The Orchid Garden

SOS needs help

Question:

I plan to visit Florida and would like to spend time in the everglades and hopefully see orchids blooming. What time of year is best for this?

Response:

Hello,   My name is Mike Simmons. I am a board member of orchid society in south florida. We are trying to make our society more intresting  and get more people active. I would like to get any responses back on things other societies have done or any suggestions on ways to get more life into ours. Our membership and other orchid societies seems to be droping off and this is bad for the entire industry. Any suggestions would be very helpful. If anybody is intrested i can pass on some new ideas we have come up with. Thanks in advance. P.S. It would be nice to get conversations going on regularly topass on any ideas.It can only help our entire industry.

Hi Mike, As a board member of the now defunct Beaverton Orchid Society that existed in Beaverton, Oregon, I can sympathize.  We had two societies in our area (Portland Metropolitan area).  The two societies were the vital Oregon Orchid Society and the formentioned, deceased BOS.  Most of the board members of Beaverton were very active in Oregon.  People were spread thin and we found it difficult to get new people involved. I was not a member of Beaverton very long before it died but I have also heard voicings that it was due to in part to an inability to generate new active, organizational blood.  On a larger scope, I think many societies are finding it difficult to get new/more people involved.  As is often the case, both partners in a family work.  If there are kids too, there seems to be little time for anything else. There is an up side to this post. The members of the Beaverton Orchid Society were all invited to join the Oregon Orchid Society!  We effectively consolidated our volunteer energies in one place.  Also, the Oregon Orchid Society adopted new programs to encourage new members to continue with the society — Undercurrents had indicated that the OOS was intimidating for beginners.  We now have… A beginners program:  Each month before the regular program, one member presents a topic which (we hope) is of interest to newbies. Our programs for ‘95 included Phal culture, Paph culture, Cymbidium culture, Growing Under Lights, Pest Question and Answer with an Expert! (Charlie Baker looked at plants the members brought in), Growing Miniatures, Cattleya culture, Repotting? (I think we did this), Orchid names, Catalog exchange.  This year we will see/ I am hoping to see programs on our library (Books for Beginners), more on pests, photography, genetics (I have to figure out if I know enough to present this!), and repeats of many of last years! A beginners page in our newletter:  The beginners program instructor may supply some notes to accompany his/her program.  If not, my husband and I have an exhaustive collection of old exchange newsletters so we can pick an appropriate article from these. Alternatively, we search the net for something relative. A Mentor Program:  New members are invited to link up with older members (to learn from experience, have a buddy to go to shows with, whatever).  I’m not sure how successful the formally organized version of this program is.  I am an alternative mentor and have never been contacted to mentor.  Nonetheless,  I am an "anarchist mentor".  My number is in the newsletter (we edit it), so we get lots of calls from beginners.  I’m good at returning calls and don’t mind giving rides so I have two unofficial mentees.  They are both a blast!  As an aside, the Northwest Orchid Society in Seattle (three cheers!!!) has another technique.  They periodically list orchid advisors with phone numbers in their newsletter.  Different people volunteer to answer questions on different genera. Greenhouse Tours:  Several homes opened their indoor/greenhouse growing situations to members.  Unfortunately attendence was very low (five people from a 300 member society [ugh!]).  It occurred on a nice day in the summer.  We are going to try again this year at a different season. Bringing new people onto the board:  This year a new member was placed on the nominating commitee.  Also, a new member was voted in as vice president.  Additionally, our mentees are volunteering to perform important functions (show plants registration, sales, etc). Shows:  Use lots of advertising to make the community aware of your event.  Friendly, information hosts and hostesses can answer newbies’ orchid questions or just generally educate the public about orchids. Beginners can do this too.  As a new member of the Northwest Orchid Society, I carried around my Ortho orchid book and helped as best I could.  We always have a membership table.  At our table you can buy our society’s orchid care book (~$6) or you can join the society for $10 and recieve the book for free (devious  ). Web page:  We have an OOS web page.  This page includes beginners’ page articles, meeting/membership information, and some other material from the newsletter.  We periodically get e-mail with orchid questions. Volunteer column:  This month we are adding another section to the newsletter (so I don’t know how well it works yet).  This column will list monthly volunteer opportunities.  I am hoping that by giving members a place to look to find opportunities to participate further, we will get more new participants. Speaking in opinionated, generalizations: Because of short deadlines, procrastination, and hectic schedules, it is often easier to rely on the tried and true members who always volunteer than to find/teach new members.  This behavior can alienate members (the Select Board Club!) and neglects the volunteer energies of unutilized members.  In order to remain vital, an orchid society must bring in new members to survive. Hope this helps! E-mail me anytime!  We’re always trying something else. (Also, perhaps we could scavenge some of your involvement ideas.) Hilary

Response:

: P.S. It would be nice to get conversations going on regularly topass on : any ideas.It can only help our entire industry. I never thought I was talking to industrialists… A classic way to get more members and to get people interested is to get yourself publicized (sp?). You can do a number of things, the most notable being shows and sales. Often orchid societies will hold more than just an annual show (several of the societies in the San Francisco Bay Area have an annual sale for a weekend at nearby shopping malls). A recently missed opportunity is the Christmas shopping season. Invite growers in the society to participate in the sale (for a price – doesn’t have to be a whole lot, but enough to pay for the cost of the sale). Orchid sales means more people wanting to know what they are doing which often means more society members. Another way to get publicity is to sponser events. This, however, seems to me somewhat impracticle for an orchid society unless it has a lot of money to throw away. And well we’re talking money, I know of at least one society (besides the AOS) that has a local junior college scholarship program. And it’s also nice to not have society membership fees too expensive. Another aspect of societies (that I’ve been to) is the excitement factor. I’ve found that a lot of meetings can be dreadfully boring. The basic steps of a meeting I’ve seen (it’s been a few years since I’ve managed to get to a society meeting…) are: announcements, show-and-tell table, guest speaker, plant raffle. I assume that this is pretty consistant from society to society (although why I assume this is unknown – it’s a leap of faith…). I don’t know how I’d make this more exciting. I suppose hands-on segments are always good. I’ve also heard from several hobbiests (why doesn’t that look like it’s spelled correctly?) that their impressions of societies are a bunch of people who think they’re better than everyone else, or know more than everyone else (an impression I often get from orchid growers, and I’m sure I give off myself to a lot of people, even though I don’t really know much). -J, who is finding that this response is long-winded and rambling as usual even after editing out a paragraph. At least he’s not responding to many posts. Do people ever get bored at orchid society meetings?                 "People do."                                   -Chevron Oil Company

Response:

Hello,    My name is Mike Simmons. I am a board member of orchid society in south florida. We are trying to make our society more intresting  and get more people active. I would like to get any responses back on things other societies have done or any suggestions on ways to get more life into ours. Our membership and other orchid societies seems to be droping off and this is bad for the entire industry. Any suggestions would be very helpful. If anybody is intrested i can pass on some new ideas we have come up with. Thanks in advance. P.S. It would be nice to get conversations going on regularly topass on any ideas.It can only help our entire industry.

Response:

Filed under: Cymbidium Orchids

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