Hi all,
We still have room for some articles in the upcoming Winter issue of the newsletter. Please send in your submissions within the next two weeks (by January 27) for inclusion. Your article can be just a paragraph or several pages or anywhere in between, Write on a topic that interests you (there are some ideas in the Fall newsletter). We also like to get photos and descriptions of members’ new seedlings!
Thanks,
Betsy van der Hoek
Living in zone 4 Minnesota, which temporarily forgot itself and stayed mild for a few weeks, but is now remembering that it is supposed to be really cold at this time of year.
Hi Betsy,
I was wondering if it would be possible to list Newletter Topics for each upcoming issue on the RHA Home Page topic list. That way, members would have continual easy access to these topics and their minds would be jogged without having to post the question or look for the last issue. As each newsletter is released the topic list would be changed. It might provide a few more articles (probably not but it is worth a try).
Julie O
Living in Zone 3 northern Wisconsin which is also thinking it is about Zone 5 or 6 this year.
Julie,
Are you talking about symposium topics? That would be fine with me, but I’ll have to ask the website gurus if it is feasible for them. We haven’t had much response on the last few symposium topics we’ve put out, despite doing our utmost to come up with appealing and interesting ones. Got any ideas for a symposium topic for the next issue?
Betsy,
You’re right–my thought was simply to have the current Symposium Topics for the next newsletter available on the RHA Website at all times for members to refer to without having to find their old newsletter or look for an old post on the forum. I confess that I had to search around for my Fall Newsletter to find out the topics for the upcoming edition. While I keep all my newsletters in one spot, I left this one out so I could reread it after the holidays (I sort of flew through the entire issue when it arrived before Christmas) and I finally found it stuffed in my pile of recipes that had to be refiled after Christmas cooking and baking. Sometimes, the problem with proposed topics is that I find I would love to contribute my results on a topic but it might be another season before I can pull together data or pictures. So, I think being able to revisit old topics could result in a continueing supply of good articles, especially when you need to fill in some spots. For that reason, it might also be a good idea to leave up some past Symposium Topics that some people might like to revisit along with the most current topics. I guess it is up to the Website guru’s to figure out if posting this information is possible and feasible but it would keep both old and new topics out there for people to easily refer to. They might not be able to write something about the newest topic but they will have had time to gather information for an old topic. JMO but it might result in a few more articles.
With regard to new topics, its sort of funny that when you post that question my mind is a blank, but as soon as I spend 20 minutes on the phone or even an email with another breeder it seems like discussions generate a million questions I’d love to have an answer for. I’ll have to start writing these things down!
BTW, if you’d like an article in response to the old topic of “Breeding Better Yellows” I could probably pull together something on my results to date ( I got a few pictures last summer)–although the title would probably change to “Breeding Any Kind of Yellow for a Cold Climate”.
Julie
That’s always been my problem, Betsy. Tell me to write something and there is nothing there. “You should write a book!” OK, where, how and with what to start? But, start a discussion and the ideas and thoughts flow, as a good friend has said, “like poop through a goose!”
You’ll likely have a tremendously easier time if you start writing the questions with the instructions NOT to answer them in a thread discussion, but in a written article. That will probably take everyone’s cooperation and honor not to talk them up on the threads. I’d think you would probably get a few more articles from it, though.
I think you’d better write that article on yellows, Julie! I think Betsy will be happy to get any articles, regardless of whether they happen to match the symposium topic. I for one am super interested in your progress with hardy yellows (and the pictures).
Thanks for all the suggestions, everyone. I am open to any ideas that would help y’all have more ideas! Kim, why do you think we invented the newsletter column called “From the Forum”? I don’t think I can forbid anyone to discuss a topic on the forum so that they’ll save it for an article. My powers are not of that magnitude. ;-D However, I do like the idea of posting symposium topics somewhere on the site, and I understand that one can’t always think of something to write “on cue.” Just write stuff when you think about it and send it in anytime, regardless of the due date for an upcoming newsletter. You’re also welcome to drop me a line and say you’re working on something and will have it ready for a future issue.
Julie–an article on yellow hardy roses, with pictures? Yes, please!!!
Thanks,
Betsy
Betsy,
I still have a long way to go and but I’m making some progress. I’ll put something together and get it to you by the 27th–then you can chose whether to use it now or in a future issue.
Julie