Ideas for branch meetings

[TraceyM]

I am the secretary of Bradford branch and I am looking for any ideas for branch meetings which have been a little different to the norm.

Since Covid we have only had speakers from the branch and have tried to come up with ideas for meetings which will be interesting for everyone but involving our own members.

We have had a hands on propagation talk showing how to propagate different plants. Lots of different plants were brought in to distribute to everyone.

A seed growing talk and slide show with free seeds brought in for everyone.

A talk about growing hardy succulents outdoors.

Our Christmas meeting was everyone putting on a a mini table display each, bringing in anything to do with cactus or succulents. We learnt what everyone grew and a bit about other hobbies they have. It also included a macrame workshop for anyone interested! People could look at the displays and chat while having some party food!

One of our members collects clips from gardening tv shows and plays a few for us to review. Each is about 5 or 10 minutes long. Overseas collections, propagation, cactus and succulents on tv have been the presentations so far.

Future ideas are growing cacti and succulents as house plants, growing under lights and an upcycling workshop/demo.

We have had a review of or annual show. People bring in plants they have entered and send in photos for one member to put together the presentation, including behind the scenes photos of how people grow their plants, packed them in the car for show day and even how they are repot. We also discuss any changes we wish to make to the schedule for the next show.

We will also do a similar review of the National Show in autumn and invite people to bring along plants they have bought at the plant sale.

Does anyone have any other ideas they can share?

[Ernie]

you have mentioned some good ideas. I find a number of visiting speakers at our branch boring. One last year was nothing more than his holiday snaps. Plants in the picture not identified, indeed very little about plants plenty about roads in South Africa! Please forgive me blowing my own trumpet but I gave a talk at my local branch which the secretary said was the best she had sat through ever. So what did I do? I showed slides of some of my plants mentioning where they were obtained, where they live in habitat, cultivation requirements based upon my experience. I also included much humour including showing a slide of a potato with a piece of privet stuck in and a sweet pea flower stuck on. I combined the latin names of the various pieces to name the image and to say without any fear of contradiction I was the only person in the UK to have such an interesting caudex plant! Our zone rep spotted the disquise straight away and burst into laughter. It went down well! The point I am making is talks must be informative delivered with humour where possible and relevant to the audience.

[ralphrmartin]

One thing we used to do in South Wales was a mini-show and judging.

There were something like 10 classes, few enough that everyone could enter something, and many people could enter every class.

The plants were staged, and then ALL members judged the plants. A count was made of the members votes and a "popular choice" 1st, 2nd and 3rd were announced and awarded for each class.

One of our members was also a qualified judge, and he judged the plants in the official BCSS manner, giving 1st, 2nd 3rd for each class,

His results were compared to the members' choices, and he discussed why they were different.

This seemed to be a popular meeting, as everyone joined in, and most people felt they had learnt something by the end of the evening.

[Keith L]

In my early days of membership Kettering branch used to use TV shows as a basis for entertainment meetings. Do you remember "going for a song"? 2 teams of 3, one member having to identify a plant for a point, where it was from for another point then both teams putting a price on it with an "Expert" giving their estimate and the nearest team getting a bonus point. Plants had to be graded to the members knowledge and experience - back in the 1970s there were plenty of new introductions to challenge the most experienced member!

Another was "Call my bluff". Needs quite a lot of preparation for selected botanical terms as need to give team members one correct meaning and two incorrect (but maybe one rather amusing!) ones - you can't expect them to make something up themselves. Some people really excelled at it but others struggled.

Or the three clues to an answer - first a hard one, second more easy and finally an easy one.

And some people can come up with brilliant anagrams of our plants - Hot Lips being one of the best!

Regards

Keith

[Apicra]

As described in this old thread, three educational films featuring c&s are available from South Africa and make for an interesting evening's entertainment. I have just been informed that an Australian society recently used them.
https://www.forum.bcss.org.uk/viewtopic.php?p=282180

Best wishes,
Derek Tribble

[TraceyM]

Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to reply with some great suggestions.

A mini show sounds like a fun evening and is something I will be trying to organise for next year.

I like the idea of a quiz evening. It would be great if any branches who had done quizzes in the past could share these. I would like to have a go at a Call my Bluff evening for our branch.

We have found a few of our members have been willing to give talks and these have been very good.

The videos also sound interesting and I have emailed for the PowerPoint pack to be sent to me.

Has any branch tried having a weekend meeting through the day instead of a midweek evening one? Our meetings are held at Saltaire village which is a UNESCO site and it is something I am thinking of trying.

I also thought of a Q&A evening. Has any branch organised a successful one?

[ralphrmartin]

I also thought of a Q&A evening. Has any branch organised a successful one?

I think we tried "Ask the panel" once, but I don't remember it being such a great success that people wanted to repeat it. Frankly, I think many people were afraid of showing themselves up - a bit like when a teacher asks "Any questions?" there inevitably aren't any. And the others perhaps felt they knew better than the panel anyway.

On the other hand, we sometimes felt that we had too many specialised meetings for the long standing members, and we could do with a few more basic ones for newer members. It is difficult to strike a balance that keeps new members, and keeps longer standing members interested too.

[ralphrmartin]

Another idea: the BCSS have some CDs / DVDs of digitised slides (available from the Librarian if I remember right - if not, hopefully someone will correct me). We obtained a few of these, and copied them, to keep for use in emergencies (basically, if the speaker did not show up, we could give a slide show using a DVD). However, they could be used for regular talks too. At least some of them come with a set of notes saying a bit more than just what species is shown in each slide etc. When we used them, someone (me ) acted as the presenter, throwing in their own insights and comments too, and general discussion was invited.

[TraceyM]

I wondered if it would be difficult to make a Q&A evening work.

One of our members has a few of YouTube/internet snippet presentations prepared in case we have a meeting without a speaker. I think it's a great idea to have a few "emergency" meetings prepared.

[TerriZeferino]

How about a 'name that plant' session - either from slides or actual plants that members bring in, depending on how many members present you could have a few small teams and turn it into a mini competition (just for fun)