Tunbridge wells local group AGS show.

[cycnich]

This Saturday 12th March the Tunbridge wells group will be holding their annual show ar King Charles the Martyr Hall, Warwick park Tunbridge wells, open to the public from 12 30pm till 4 00 pm. If you are local or at a loose end please come and support us. We can promise you a warm welcome and a very high standard of exhibits with 3 farrer medal winners at least, one of which is a gilt farrer medal winner and one of the best growers of Dionysias and Primulas in the country. There will be lunches and home made cakes on offer and a tombola. Local groups are folding fast and need your support and even if you only pop in for an hour to look around, have a cuppa and a go on the tombola this all adds to group funds and ensures the group stays in existance. Look forward to seeing you. I will post some pictures after the show, thanks.

[Paddy Tobin]

Pat,

Best wishes for a successful show.

Paddy

[Maggi Young]

Pat, thanks for letting us know about this show... hope the sun shines and it's a great day for your Group.

[cycnich]

As promised a few general pictures of the show and some of the plants on display.

[cycnich]

And a few more

[Maggi Young]

Cor, Pat, great cakes! ooops... I meant great plants!

The display looks super... where you pleased with the turnout? Did you have a wet day or were you getting some sun?

How big is the local Group?  An impressive show.

The plants look well on those covers.... is that landscape fabric?

[cycnich]

Yes it was a lovely sunny day up until 3pm when it clouded over and the turnout was good. We are only a small but stable group at just over 40 members but we keep going but is very hard to get new people interested as with all groups. The covers I believe are some sort of heavy duty horticultual membrane and have lasted well, we have had them as long as I remember. The cakes were lovely, all made by the ladies in the group, the few that were left were sold off to members. All in all a pleasant way to spend the day and hopefully we have made a small profit to help keep us going for another year.

[Maggi Young]

My, that is very impressive from a small Group.... hard enough to keep going let alone run a show but when it's done properly as you demonstrate, then a show can make some funds to keep things ticking over....Hats Off to you !!

 Folks reading this in the Tunbridge area may find these details about this vibrant group useful:
Kent-TUNBRIDGE WELLS AGS Group: Hon. Secretary: Mrs Kay Cox, 19 Warwick Park, Tunbridge Wells, Kent, TN2 5TA. Tel: 01892 534139.
Meetings: This was the venue for the show, too..... Main Hall, King Charles the Martyr Church, Warwick Park, Tunbridge Wells, 7.30 for 8.00 pm. 1st Monday of the month, unless it falls on a Bank Holiday, then the 2nd Monday, September to May, with Group BBQ in June/July.  Subscription: £5.00; Visitors £1.00.

 

[cycnich]

Thanks for that Maggi.

[David Nicholson]

Pat, I'm very interested in what you have to say on this because my local AGS Group, South Devon, has a similar sized membership (on a good day!) as yours and we are currently considering putting on a Show for the general public in 2012 instead of, as at present, doing it behind closed doors for ourselves. Our thinking is that if we can interest Joe Public in the plants we just might attract a few of them to join us.

Our Show at present is non-competative, do you have prizes and cups and things at yours and is it done to AGS standards etc. Any help would be appreciated.

[daveyp1970]

David do you think if you went to the local school and told them about it so they could organise  for the children to come on mass with supervision one way of getting the next generation involved.Just a thought.

[David Nicholson]

Might have been worth trying in the past Dave but in these days of the National Curriculum every thing has to be stereotyped in order to produce stereotypical kids

[Richard Green]

My wife is not a plantoholic (unfortunately).  However she looks in as an outsider, and thinks the show standards are far too high to attract new members - who view the plants as being well above their league.  She thinks that the best way of attracting new younger members is to have a separate class for kids at a show.  However, get a teacher involved, and coach and assist them with cultivation of plants in advance then ensure that they all bring their parents and relatives to the show.  Next year do the same with another school in the next town, and encourage competition between them.  That brings in twice the number of kids, parents and relatives and so on....

[Maggi Young]

In theory that seems a great idea, Richard, and I would hope it would work somewhere... it didn't here....

We even tried a connection with the gardening group for children at the local Satrosphere science museum 'thingy' (I forget what its title is) but that was short-lived.

[Richard Green]

You are right Maggi, it needs a special kind of kind of person to do that.  No me unfortunately, but it would be great if it worked somewhere.