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Starting and Running a Garden or Flower Club

Here are some observations based on personal experience

Who does the work?

The first thing to remember is the 80/20 rule. Most of your participation and hard work is going to come from the dedicated 20% of the people. Impassioned pleas for the other 80% to "carry their weight" are generally fruitless. Reconcile yourself to the reality that the executive and committee heads will be doing most of the work (not the membership), and that you need to recruit new executive members as existing ones get tired and resign.

(If you are going to get your knickers in a knot about the "unfairness" of this, then you should be looking for a solitary hobby, because human nature will never change.)

Competitive or noncompetitive?

You should decide at the beginning whether the club is going to have competitive showing events, judged exhibitions, "parlor shows" at each meeting (with points totted up for an end of the year awards ceremony), etc.

Competition is not a bad thing, but you will find a dramatic reduction in membership if the club starts to focus exclusively on showing - most gardeners don't have the time or patience for growing exhibition specimens, and will be turned off if the club is all "show" and no "garden".

Yet, your most dedicated organizers and workers are the "show-ers", so eliminating showing altogether discourages their involvement.

Finally, public events like shows, garden tours, booths at fairs and community functions are the best way of publicizing the group to the community and drawing new members. They can also generate revenue if carefully run - but most aren't, so they lose money.

Balance: find the right mix of competitive and noncompetitive shows and events for your group to allow the maximum number of members to participate, in the way that they prefer.

Commercial sponsorship and involvement:

Local nurseries and garden centers are good contacts. They will often institute a discount for club members (which is one reason that you want to have actual membership cards), they will publicize the group to prospective members, and they can often provide speakers and educational material for meetings. They won't want to do this anonymously, as they looking for the increase in business, so reach some agreement as to how much promotion or selling that you want to permit.

My advice is not to solicit the local merchants for donations of goods for prizes, etc. often, or even at all. Accept donations if offered, but don't continually hit up your closest allies. They are more of an asset to the group if they attend in person or provide speakers and events. Again, strive for balance.

Procedure:

Ruthlessly enforce a "no chattering" rule during presentations. Schedule breaks at the beginning and middle of the meetings to let people socialize, so they don't have to do so during someone's presentation.

Keep speakers to a rigid, and brief, timetable, to prevent the "rambling bore" from driving away members. If you have club business to discuss, do it after the feature presentation, not before. That way, when the debate rages out of hand, the guest speaker is not left waiting (or even worse, canceled for lack of time).

You also need a "master of ceremonies" with a strong guiding hand from the front of the room to lead question-and-answer sessions and panel discussions. This person should not be the one answering the questions, but the ringleader that ensures the conversation stays on topic and everybody gets a fair chance to ask and answer.

Try having an "introductions" session at the beginning of each meeting -

If the group is small enough, each member stands up and announces their name and then some small bit of information from their experience - which can change each meeting - favourite rose, stupidest garden trick, best tool, strangest pest or disease ever seen, etc.
If the group is too large to get 'round in a reasonable time, split into sections alphabetically by last name and do one section per meeting, or just introduce names with no information.
Group still to big? Draw names from a hat.

Do you feel foolish standing up and introducing yourself for the tenth meeting in a row? Not half as foolish as the new member feels meeting after meeting in a room full of people who all seem to know each other and never introduce themselves properly. This will help you retain new members. Plus it is surprising how many long-time members will benefit.

Consider establishing a phone "tree" to remind people about meetings and events. You will not get good turnout at meetings without multiple reminders!

If you have an important guest speaker or program, it is doubly important to work the phones to bring out the membership and their friends — one presentation I attended was a nationally sponsored tour with a well known speaker. There was a newspaper advertisement placed by the local group but no follow up... and six people showed up in a hall that was rented for 200. An embarrassment all around.

People enjoy a draw at a meeting - the classic is a 50/50 draw where you sell tickets and the winner takes home 50% of the pot, with the balance to the club - however, keep reading...

Organization: Different jurisdictions have different requirements for chartering, registering or incorporating a club, society or non-profit organization. If you choose not to do so, you may run the risk of any income the club makes being taxed as income of the executive members. In other areas, you may not be allowed to charge admission to events and meetings or run draws if not properly registered. There may also be annual reporting requirements to attend to. This will take a bit of research before you start up.

Business matters: there are accepted procedures for running the business portions of meetings. Some of these procedures, such as election of officers and acceptance of budgets, may be mandated by your charter as a club, society or non-profit organization. At the risk of seeming stuffy, buy a rules of order book and follow the rules. This will lessen the wrangling over procedure, and make the Executive accountable to the membership. At the same time, it makes the Executive's job easier by providing a definite structure to business and satisfying the legal requirements.

Expenses:

Events, displays and competitions can be major expenses if not kept to budget. Beware of the costs of bringing in guest speakers and judges from "away" – airfare and accommodation can be astronomical, especially if booked at the last minute. If you want to bring in a celebrity, try to organize together with other clubs or educational insitutions nearby, either as a single cooperative event or as a series that can be presented on successive days in nearby cities, to share travel costs.

Another way to keep the cost of events down is to hold some presentations at a local nursery or garden center. The proprietor can keep the store open late one evening, (allow them to keep the till open to make sales) and they will often underwrite part or all of the cost of the program and refreshments. Ask your local businesses if they have any unused "advertising co-op funds" from their suppliers that can be put towards a presentation.

Your two major ongoing expenses are meeting room rental and newsletters.

Meeting room:

The classic examples are church halls, schools and libraries, which can be rented for pittance. Just be careful with renting a room that is carpeted if you are likely to be bringing in vases with water and pots with soil...

Sound: Think long and hard about acoustics. There is no point in holding meetings if most of the crowd cannot hear what is being said at the front. Spend extra if you must for a venue that has good audibility.

You may well need to have a sound reinforcement system - with two microphones, please - one for the front and one with a long cable for audience to use when asking questions. Nothing is worse than a question and answer session that goes like this:

Q "...mm...mumble...mmm..mmf.. "
A "Yes, but it's important to do it only in September or the plant will die. Next question?"

Long term, buying a small sound system is cheaper than renting. If you can share the cost with another group that meets on different nights, so much the better. Make sure there is a way to lock up any equipment, books, etc. that get left at the venue.

Visuals: Likewise, see if you can scrounge up a serviceable used slide projector and screen. Projecting on a wall doesn't work well enough.

Discourage the use of videotape and computer presentations - the rental costs on adequate projection equipment are prohibitive, and a 21" television at the front of the room (with its tinny little speakers cranked up well past the point of distortion) is useful only for the front-most 10 people.

Seating: Check out the seating before renting the room - uncomfortable or hazardous folding chairs aren't good for retaining membership. Can the chairs be reconfigured for a smaller-than or larger-than expected crowd? What are the obligations for the club after the meeting re: clearing up and stacking chairs, tables, etc.? Make sure you have a work crew to do this so the person with the key doesn't get stuck with the job each night.

Demonstrations: If you have a crowd, and there is to be a live demonstration (such as grafting), either:

present the demonstration several times to different small audiences, or
have multiple demonstrators at separate tables demonstrating simultaneously.

Only the first row of people circled around the demonstrator will be able to see and hear, the rest in the crowd will be disappointed. Some members will be uncomfortable in the press of a crowd, so please keep this in mind when setting up demonstration areas and access.

Make videotapes of demonstrations in close-up to add to the club library (get permission from the demonstrator first).

Newsletter:

Editing and production: This is a full-time job for someone - to cajole editorial materials from members, keep up the calendar, bring in news from other clubs, etc. takes a lot of effort. Fortunately, every club seems to have one or two people who like this sort of thing, and have a computer that they enjoy spending hours publishing and printing with. Make them Editor, and throw the full support of the executive behind them. Replacing a newsletter editor is much harder than replacing a President.
Make sure that the expenses for paper, duplication, ink etc. are paid by the club.

Distribution: Calculate the cost of duplication, postage, envelopes etc. per member for a year's newsletter production, and make sure your annual dues are sufficient to cover!
Realize that you will get between 20% and 50% turnout at meetings, and that the newsletter is your main contact with a majority of the membership. Send one warning letter, then cut off the newsletter promptly if members are tardy with renewing their dues.

Advertising: Decide about advertising - selling advertising and collecting the money (two distinct tasks) takes a disproportionate amount of time compared to the revenues. There is also a vicious circle: what may be a two page newsletter turns into four with advertising, requiring double the duplication costs and publishing effort, which requires more advertising to pay for it, which raises costs.... But if you want a large newsletter, or color, you'll have to raise some advertising revenues.

Web: At present, a website is secondary to your newsletter. A majority of your members are not going to be web connected, so put your first energies toward good newsletters and good presentations at meetings. If you have a web-savvy member who can work together with the newsletter editor, great. But remember that a website goes out of date and requires continuous upkeep. If you go ahead with a Web site, look for an Internet service provider who has discounted rates for non-profits and clubs, and who offers the capabilities (CGI's) for guestbook and discussion forums, or an e-mail listserve (automatic group mailing-list) so members can use the website for question and answer between meetings. Use the best Q&A's and correspondence from the website for the newsletter, and read them out at meetings. The Web is open to the world, so respect people's privacy and do not include personal names, phone numbers or e-mail addresses without permission.

For both the newsletter and the website, use only photographs and editorial material that you have received written permission to reproduce.

What is the club's purpose?

You should, of course, define a statement of purpose for your club. But no matter what it is, remember the following:

The immense value of a club is that the members can exchange information about local conditions - weather, disease, pests, good varieties, recommended suppliers. All the information in books is generalized - but every garden is localized.

Make sure that every meeting has both socializing time and a formal group question and answer time.

If you accomplish nothing else, the single best activity you can foster is having experienced members tutoring the less experienced.

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