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Miami Orchid Show... save your money
What is the purpose of the orchid society? Don't we qualify as non-profit
organizations because we educate the public? If the xxOS show becomes just an orchid sales location we could lose our educational status. The society that I belong to requires vendors to put a display in the show in order to sell plants in the tent. I know what a burden that puts on the vendors. Vendors have not been invited back because they did not put a nice display in our show in previous years. At the show members of the society have guided tours of the displays explaining orchids. When I would give a tour I'd tell them about awards, point out easy plants to grow, tell them why orchid have fragrance, have them smell a bulbophylum, point out the angrecum that Darwin spoke of, explain why everything (it seems) got ribbons, etc. Done properly the displays can teach the general public about plants and de-mystify orchids. Then send them to sales tent to take an arm full of plants home. There will always be the really stupid person who will take the plant home and plant it in the ground like he saw in the display. Just when you think you've seen the most stupid person someone will out do them! My favorite story about stupid comes from Al....A person bought some phals (I believe) for Valentines Day and planted them in the front garden. Of course they froze and she brought them back to Al to complain. Being the great guy that he is, Al replaced the plants. Back to displays....This year I put my first display in the show. It was scary and fun. I learned a lot and look forward to doing it again next year. I do hear our show chairperson has difficulty getting other societies and members to put in large displays. I know the vendors find it a pain in the neck trying to get set up for sales and display. There's the rush to get everything torn down after the show and on the road. Maybe we should have more volunteers to help the vendors during setup. Think about this....if we didn't have the displays then anyone could order a couple of hundred plants from Hawaii and set up a sales table and under cut the prices of the real orchid people. I support the vendors who specialize in orchids. I want them to sell those common phals for $50+ each. Those phals pay the bills and keep the heat on so they can afford to offer the few collector plants I buy. If the Al's and Brennan's of the world can't afford to keep the heat on all winter we'd have to get everything shipped to us from Hawaii and Florida. Nice orchid people would be out of business. In conclusion after this long ramble, I think the displays are an important part of the society show. Good Growing, Gene "Susan Erickson" wrote in message ... On Sun, 5 Mar 2006 18:47:27 -0500, "danny" wrote: I guess people in south Florida may not need to have displays at each of the gazillion shows being put on every year, but in places like Georgia and Alabama where there are only a couple orchid shows in the state each year I can't imagine doing them without the displays. Our society puts in displays at a few other shows 2-6 hours away so that those societies will reciprocate at our annual show. Florida probably has counties with more orchid societies than we have in the entire state. -danny It is 8 hours from Denver to the Next society that does a show. We are trying to push the Boulder, Fort Collins and Colorado Springs OS into shows so we can get one closer than Omaha, Salt Lake or Santa Fe. It is hard to participate when the next show is in the next state. |
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