Re: Is ACGA virtual?

**A*@aol.com**

Don,

As always, your contributions to this ACGA listserve are always to the point, 
informative and very useful.

As you know, but many the folks who communicate on this listserve may not 
know, that the national office of the ACGA was housed and manned by 
Philadelphia Green and employees of the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society 
for many years.  The legendary Sally McCabe,  Janet Carter (both ACGA board 
members) along with volunteer Dorene Pasekoff are the voices that many of us 
remember from calls to the ACGA office.  Around the time of the NYC ACGA 
conference in July 2003, the word started to circulate that after 20 odd 
years, the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society was not going to continue to 
provide the ACGA with free office space and Pennsylvania Horticultural 
Society/Philadelphia Green paid employee hours.  As an ACGA member, I am 
extremely grateful that the Pennsylavania Horticultural Society gave the ACGA 
so much over so many years and for the work of Sally McCabe, Janet Carter and 
volunteers like Dorene Pasekoff. 

It is my understanding that the upcoming ACGA board meeting this month in 
Mississippi will be working on the logistics of the site of the new office 
and how the office work and files, which were carried for so many years by 
the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, will be handled -  going forward.  

As a grassroots volunteer, and not a board member, I do not know all of the 
details and expect that after the ACGA board meeting, the general membership 
will be informed of the new mailing address, phone, e-mail and the name of 
the folks doing the office work. 

However,  the last time I looked, and that was last weekend at the Clinton 
Community Garden when I  and other ACGA members deposited compost into our 
bins, the ACGA was very real. We are working on increasing the individual 
ACGA membership numbers at our garden and I will be bringing ACGA membership 
forms to our annual meeting next month.  While we have elected leadership, 
the guts of who were are is gardener membership - it's where I'm spending 
volunteer hours and I hope others are doing so as well. 

Many individudal gardeners and organizations that are scrambling at this time 
don't "get it," i.e., haven't yet transferred some of the loyalty and support 
that they have for their own gardens and garden support organizations to the 
ACGA, the continent wide voice of community gardening in the United States of 
America and Canada.  

The "who, what, where, how and why's"  of where the office will be sited, how 
it will be financed, membership growth (hint: PLEASE JOIN OR RENEW YOUR 
MEMBERSHIPS ASAP) and the vision for this new century will be discussed at 
the next board meeting.  I know that the phone lines between board members 
are burning up with conference calls and e-mails to get this work done. I 
know that board members are handling the finances, sending out publications.  
I know that Ellen Kirby, the ACGA President, is working hard on this as well 
as the rest of the board, which is scattered all over the US and Canada. 

I am sure that after the ACGA board meeting, that there will be requests for 
assistance, but at this juncture, the only request that I am sure of is that 
we need to send in our memberships and convince other fellow volunteers in 
our local gardens to do so as well.

Best wishes,
Adam Honigman

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