Regional Newsletter Award

Hello Daylily Friends and Fans!

Did you remember that Region 2 offers a "Best Newsletter Award" to local societies? Any group who provides copies of their newsletters to the Regional President, Regional Publicity Director and Editor are considered for this annual award!! A gorgeous glass, engraved trophy is awarded to the winner at the banquet of the Summer Meeting!

Voting criteria includes diversity and quality of content, timeliness of information, timeliness and consistency of publication. It may also include graphic layout, incorporation of pertinent photos, and incorporation of other graphics (logos, etc.)

I have only received newsletters from 3 clubs for 2009.

If you are interested in having your local societies newsletter considered for the 2009 award, please forward copies, to the three of us immediately.  Contact me for email addresses, or see the regional website.  If you need our mailing addresses, please check the latest newsletter.

If you believe your club has already submitted newsletters for consideration, please email me to confirm receipt.

Previous Winners of this award:

2008- Bette Alden, Southern Michigan Daylily Society

2007- Kim Issacson, Chicagoland Daylily Society

2006- Tim Bleichroth, Daylily Enthusiasts of Southern Indiana

2005- Sandy Veurink and Connie Hall, Grand Valley Daylily Society

2004- Rosemary Kleinheintz, Wisconsin Daylily Society

2003- Bill Johannes, Metropolitan Columbus Daylily Society

2002- Harold Steen, Daylily Society of Southeast Wisconsin

2001- Marcia Razor, Southwestern Indiana Daylily Society

These clubs are eligible for the award again only with a new editor. Any one person can only win this award once.

The winner of this award will be announced at the Region 2 Summer Meeting Banquet this July.

I look forward to receiving more newsletters. Please send them to the three of us by March 1 so that we may have plenty of time to review and discuss.

Region 2 Action Requested - JAN 31 Deadline

Hello, daylily friends!

 

On page 9 of the most recent Region 2 Newsletter, there is an action item that requires you to send in a ballot to the Regional President by the end of January.

 

This ballot is to clarify the election of the committee to select the next RP as the same committee that will select a nominee for the AHS Region 2 Director's position, which comes vacant in 2011. The election of this committee was not clear at the 2009 Region 2 Summer Meeting, in the regard that this committee would be searching for two candidates to fill two different positions. Because of this oversight, we wanted to make sure the membership has a chance to properly elect this committee to do this important job.

At the upcoming summer meeting in northern Ohio both seats need a nominee for the term beginning in 2011. At the summer 2009 meeting, we only specified that this committee would look for a RP, but not for a Director. That is where the oversight occurred. We did not note both positions in the election motion made and passed at last year's summer meeting.

 

In summary,

• According to the bylaws, the nominating committee is elected by the membership.
• Therefore, since we did not specify that this committee would also be nominating a Director, we needed to clarify.
• Both ballots in the recent newsletter should have read Director; there was no typo. There are two ballots to support two votes in one home for family memberships.
• We have already elected the committee to nominate an RP, we just need to formally clarify that this same committee will be nominating a Director, too.

Please see page 9 of your newsletter now. Tear out page 9 or photocopy page 9 or electronically reproduce your votes and email them to me immediately. The action item requires a certain percentage of the region to return ballots, so they all count!

 

I hope those statements clear up the mud a bit. Please let me know if you have any other thoughts or comment and please forward this information to your local memberships as soon as you can.

 

Don't delay! Spread the word to your local clubs and fellow Region 2 members.

 

I hope you have also had a chance to check out our new regional website.  It's HERE if you haven't.  Here is the gorgeous home page - enjoy!

 

 

Thank you for your time and continued efforts on behalf of the region and the AHS!

 

Seeds of Encouragement

ATTENTION REGION 2 MEMBERS

GET YOUR FREE 'SEEDS OF ENCOURAGEMENT'

In 2011, the Southern Michigan Daylily Society will host the Region 2 Summer Meeting.

To encourage people to come to the 2011 Summer Meeting and to
encourage them to grow daylilies from seeds, Michigan daylily hybridizer and accomplished hosta hybridizer John Kulpa is giving away over 6,000 daylily seeds!!

If you are interested in receiving a packet of seeds, please contact your club president or designated representative as soon as possible. Someone from your club should contact me at schmiths@sbcglobal.net or 248-739-9006 and tell me the number of seed packets that are needed by your club.

This offer is only available to Region 2 members at this time. This is a great opportunity to get some fantastic seeds for free. Only the pod parent is marked on all of the seed packets. However, John only used about 15 great plants for pollen parents. Some of the pollen parents were: LARRYS OBSESSION, WORTHY OF DISTINCTION, WREATHED IN TEETH, VENUS FLYTRAP, RANDY STEPHENS, RED FRIDAY, ALAN LANE AGIN and two very toothy unregistered seedlings.

Some of the seeds have started to germinate in the refrigerator, so please contact your daylily club president or representative as soon as possible. The seeds will be distributed on a first come, first serve basis.

The Southern Michigan Daylily Society is looking forward to sharing its gardens and hospitality with you in 2011. This is one summer meeting that you will not want to miss! See you in 2011!

Hundreds of seeds have already been requested, mailed, received and even planted! 

Get yours today!

Youth Memberships- What's the Deal?

It is membership renewal time for the AHS.

The official position is that yes, Region 2 has temporarily discontinued paying the AHS $1500 each year to cover the cost of all youth memberships.


However, as RP I want to reimburse Region 2 youth members who pay their dues. I have not worked an official policy up about this yet, so for now it is only by word of mouth. Here's how it will work until an official policy can be drafted and approved: you let me know you have a youth who needs to pay dues. I will ask you to send me their name and address and I will reimburse for their AHS membership, along with a note thanking them for continuing to be a member. 


I'll send out a more formal email in the coming months, after the board meets in Cincinnati at the end of February and I have a chance to talk with them about this "youth situation."


In the meantime, if you have ideas on an administratively sound way to handle paying for youth memberships, offering scholarships, paying for national/regional registrations, and spend about $1500-$2000 doing it, please bring your ideas to the table! You can talk with Wendy Schwall, who is our incoming Youth Liaison, at jschwall-at-neo-dot-rr-dot-com or can email them to me at schmiths-at-sbcglobal-dot-net. (can't insert the real email addys here or nasty spammers may pick up the addresses...)

Here is the Youth Meeting at the 2009 Region 2 Summer Meeting
That's me helping them make Garden Journals!

Or, even more exciting, we can use the comments section discuss them publicly here.


What programs could Region 2 implement to benefit our youth members?

September events that are still on my mind...

Two daylily events that I must mention before time takes the sparkle off the memories of these events! Too often I start posts in my head, thinking what a wonderful story this will make, and by the time I sit to write, so much more has happened that I can't do the previous events justice anymore!
Everyone who is anyone, and anyone who thinks they are everyone, has been to see SMDS in the last couple of years, and are planned through 2011 when we host the Region 2 summer meeting for AHS.  In September 2009, the Southern Michigan Daylily Society hosted Region 2's own Bob Faulkner of Natural Selection Daylilies. Here are some of his seedlings. 

   

Bob's program fit right in with the best of them; each program we see is a joy for a different reason. I like to say Bob is a man who "does daylilies" on his own terms. Not other hybridizers, not popular fads and not always conventional wisdom. His program shows his passion to go against the grain to make breaks that have never been seen. 200 + digital images later (our deepest apologies, Bob for our projector issues...) the room was collectively shaking our heads.

The patterns are, well, unlike any other patterns out there. Yes, I said unlike ANY other. He is a modest guy who doesnt throw around big words and big names and big plans and big egos. He tells it like he knows it, and also tells you if he doesnt know it. About 5 years ago or so, I got to see some of his first digital images while I was visiting Mike and Sandy Holmes' at their fabulous River Bend Gardens. We chatted about unnoticed intricacies and the desire for something else. Word on his first introductions and releases is they are coming sooooon. Very soon. Get. In. Line.   The Winter edition of the AHS Journal arrived yesterday (December 21) and his full page color ad sure caught my eye.

   

If you missed it, here are my personal photos of my visit to his garden this summer for Northern Mecca. It is 100MB worth of reasons to believe the hype about Bob.  Please contact me if you plan to use this for reasons other than viewing it personally on your own computer. You can most certainly share this at a club meeting, or post it on a website for others to view, but I would like appropriate editorial right to speak on such requests first (thank you!) In September, I had other business in Georgia and so just happened to be in town to crash the Region 5 Fall meeting in Macon, Georgia. As a new regional president, it is good for me to see how other regions handle their business.

I knew it was going to be a heck of a meeting when I saw the gorgeous flower arrangement on the registration table filled with daylily blooms. Then I saw Tim Bell. And Charlie Shaw. And Barbara Kirby. And Joann Stewart. Then I saw the 'bargain daylily table.' Now when you usually think of 'bargain' daylilies, you think of typical Eureka valued plants around $10-20, marked down to maybe $5 or so. Apparently I have never seen a bargain table Georgia-style. They do it up ca-razy!! Huge clumps of daylilies, NEW daylilies for not more than $15 per division, all to help fund the Valdosta-hosted AHS National. 


The business was efficient and thorough, awards were bestowed, hugs were given, reports were made, and plants were traded. I liked how Ms. Barbara showed digital slides of all the new display gardens in their region since the last meeting. I will think about using that for Region 2. It was nice to see the new additions. I heard about the plans for the Valdosta AHS National and OH BOY are we in for some amazing stuff next year. Apparently registrations are already coming in. They have some wonderful incentives (unlike any other) to get registered early. Check it out from the AHS website. I have never sent in a registration this early before, but I seriously am considering it. On top of all that, there were refreshments and an auction; Tim Bell is a hilarious auctioneer and among many members down there, a very generous angel to Region 5. I enjoyed it all very much and am thankful to RP Barbara Kirby and the friendly folks of Region 5 for allowing me to crash the party unexpectedly. You just never know where I'll show up...


As for the daylilies in my own yard, the turnover in my garden this year was about 40%, so I am already really looking forward to next season when nearly half of my collection will be blooming for the first time in my yard. How fun is that??!

Enjoy yourselves today!

Summary of the Summer...

2009 was full of amazing daylily experiences for me, and it was also my first full year serving as the president for the largest region in AHS - Region 2!

I am proud to serve in this capacity and look forward to the next year.

If you are curious about what a "regional president" does, here are some of my responsibilities:
- approving display gardens in this region
- presiding over the yearly business meeting
- approving garden judge applications in this region
- representing Region 2 at AHS functions
- contributing to the award-winning Region 2 newsletter
- leading a yearly Region 2 board meeting
- communicating to new members and
- facilitating and resolving member issues.

I have visited several local clubs in this past year, providing presentations on my travels and just generally being an enthusiastic daylily ambassador.  On the left is a picture of me in the Orlando airport following the stellar (but very wet) American Hemerocallis Society National Convention.  TSA agents always ask, "What's in the bag?"  I am already looking forward to the 2010 National in Valdosta, Georgia.

As president, I am also interested in increasing the number of exhibition judges and garden judges in our region.  Exhibition shows are my biggest passion in the daylily world and I would encourage all of you to exhibit, attend or host a daylily show of some kind to support our national mission of education.

Im not sure how I did it all, but in the first part of 2009 I had the opportunity to take part in:
• the Mid-Winter Symposium
(highlight: Julie Covington's presentation on photography),
• the Region 2 Winter Symposium
(highlight: Brenda Macy's tour through theme gardens),
• the AHS National Convention
(highlight: the all encompassing rain and explaining to the TSA agent what and why the green plants were sticking out of my carry-on),
• the Central Illinois Daylily Society Exhibition Show
(highlight: winning Best Small with H. 'Brookwood Mamasan'),
• Northern Mecca
(highlight: finally visiting Faulkner, Polston, Blanton, Bachman and seeing the transformation occurring with the Holmes' at Riverbend),
• the Region 2 Summer Meeting
(highlight: teaching Exhibition Clinic II, hanging out with our region 2 youth and finally visiting Leo Sharp at Brookwood Gardens)
• the Southern Michigan Daylily Society Exhibition Show
(highlight: winning Best Miniature with H. 'Brookwood Black Kitten').

I am already planning on making repeat appearances at every one of these events and more in 2010.  I hope I see you somewhere along the way.

Please contact me if you have any thoughts, comments, concerns, or questions about daylilies, Region 2 or the AHS.  I can be reached at schmiths@sbcglobal.net. 

Until next time, happy daylilying!

H. 'Eloquent Cay'