The RHA will be holding our semiannual meeting on Sunday Sep 28th at 10:00 am in the Magnolia room at the Hilton Alexandria Mark Center, 5000 Seminary Road, Alexandria, VA in conjuction with the ARS Fall Convention. Our program will have Frank Benardella as the “honcho” of a panel of hybridizing experts. I hope all who are in the DC area will join us for this meeting.
Sunday morning. Well, I guess at least the club is consistent since the last meeting was Easter morning.
I will not be renewing my membership.
How long is the meeting expected to last? The ARS convention is occuring at the same location? Do you have to pay to attend the ARS Conventions to attend the RHA meeting?
Chris,
The host society of the ARS convention gives the RHA an hour or so and a room for us to have a meeting sometime during the convention - we do not have much to say over the time they set aside for us as we are not a part of the ARS. The RHA holds two meetings a year during the ARS conventions. The meetings are open and you do not have to pay the convention fees to attend the RHA meeting. You do if you intend to partake in the other ARS events.
We had an outstanding meeting with lots of good questions and discussions. Will do a writeup for the newsletter.
John
I decided to throw in my 2 cents here - even though I am primarily a reader in this forum rather than an active posting participant…
I do value the exchanges here in the RHA. I too have been disappointed in the scheduling on the RHA meetings at the ARS conventions. It does seems that the times allocated are both pitted against other events and/or in terribly inconvenient leftover time slots. While I agree with your opinion I honestly hope that you do not leave the group, Henry, as your outstanding contributions would be sorely missed. I instead suggest that it might be possible to push to find an alternative day/time at future ARS conventions for the meetings. I will suggest that it is highly likely that host societies are really not aware of the problem - knowing that they simply need to provide a time and that the existing time has been used in past conventions - and therefore it is simply penciled in as done in the past. I do not know who should officially try to propose a change but I hope that it might happen. At the very least I will do what I can to work on the situation and make the committee aware of the need for change for the spring '07 convention now scheduled for St. Paul, MN. If anyone has suggestions for a new time I would appreciate input.
Lois,
I agree that the times that have been allocated to the RHA are not ideal; however, there will always be conflicts when you consider all the meetings, classes, scheduled events, garden tours, etc., that the organizers are trying to fit into a couple of days. We have had meeting times ranging from 0800 to 1800 and there always has been one conflict or another. I have been working with the folks for next spring and in looking at the schedule I can see it will be tough again to find a time when most folks will be pleased. Will see what we can come up with.
I understand - but do think that it would be worth the effort for those of us with an interest (and maybe some input possibilities) to work on this. I would still be interested in hearing from anyone who has suggestions on what has worked best in the past (what day of the convention and/or time) - or if the idea is to simply keep it away from specific other activity conflicts? For example, is Thurday evening too early in the schedule, a breakfast meeting out if the question, etc.? What are the major considerations that are important to those who want to attend? For myself, I prefer to not have to give up other major convention activities in order to attend - like being able to judge or attend meetings.