reading website, where you can also sign up to the mailing list.
The AGM was followed by a talk:
Growing Beans
Talk by Susan Young, followed by Q&A
Beans - to shell and eat fresh, or to dry and store - are easy to grow, easy to cook, delicious, nourishing and are healthy for us and the healthy for the planet. In this talk Susan will tell how she discovered beans during travels in South America. Interested to see what she could grow at home, Susan experimented with multiple varieties sourced from countries in Europe to discover which beans grow well in an English climate and are good to eat. Susan will explain how to sow, grow, harvest, dry, store and cook them, and will share her favourite ‘must grow’ varieties.
Susan is a retired university lecturer who specialises in music education and continues to write and research on that topic. She has always been an enthusiastic vegetable grower and now lives in the Wye Valley on roughly 2 acres of land. There are cultivated areas for vegetables and flowers but the majority of the land is a beautiful wild flower meadow. The idea to write about her bean enthusiasm and encourage others to recognise the value of growing beans had been in the back of her mind for a while and then the lockdown offered the right opportunity to make it happen.
Susan Young is the author of Growing Beans A Diet for Healthy People and Planet. Read the book review on the Permaculture website.
Thank you to everyone for your donations towards the cost of the event, and for refreshments.