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Summer activities are in full swing! By the time you read this message, summer will be over and the Fall schedule will be underway. Let’s take a few minutes to review some of our summer adventures. First on your President’s agenda was the National Convention in Boston. We enjoyed a wonderful tribute to the seventy five year history of Floral Design. The exhibit covered all the various period designs and then displayed an example of each of the designs from the new Judges’ Handbook. It was beautiful. We had an impressive number of our members on hand to witness the installation of Barbara May as President of National Garden Club. Joan Pryor, Carolyn Whitmer, Joan Ochs, and your President managed to find time to take the “Duck Tour” of Boston. This tour is done in an amphibious vehicle which tours the historic sites of the city and then drives right into the Charles Rivers for a scenic river cruise. What fun we had! June arrived and with it our Short Course in Gainesville. Nina Ring, Chairman, produced a wonderful two days of interesting horticulture and environmental topics, spiced with a tour of Kanapaha Gardens, a succulent dish garden workshop and the whimsical designs of Claudia Chopp. Tom Wichman, University of Florida and IFAS representative, directed one of the favorite segments of the program. He made up a Jeopardy Board with questions from the two days of lectures. We are happy to report that our members did very well with their responses. We thank you Nina and your committee for a wonderful two days. Youth activities shine during our summer months. S.E.E.K. ( Save the Earth’s Environment Through Knowledge) team leaders, Lynn Artz and Rebecca Meegan, kept 70 young teens on the go for the three day program at the University of Florida. You can read about all their activities elsewhere in this issue. There was one session which particularly impressed us. About twenty of the young people told about their environmental activities during the school year. It was a truly amazing array of projects. Congratulations to our new SEEK team, along with our appreciation, for a job well done! Next stop – Camp Wekiva! Camper numbers were up this year thanks to the hard work of Chairman, Jan Sillik and PR Chairman, Lois Silverberg. A number of new activities were implemented this summer. Nature photography was of particular interest – it really gave our nature program a boost. Watch for Jan’s article on Wekiva for news of all the new and exciting events of the summer. We thank all of the staff and the many volunteers who contributed to the success of Wekiva 2007. We hope that as you have included water conservation among your programs this year. Chairman, Pat Carver, is working hard to make sure that the materials are available for each club to have a water quality program. We are also looking forward to hearing of plans to create Community Gardens. Hugs to all and we hope to see you on our Fall Tour as we “Focus On Florida”. Cinny O'Donnell, |
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webmaster, Libby Curnow |
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