Our future is in your hands

We regret to announce that there will be no Swansea in Bloom gardening competition this year.

The managing committee met earlier this month for the first time since February 2020, and agreed unanimously that ongoing restrictions imposed because of Covid, and the difficulties facing us even when these restrictions are lifted, make it impossible for us to organise the competition this year.

Even before the pandemic, SIB was struggling. Despite the success of the 2019 competition, we were finding it hard to raise the sponsorship on which we depend entirely, and our appeals for new committee members, with a few notable exceptions, were largely unsuccessful.

However, the committee decided that we should utilise the coming year to renew our efforts to attract new sponsors and new committee members.

If we fail in this, the future of the Swansea in Bloom annual gardening competition appears bleak.

After Swansea Council was no longer able to support us in 2018, we relied largely on the hospitality industry and small businesses for sponsorship. These areas have suffered badly during the pandemic, and many are themselves struggling to survive, with few resources to spare for organisations such as ours.

But if we are to hold the gardening competition again in 2023, we need Swansea to support our efforts, and we’re appealing to businesses large and small, as well as individuals, to do what they can to help us.

Over the coming months we’ll be conducting email and social media campaigns and approaching as many organisations as our limited resources allow.

Please help us if you can.

Ian Norton
Secretary, SIB