SRGC- changing name?

[Martin Baxendale]

decorated with little thistles

Ouch!!!

[Paul T]

decorated with little thistles

Ouch!!!

Or should that be Och....  given Scottish and all. 

[Lesley Cox]

OK, OK, we break with tradition.  Maggie, do you have a pair of knikkers with wee ladybugs on 'em.  Then, again, we don't want to come across as prude and boring, now, do we? 

Prudish and boring no, we don't want to be. On the other hand, it's not DONE to ask a lady about her knickers.

[Liz Mills]

A big Thank You to Jamie for opening up this discussion and to each and every one of you for taking part. I've been delighted by the response from you all and it's obvious that you do not think we should change the Club name.  One or two people who e-mailed me were in favour of a change but couldn't think of what the new name should be.  But I did have a quiet smile to myself at some of your 'way out' suggestions, especially Secrets of Really Good Chocolate.

One or two members thought that we were actively proposing to change the Club name and I certainly did not intend to give this impression in my letter.  The brainstorming group were asked to come up with ideas to address the problem of a gradually falling membership and they came up with lots of these.  Many of them have been passed on to the local Groups for them to see if any of them might be useful at this level;  others will be discussed by Council.  And the suggestion from one young member was that a change of name might encourage people of his age to join.  I felt that the only way to deal with this idea was to ask all of our members what they thought for the Club name belongs to you.

Quite a few of you think that the Club website and especially the Forum are the best way of attracting younger members and certainly the figures (5 out of 6 new members coming through the website) bear this out.  So many many thanks to the Web Team and to all of you who contribute so much in so many ways.

[ChrisB]

I've had lots of chuckles reading this thread, and I can see that the general opinion is that the name should remain the same and I quite agree.  But Liz has a point - it was a young, potential member who said we should look at the name.....  I'm old in the tooth and I hate change, and I like our name a lot.  So I'm with you on that subject.

But I think we all agree that the club needs to attract more members.  I'm not sure what constitutes a YOUNG member, and perhaps more thought ought to be given to this.  I doubt I would have joined any such club when I was busy bringing up a family and suchlike (and this has already been pointed out in this discussion), but I might easily have joined before I did, if I'd know about it.  But I simply didn't.

So I think public awareness is quite important.  Increasing that could be a factor in drawing in new members who want to join a good garden club.  We all hate advertising, well I do at least, but sometimes this is only way to increase awareness.  Advertising is expensive, and it depends on just how many more members we wish to attract, but it does often improve awareness and this in turn could lead to more members. 

It works here on the internet, SRGC and the forum within is one of the top 'hits' on search engines now and that's how many people find their way to this forum.  And through joining in the posts on the forum, many of us have decided to support this excellent club.  It doesn't happen overnight, but it is something to think about...

[maggiepie]

Maybe school days could be organised where people could display some plants and give rooted cuttings out to students to take home and grow.
There are lots of things that root easily. Maybe a seedling or two ?
Maybe do this in primary school, get them while they're young 

[Lesley Cox]

YOUNG members are the ones called Ian and Maggi. Since the mould was broken after they joined, there's not much hope of gaining more like them.

It is my feeling that the Club itself at party central level probably can't to a lot to attract new members, but the website can and certainly local groups can, where person to person relationships flourish and are more likely than within a large committee/council-type arrangement. I mean that at local level, members can get out and about among their friends and communities but that's not really part of the role of central council.

[Lesley Cox]

Maybe school days could be organised where people could display some plants and give rooted cuttings out to students to take home and grow.
There are lots of things that root easily. Maybe a seedling or two ?
Maybe do this in primary school, get them while they're young 

That's a good idea Helen. We have excellent "Gardening in Schools" programmes throughout New Zealand and some community gardens too, in poorer areas where mainly vegetables are grown for public use. Local nursery people or keen alpine gardeners could take along some young plants and/or seeds and offer them, perhaps give a bit of a talk about how to grow - nothing too technical - and I'm sure than with a little encouragement many children or older people wold be attracted by Dianthus, Campanula, Iris and so many other plants. With a few at least, there will be fostered the desire to know more and where better to learn it than here?