Squamish
Gardeners’ Club
General
Meeting
Carol Robson chaired a brief business meeting.
The library garden
needs weeding, particularly as the builders nearby have scattered garbage
(although the foreman told Moira Biggin-Pound that it will be cleared up). Carol is looking for volunteers to weed on
Thursday morning at
Dave Colwell also sent his apologies. He has put up two slide shows on the site: one for those who use PowerPoint, and one without. He’d appreciate feedback. Carol encouraged this, as he has spent hours creating the slide shows. A few people are having problems accessing the site -–he may be working on it.
Phyllis Carter invited eight friends to the Garden Tour, and two of them won prizes. One can’t use the power-washer prize, so a draw was held for it at the end of the meeting (as proposed by Astrid Andersen).
Garden Tour: Carla Halvorson Burke sent her apologies. Everyone put in a lot of effort, and Carol said that it had been a fun tour to organise. All went well on the day. One of the garden owners, Rose, said that all her volunteers were on time and pleasant. Next year we should keep track of visitors per garden. One garden had had 121 visitors.
Dorte Froslev mentioned that 100 tickets had been printed, 8 were lost and 16 weren’t sold, giving a total of 76. Forty-nine volunteer tickets were sold. An unknown number of single-garden tickets were sold.
Sarah Clarke wondered if tickets were too expensive, particularly for a family with children. Perhaps a $25 ticket for a family or couple would be a good idea. There was some discussion as to whether the tour was suitable for children, and whether they were actually welcome. Perhaps well-supervised children would be acceptable (and this is mentioned already on the tickets). Marie Lamontagne felt that couple and family tickets should be priced differently. It was agreed that this subject would be discussed in the fall.
Carla had mentioned that we should advertise in Whistler and Pemberton. There was a discussion as to whether the gardens should be listed on the website, to make it easier for people to visit those in their area. Perhaps a list of gardens could be available at the Adventure Centre, on the day. For mention in Gardens West, information has to be placed in February. The general feeling of the meeting was that the tour should be kept small. The website should be given on the tickets.
The proceedings of the raffle go to the Friends of the Library, $528 this year, minus costs. Now that the rules for raffles have been changed by the Province, perhaps the club will be able to keep the money in the future. Some people had trouble keeping track of the tickets. Should the $2 and 3 for $5 be different colours? The total income from the tour was $1,516. Expenses will be deducted from this total.
The executive
normally decides on a gift for
People generally
liked the
Beth Fitzpatrick wondered if we should have a rain date in the future, but that was felt to be too difficult.
The question of donations was raised, but Nairn Stewart mentioned that the cost of the speakers this year should be known first. There was some discussion about raising entry fees for the tour, versus giving money away. Suggestions for donations can be brought to the September meeting.
Ellen grant suggested sending a letter out to ask people if they would be interested in having their gardens in next year’s tour. Perhaps an application form for gardens could be placed in next year’s Garden Supplement in the Chief, appearing around March break. Carol would like to compile a check-list for next year.
Beth volunteered to compile a history of the Club.
Carol asked for volunteers to man the booth at the Fall Fair – sign-up list provided.
Programme: September: Curator of the UBC Garden, David Charm.
October 15: Chris Woods, new Director of the Van Dusen Botanical Gardens
November: Brad Gilbert from Select Roses.
The meeting was then turned over to good food and good company.