I have been in contact with some people and I am trying to get a club started for the Bowling Green area.
It is over a 2 hr drive to the nearest group now For me the closest is either Louisville or Nashville.

We have a handful of die hard collectors but I would also like to get newbies involved. Can you share what is your favorite things about the club that you attend. Speakers will be to pricey until we get established unless they are free lol.

Doorprizes? Food? Swaps? Any help will be appreciated.

Thanks
T

Door prizes, casual atmosphere, newsletter, annual photo contest, annual picnic/plant swap. Speakers too, but I know you said you can't afford those from the get-go.

I hope you can get one going, it will be worth the effort!

www.dssew.org

Teresa, most speakers will bring plants to auction off, they either split the money with the club or keep all the money for their expense. I don't think we have ever actually paid a speaker, well maybe $50 for gas once, but that's about it.

Really, I thought it would be expensive. Do you not get them a room or is it local speakers?

Annual picnic sound good, I hadn't thought of that. Everyone like good food. Thanks

The drawback to auctioning the plants is that the $$ raised depends on the club. Some clubs are great bidders, others not so much.

Door prizes, casual atmosphere, annual picnic/plant swap.

These, and the down-home, "just regular folks" feeling of my home club.

I have been to a uppity gardening club, where I did not feel comfortable. I enjoy getting my hands dirty and doing the actual work of planting, weeding etc.

Well, we have Nicole coming, she will be flying in and getting a room (because no flights out that night). She will bring enough plants to cover the cost.
We have Ted and Susan Petit flying in this Nov. They will bring plenty of plants and as long as we can auction off roughly $750 we will cover their flight cost. No cost other than that.

Other speakers were within 2-3 hour drive.


Mary, your right, it does depend on the club about the bidding. We have pretty good bidders but of course we have Fred as our auctioneer most times and he can coerce them to spend more

How many others drive a ways to their meetings? It's an hour and 20 minutes for me - and it's in the heart of Kansas City. The folks who live there don't seem to mind, but for small town people like me, the distance and the traffic combine to convince me stay home. We have nearly all collectors in my local club. I am very interested in hybridizing, so not much common ground.

I think our local club does pay speakers, but the speakers bring enough plants to off-set that cost with the auctions, so it's pretty much a draw. I would say my favorite part of the meetings has been annual garden tours of the local gardens. We drew up a map and caravan-ed from one garden to the next with lunch generally at one of the gardens. I enjoyed seeing the plants growing locally.

My advice is to get good chatty folks who enjoy meeting new people and put them in charge of new members. Contact those new folks - maybe email, maybe Facebook, maybe by phone, and keep in touch in between meetings. Explain during the meetings now and then how the club gets door prizes, how a flower show is organized and run, how to hybridize, how to grow and fertilze, and make sure everyone feels welcome to volunteer. Organize a bus trip or two (or carpool ) to visit a nearby club auction or garden tour! Sometimes people get so used to the routine, they forget to include new people and give them a chance to contribute.

Ok, I'm off my soap box now. I do wish I had a club within 30 minutes or so and not in such a metropolitan area. Good luck to you Theresa. A good club close to you would be a wonderful thing indeed!

Thanks, Jill
I have contacted our local Extension service and can reserve a room there. One has a kitchen area and I think that would be good. I am also kicking around the idea of having a combination club dl/hosta. I know that Cincy and Toledo have them. My sister collects hosta and I do too.

Trips sound good to me, I love to garden hop. Meeting new gardening friends would be fun.

Dont' forget REFRESHMENTS! My home club meets on Sat mornings at 10am. I drive about an hour to get there, but it's all back roads (well, it's a state route, but feels like a back road), and I get there early to help set up, so I'm leaving home at 8am on a Saturday on club day. (ugh) It helps a lot knowing there will be home-baked goodies there

Door prizes don't have to just be DLs -- companion plants make great door prizes too. And our club is big enough to have a show each year, and a plant sale with the show. Nothing like DLs for $5-10 each. Add in the points we get for attending meetings, etc, and we have an auction in the fall with those points. Last year I brought home over $300 worth of DLs (I think), and after spending my points on them, I only spent about $80 out of my pocket. I got Black Velvet Baby for FREE.


At our winter meeting in Macon, Paul Owen (I think that's his name -- A Slightly Different Nursery) was the speaker. He said that when he lived in the Poconos, he had to drive four hours to a DL meeting, because the closest one was in Philly. All I can say to that is UGH.

Teresa, do you belong to AHS?

On the portal there are several downloadable presentations that can be used for clubs.

Might have to have a PPP projector though.

Other AHS materials that can be used as well. Get pamplets.

Have a share table at every meeting. Members bring in catalogs, old and new, journals, gardening magazines etc. Have an auction of gardening books, tools etc. Gardeners always seem to collect more than they can use.

Often local speakers or sister clubs members will come for nothing but as a speaker, I will say that it gets hard to not only prepare a lecture, take time off from working, AND bring plants to cover our costs!!! One nice way a recent club did it for me was to allow me to bring some plants to auction with me getting the profit. That at times can also be split. It helps! Speakers often like to stay with a host. Pay their travel expenses.

Ask the AHS robins for donations. Have it listed in your Regional newsletter.

I have often sent plants to a new club in my region for auction or door prize plants to help get them started.

Watch the Bulletin Board. One lady just offered past Journals. For free!

All kinds of info on the archives of the robin (I've posted several years ago about what to do at meetings, how to get new members etc)

(all above reasons to belong to AHS, BTW!!!)

Post at local gardening shops.
Announcement in local garden clubs (somehow I found a list on the web locally). I sent a letter to be read to the Pres. and Sec. Nowadays emails!

You must have a charter membership. Money for room. Liability for garden tours might also be needed as well as for meetings (who slips and falls on spilt milk)

A club just recently started on the Cape of Mass last year. They are doing well. Ask them for advice. They should be listed under Reg 4. I forget the name at the moment.

*If you get it going, I'll ship a donation intro for your fall to be auctioned for the price of shipping ($10). Just send me the info needed.

Good luck. So much fun to get together with fellow plant lovers!

4 hours! Gosh, all I can say is we need more daylily clubs! I am hoping to hear him speak this year. I belonged to the Lexington club a couple of years while my daughter lived there. It is 31/2 hrs from me. It was fun to see David K, Mort M and the Rices in a reg meeting lol. One fun thing we did was have DL Bingo.

I enjoy baking so we can have those too, plus a pot of coffee. I have also taken garden stepping stones as a prize and I love companion plants idea.
Members opening their garden during bloom time is fun too. A good seed cross might go over well too for a prize.

Oh, forgot to add that I have PPP for garden clubs on my website! One club just bought 5!

You have lots of good ideas! I would have love to attended the MWS that you came to in Nashville I watched the video last night on FB. I loved the music you put to it. I think Pat W. helped start the Cape Cod area club didn't she?

My local daylily club is at least an hour drive and the quickest route is driving through Detroit to get to it so I rarely go. Would love one closer to home.

Bobbie, I do belong to the AHS and will ck out the Portal too. Thanks for the generous offer of plants. I have always felt badly when speakers would come and bring pricey plants and the club members might bid only up to half. :(

Some newer people just do not realize the value of dls.

bluegrassmom said:Bobbie, I do belong to the AHS and will ck out the Portal too. Thanks for the generous offer of plants. I have always felt badly when speakers would come and bring pricey plants and the club members might bid only up to half. :(

Some newer people just do not realize the value of dls.

OR that's all they can afford

AHS offers further assistance in the form of Educational Outreach. Nan Ripley, Ed. Outreach Chair, along with her committee, has put together a packet of information designed to help those who are forming new clubs. You can contact Nan at : [email protected]

The new member brochures are available in packets of 100 for $12.00 are available from the AHS Store. Journal Editor Meg Ryan has just updated these brochures,so they have a great look. These are excellent to hand out at sales and meetings.
And as Bobbie say, almost all of the Power Points are available from the AHS store for FREE. Several new ones are also being added or have just been added, so be sure to check back!

Good luck with your endeavor in starting a new club. You can also contact your Regional President for a list of AHS members in your region, so that you can ( if interested ) either call or send a postcard to inform them of a club meeting date and location.

The way we do refreshments ar my local club is each month we have 2 people signed up to bring whatever they want. Some bring just cookies and doughnuts while others will bring finger sandwiches, taco dip and chips, homemade cakes, etc. They also bring the drinks, cup, ice, plates, etc.

At the Mobile club everyone brings a snack each month. Depending on what time your meeting will be, some clubs have actual food since it's during lunch or dinner.

We also do a Christmas dinner/meeting. The past 2 years we voted on a restaurant to go to, but I think this year we are going to have it at a club members home and do a potluck. The Mobile club does a picnic in June/July which is potluck. The club buys the main meat (chicken) and everyone else brings sides/desserts.

Not all clubs meet year round. The Pensacola club meets Sept-June. The Mobile club is Jan-June (maybe July with the picnic).


We do have an in club auction for our members. We have a club awards program and members earn club dollars by participating in certain things like the daylily show, plant sales, being an AHS member and so on. It accumulates from Sept - June and then the following Sept we tally it all up adn have the auction in Oct. since we can still plant in Oct. We buy a new collection each year and a member grows them and then they get divided before the auction. Usually most hybridizers will double the amount you spend with them when paid with a club check, others not so much. This may not work in colder climates if you don't get good increase in a season. You want enough plants for club members to use their club dollars on and then hopefully spend some of their own money as well to recoup some of the cost the club spent.
Of course with the club being new it would be a bit before you had enough money to do so.

Lots of good suggestions here. What I would like to say is about the members after the club is formed. The most important thing to grow a club and keep members, you have to make each one feel special and give them something to do within the club. No mater how small the task as long as that member feels they are needed. If someone joins the club and is ignored for a few meetings they will not stay there long. There are a lot of task within a club that can be farmed out to the members, the President can not do everything and should not be expected to do it all. The Pensacola Club is thriving because of this policy, and has gained new members and kept them over the past few years.