The President's Post

This is the third in a series of quarterly posts from your current President about the Norfolk Master Gardeners.

               I want to give a big shout out to our Membership Committee.

               The Membership Committee is charged with coordinating recruiting and retention efforts, establishing volunteer recognition opportunities for NMGA members, staying in touch with members who are ill, and contacting those who have not been active. The Committee is chaired by Donna Van Keuren and Kate Melhuish, and its members include Jim Affeldt, Susan Dudley, Kay Egan, Sally Kellam, Kim Stewart, Anna Thurmond, and Barb Wilson.

               Until recently, perhaps the most visible feature of this committee has been Donna’s congratulations and Slightly Wilted report at our monthly membership meetings. If you are one of the unfortunate ones to suffer a significant illness or loss you may have also received a card from the Committee. In 2020 – during the first year of COVID – the Committee began to initiate wellness telephone calls or emails to our members.

               This year the Committee has expanded its work significantly. First, the wellness checks are now much more organized – each Committee member has a list of 15-20 people they reach out to every once in a while. So if you have not received a phone call recently stay tuned. The Committee also began celebrating our members’ birth months with a celebratory eblast that also features flower lore. We’ve enjoyed sharing these colorful slides with birthday congrats at our membership meetings too.

                The Committee has also launched the Open Gardens concept that we just held for the first time on October 29. The idea is to create more opportunities for us to get to know each other, and what better way to do this than to showcase our gardens to other members.