President's Letter - November 2021
Leigh Fabens
Greetings, Garden Friends –
Our 2021-22 Garden Club season is off to a good start, after a well-attended and well-received September program where Tom Wiandt awed us with the complexity of mushroom cultivation, followed by October’s Joint Meeting, hosted by SLGC this year and featuring Trudy Coxe, CEO and Executive Director of The Preservation Society of Newport County, winner of the 2021 GCA Medal for Historic Preservation. We were joined by many out-of-town guests, notably Debbie Oliver, GCA President. Trudy’s presentation inspired many of us to plan a trip to Newport to see what the Preservation Society has accomplished with the landscapes and gardens!
We experienced some distressing problems with the Directory this year. The most egregious was the printer’s omission of Laurie Jacobs, a longtime member, flower show and photography judge. The printer will correct errors and reprinted Directories will be available soon, but in the meantime the communications team has been working on ways to ensure that such mistakes don’t happen again! And we are in touch with other GCA clubs to find out how they handle Directories.
A parallel problem is the way we report address or status changes. Caroline Borrow, as Assistant Treasurer, is the official Club Administrator, which means she is the Keeper of The List. We can change our contact information when we pay our dues, but that happens just once a year. People move or change emails and phone numbers in the interim. Send your changes to Caroline and do it by email: carolineborrow314159@gmail.com. Please do not text her, phone her, or tell her when you see her at a meeting! Changes should also be noted in the monthly Newsletter, and you can send those to Dozie Herbruck at herbrucks@gmail.com, but Caroline absolutely must have them, and by email.
Soon you will receive the annual appeal for gifts to Charitable Projects from Chairmen Jane Ellison and Laurel Stack. Please consider a generous gift! Our donations have a significant impact on the organizations we support, and your annual gifts are the only source of the funds we distribute. Unlike some other clubs, we do not do fund-raisers.
Hoping to see many of you in person at our program meetings, and have a Happy Thanksgiving!
Leigh