Our spring symposium went very well yesterday. I asked for a group photo of our 185 attendees and got some nice smiles as seen above. Thanks to Janice, Marianne, Polly, Lori, Joy, Kelly, Peggy, Big John, Kris, Sue and so many others that helped out as well. Our Board members, Steve, Tom and John, were on hand to sell memberships and the Janesville Area Herb Society was also represented and was selling some goodies as well. Jeff's talk on small scale trees was very nice and well-received. He always uses two screens so we set-up a large rental screen after Larry, Gary, Mike (a symposium
attendee) and myself scratched our heads over how to assemble the screen itself! Doreen's talk on heirloom vegetables for containers included stunning photography (as expected) and I think inspired many to grow their own veggies in containers this year. Ed's talk on stunning plants was top notch and included lots of awesome images. I saw quite a few new plants that I wasn't familiar with and jotted those down for future consideration. My talk on "Design Tips for the Smaller Garden" went well (I thought) but verged on being to long to finish out the day. With the day starting at 7 am, when it gets around 4 pm, people are "squirrely". During all of our breaks and prior to introductions of the speakers, I took the time to mention our upcoming events, opportunities and also promoted the fall symposium (Nov. 5). We had about a dozen people sign up as Friends members and also had close to 30 sign up for the fall symposium already! The entire day went well and we received lots of favorable evaluations. The only issue/travesty was the fact that the last 30 people in line for lunch (myself included) were left with very slim pickings as apparently some others (a select few) that went earlier in line, bulked up on extra sandwiches and 3-5 bowls of soups (we had four kinds). We were presenting a wide menu of sandwiches, wraps and soups and when I got there, there were limited sandwiches (only egg salad left) and no soup. We should have had more than enough food and I did say something after lunch about this as apparently some attendees were observed wrapping up their extra sandwiches and taking them out to the car (quite a few people actually....). I feel horrible for those at the end of the line but we'll just make sure we are more proactive with asking everyone to be conservative in the lines until everyone is served. Oh well, you learn from these things. We'll wrap up this event next week and check out the evaluations. The silent auction went well too although I'm not sure what the final income ($) was at the end. Nice shots here of Danford iris (
Iris danfordiae) in front of the Parker Education Center (taken this morning).
Our spring symposium went very well yesterday. I asked for a group photo of our 185 attendees and got some nice smiles as seen above. Thanks to Janice, Marianne, Polly, Lori, Joy, Kelly, Peggy, Big John, Kris, Sue and so many others that helped out as well. Our Board members, Steve, Tom and John, were on hand to sell memberships and the Janesville Area Herb Society was also represented and was selling some goodies as well. Jeff's talk on small scale trees was very nice and well-received. He always uses two screens so we set-up a large rental screen after Larry, Gary, Mike (a symposium
attendee) and myself scratched our heads over how to assemble the screen itself! Doreen's talk on heirloom vegetables for containers included stunning photography (as expected) and I think inspired many to grow their own veggies in containers this year. Ed's talk on stunning plants was top notch and included lots of awesome images. I saw quite a few new plants that I wasn't familiar with and jotted those down for future consideration. My talk on "Design Tips for the Smaller Garden" went well (I thought) but verged on being to long to finish out the day. With the day starting at 7 am, when it gets around 4 pm, people are "squirrely". During all of our breaks and prior to introductions of the speakers, I took the time to mention our upcoming events, opportunities and also promoted the fall symposium (Nov. 5). We had about a dozen people sign up as Friends members and also had close to 30 sign up for the fall symposium already! The entire day went well and we received lots of favorable evaluations. The only issue/travesty was the fact that the last 30 people in line for lunch (myself included) were left with very slim pickings as apparently some others (a select few) that went earlier in line, bulked up on extra sandwiches and 3-5 bowls of soups (we had four kinds). We were presenting a wide menu of sandwiches, wraps and soups and when I got there, there were limited sandwiches (only egg salad left) and no soup. We should have had more than enough food and I did say something after lunch about this as apparently some attendees were observed wrapping up their extra sandwiches and taking them out to the car (quite a few people actually....). I feel horrible for those at the end of the line but we'll just make sure we are more proactive with asking everyone to be conservative in the lines until everyone is served. Oh well, you learn from these things. We'll wrap up this event next week and check out the evaluations. The silent auction went well too although I'm not sure what the final income ($) was at the end. Nice shots here of Danford iris (Iris danfordiae) in front of the Parker Education Center (taken this morning).
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