Presidents Report 2022 – Ann Booth
This year has been our transition back to a more normal ‘Garden Club’ after 2 years of “Covid” and very little contact with members except over Zoom.
Ongoing is our Members’ collaboration with Suzan Essiembre in her public butterfly garden venture which is well underway.
In April we arranged a guided garden tour at the Sunshine Coast Botanical Gardens which tied in nicely with our April speaker Paul Spriggs on vertical rock gardening.
Our main event was the Strawberry Tea at the Botanical Gardens on June 12, 2022. A whole group effort and many, many hard working volunteers made it a huge success.
In July/August, we organised pre-arranged evening drop-in garden tours with members eager to show what they had been up to – from a newly established garden – to a well established ‘secret corner’ garden, creating a whole edible garden, and butterfly gardens in the early stages and well established.
There was a very successful fundraiser at our September General Meeting organised by Suzan Essiembre for the Cascade Green Park butterfly garden and a 2nd hand bulb sale organised by Gerri Randall as a fundraiser for the Club.
The Club members have adapted to live and Zoom meetings and combinations, adaptability is the way to flourish.
I would like to acknowledge the dedicated long term service to the Club of Penny Lyle (Community Projects) and Edwin Leung (Technical Support). They are both stepping back next year.
I have now served 4 years as your President and it has been an honour and a privilege, and the best thing I did after coming to the Coast. The executive of the Garden Club is a great team who have worked together through understanding and generosity of their time. I would like to thank them all from the bottom of my heart for their support during my tenure and even more so recently. I am stepping down now as President, but will continue as Past President in support of the incoming Executive.