January 2019
Happy New Year everyone!
The WNCOS had another wonderful year in 2018, and we’re counting on yet another action packed and exciting new-year here in greater Asheville. A wonderful, year ending celebration was enjoyed by everyone in attendance recently at our annual holiday social. Thank you so much to our gracious hosts, Axel and Catherine. We had a tremendous turnout and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves in their beautiful home, a perfect ending to an exciting year. The food spread was strong, and that growler of homebrew was divine! I hope I wasn’t the only one who found that on the bar. Again, thank you to Axel and his lovely wife Catherine for hosting us!
As we kick off 2019, let me remind you that our newly elected board members have been working on our schedule of activities for 2019. To kick off the new-year, longtime friend of the WNCOS, Linda Wilhelm of Woodland Orchids in Charlotte will be in town for the day on Sunday, January 13th (2:00 pm) to give us a program on oncidiums and their culture. Location is at the Visitor Center on Montford Avenue, our usual and customary monthly meeting location. As of this moment I am not sure if she’ll have plants for sale or not, but at worst we will have a raffle table full of orchids. Nevertheless Linda is a real expert, an AOS judge, a world traveler and has had a very exciting 2018 herself. I am sure she’ll have a lot of interesting things to share with the society, so plan to be there on the 13th.
In February, our very own Graham Ramsey will be conducting a new repotting clinic program on Sunday, February 10th at 2:00 p.m. Graham tells me we’ll be making a mess, getting our hands dirty and he’ll be sharing lots of new and exciting info with us on repotting techniques and the latest in supplies we’re seeing on the market. This kind of program is always one that can benefit everyone, regardless of our respective skill levels and experiences. Plan to be there, we’ll be sure to have an exciting raffle table here as well.
By the time it’s March, we’re fully entrenched in orchid festival plans. The 2019 Asheville Orchid Festival ‘An Orchid Expedition’ is beginning to come together. We’ve got all of our vendors and exhibitors just about nailed down and under contracts, and as usual this list is through and impressive. March 10th we’ll have a meeting that will be totally dedicated to the festival, so please make note of this in your schedules now and plan to attend this big meeting. Everything really comes together at this meeting, and as most of you know we require a ton of vol8unteer time from the membership. This meeting is the place to be on Sunday, March 10th. We’ll answer all your questions and share all the latest and greatest with everyone that afternoon.
Finally, I’d really like to thank all of you for supporting our board of officers over recent years and as we move forward. Bob Hydzik has served the WNCOS well as our VP over the past couple of years, he’s been great to work with and has done an excellent job. Please join me in thanking Bob for his efforts along our way as an orchid society. Bob is not truly “leaving” us, but is heavily involved with the Carolina’s Judging Center and is training and studying to become the next most incredible AOS judge. Bob’s pretty busy and we’ll still see him around, but he’s moved on from his position as Vice President. Bob, thank you so much for your service and support, it has been an honor and a pleasure to work with you.
While I’ll be busy surfing, snorkeling and enjoying the Hawaiian island life in January, please be sure to attend our meeting on 1/13/19. I trust you’ll enjoy yourselves and Linda Wilhelm’s company. Please remember that your attendance is a wonderful way to support the society, and the commitments of our special guests who travel here to Asheville to speak to our great group of orchid lovers! We are most fortunate to be in such a position where we can afford to bring these experts in.
Aloha,
Mike Mims
WNCOS President