An open Forum- local club Solved

[Ernie]

Last night I attended a meeting of the Teesside branch of the BCSS.

The format was an open evening for members to give mini talks. This was a very relaxed evening and it seemed to go down well.

I gave a talk on Brighamia and Madagascan Euphorbias injecting much humour and encouraging discussion. Another club member gave a talk on how he does things including showing some bizzare graftings; these mini talksnwere well recieved. After these talks(and the usual tea break) it was an open session for people to talk plants!

An excellent evening.

Now without wishing to re open the debate about shows!; during the evening members are encouraged to vote for plants in the table show. Three catergories; any cacti any succulent and any flowering cacti or succulent. During the early part of the evening when the administration/running of the branch was beinbg discussed the question was raised(again!!) about how much interest there was for this competition. Some members wanted to scrap it while others wanted it to flourish because of the talking point the presence of the plants created.
Many of the comments expressed in the previous thread I started on here were repeated last night, interesting.

[Roy]

Well I must admit last time I was there someone had brought an Ario. about 6" across. Not bad going for branch table show.

[CactusChris]

Hi Ernie,
It has been a long time since my branch held table shows. Eventually they were stopped because only a very few people brought entries and so the results were pretty boring. We did try to start an 'interesting plant' table - it worked well for about 4 months and then fizzled out.
This I think is the way that the society meetings are going somewhat with less interest in particiaption - and this is reflected in many of the other activities of the BCSS. Getting all there to vote on the entries is a good way of getting some particiaption.

Best regards

Chris

[Roy]

Our branch table shows are not well supported but I must admit I am as guilty as the rest, usually because my wife and I virtually fill the car with everything else that's needed.
We do however have a class for any plant of special interest ie something in flower or something that hasn't died (joke )

[iann]

We also have a monthly table show. There are nearly always an interesting selection of plants but participation is quite patchy. For example, I think I brought plants to three, possibly four, meetings last year (my excuse is they only have a Lithops class every couple of years!) and came third in total points for the year, a very long way behind the two people who brought plants nearly every month. We have a cactus group and succulent group, different each month, plus anything in flower.

[CactusChris]

Hi Ian,
Yuor branch is one of the most active that I know for table shows - and they do a great job - a good branch.

Chris

[Lindsey]

I joined BCSS in 2001 and it was another year or so before I dared to visit my local branch. Sadly, it is too small to have a table show, but I have seen one when visiting another branch meeting in the same BCSS zone.

Speaking of small branches, there is at least one speaker who will not (so I'm told) take speaking engagements for branches that are below a certain size.

[Susanne]

Hello

We also have a very interesting monthly table show/competition.
There are 5 classes:
A: requires up to 3 plants each from different groups, from the 5 groups identified by each month.
B: requires one plant in bud, flower or fruit
C:Beginners' Class- one plant
S: Smaller plant Class- one plant
Z: Exhibition class-one plant
Entries in classes A,B&C are limited to 6"(15cm) maximum diameter pots.
Class S is limited to 3"(7,5cm) pots Class Z has no pot size restriction
There is a good contribution every month and we see a lot of interesting plants.