GWA Meeting Critique

**Jeff Ball j*@usol.com**

To GWA Board, Staff, Oklahoma Committee, and Garden Writer’s List (GWL)

Nancy and I are still recovering from the GWA meeting, we drove 12  
hours each way.  In many ways it was a terrific meeting and both of  
us came home with some work that we would not have gotten any other way.

On the other hand, there are some disturbing developments in the  
planning of our meetings that we believe need review.  Our meeting  
planning groups for the past six or seven years have allowed  
themselves to fall into some important unrecorded assumptions.  I  
would like these assumptions to be reviewed and hopefully revised.

Assumption Number One - It is assumed that all members of GWA are 35  
years old, in tremendous physical condition and love to walk for  
three or more hours at a time.  Nancy and I, and quite a few others,   
missed the story tours on Monday morning because we were close to  
physical exhaustion.  I felt so tired on Sunday night that I didn’t  
really enjoy the Longwood festivities.

The plan involved activities for 8 hours on Friday, 13 hours on Sat.,  
16 hours on Sunday, and 16 hours again on Monday.  At no time could a  
member take a nap.  Many of us over 60 take naps on normal days at home!

We need 4 to 5 o’clock to be a rest hour at the hotel.  And we can’t  
be expected to walk the distances set up at the Wilmington garden walk.

Assumption Number Two – We are all beginners in our profession.

In the past four or five years I have attended a number of skill  
based seminars such as the “starting the web site” and the “self book  
publishing” seminars offered last week.  My problem is that every  
time they dealt with what is needed by beginners.  I am all in favor  
of having such seminars for beginners; however there needs to be a  
simultaneous seminar for those of us at the advanced stage in a skill  
area.  75% of the group at the web site discussion already had web  
sites.

Assumption Number Three – We must prefer to have speakers from our  
own organization.

The GWA is blessed with a whole bunch of very talented, skilled, and  
successful members.  They have much to share with the rest of us.  
They are also apparently attractive as speakers because they are  
free.  Nancy and I feel that all speakers should be paid and that  
when possible even more skilled people be brought in to speak to us.   
The Google searching panel could have been replaced by someone from  
Google for example.

Assumption Number Four – We as a group just love to sit for 45  
minutes and listen to four of our members talk.  There are two issues  
here.  One is that 45 minutes is not enough time for over half of the  
topics that were presented this past week.  Many seminars should be  
as much as an hour and a half.  The other issue is that the number  
four for the number of panel members is no longer a valid model for  
communicating anything.  A panel of two might work in some instances  
if it was assured that the two would have different positions on the  
topic at hand.  If we have a single speaker who gives a 30 minute  
talk, we in the audience are more than capable of bringing up  
additional points, eliminating the need for a panel.

Other issues  – We must really love to visit private gardens; lots of  
them.  I say let’s cut back on the number of private gardens we  
visit. Also, we were really annoyed to have to spend 8 hours on buses  
when we had only 9 hours of professional seminars.

The trade show gets better every year and most of the meals were very  
good, although the box lunches might have been improved.  While the  
meeting was overbooked with activity the staff did a superb job of  
keeping things moving.  We are looking forward to seeing you all in  
Oklahoma.

Jeff Ball and Nancy Szerlag
  jeffball@usol.com
810-724-8581
Check out my daily blog at www.gardeneryardener.blogspot.com
Check out my extensive web site at www.yardener.com

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