JHOS January meeting notes

[slipperscout]

Last night's JHOS meeting was held in a new location in an upscale assisted living retirement center. I gave a very general talk on orchid growing and emphasized the need to match growing conditions of light and temperature with the needs of the plants, and for beginning growers to select divisions of plants that others have grown easily. Using conditions available to the windowsill/underlights grower as the baseline, I compared the ease of growing phals. and maudiae hybrids with representatives of all major alliances of orchids. I presented 50 slides from the internet selected for splendiferous blooming. Following the presentation JHOS gave all attending residents a FBS phal. in spike along with a beginner's culture instructions. Our wholesale cast was $100. In return the residents returned an estimated $1,000,000 in gratitude and appreciation for the presentation. The activity director was so pleased with the residents response that she will budget for 2 future JHOS society speakers. Our members were besieged by the residents seeking additional information and were very impressed by the good will that we had generated. Truly, a win-win situation for everyone! It might work for you and your local society!!

 

[SlipperKing]

Wow, now that's a novel idea

 

[NYEric]

Very good results!

 

[rangiku]

Excellent fund-raising idea for orchid societies. slipperscout, what OS is JHOS and would you please disclose your speaker fee?

 

[slipperscout]

Jhos

The Jersey Highlands Orchid Society is approximately 4 years old.
We are a very small (24 members) meeting in northern NJ (Sussex County). We usually have 18-20 members attend our monthly meetings.
From the outset our society leadership has made an effort to involve all members in attendance in active participation in the monthly meetings be it at the plant show table, refreshments, the culture corner or whatever. All participate and contribute whether they be novice or experienced growers.
The society ambience is modeled after the Ramapo Orchid Society as I knew it when Carlos Fighetti and David Booth were actively involved in that group.
In that group all members were treated with equal respect and their society had fun together!
In northern NJ speakers are very hard to come by. Most speakers charge $200-$250 which is very expensive for our small group. We draw on our own members for about 2/3 of our meeting's speakers recognizing that all have something to contribute. So far it has worked, as we continue to grow in membership.

 

[rangiku]

Thanks for the info, slipperscout. It is very important to treat all members with respect, to have fun and be resourceful. You certainly have demonstrated that.