Re: GWA Meeting Critique

**jo ellen meyers sharp h*@sbcglobal.net**

About the Valley Forge meeting:

I was terribly confused on the Wilmington bus tour. Every bus I got 
on ended back up at the horticultural center and I never did get to 
one garden that I wanted to see. I finally settled for a quiet (and 
air conditioned) stroll through the Delaware Museum of Art and the 
Icons and Idols exhibit, which was fabulous.

The gardens in Wilmington also didn't have a lot of color, and only 
one I saw worked with textures. One garden, a very large one, even 
had dead plants...others looked starved for water. If my garden was 
going to be on a tour, I'd go the extra mile and water the plants, 
pull out the dead ones and replace with seasonal annuals.

The gardens in the hollows the next day were wonderful and well worth 
the trip. I came back ready to paint a dead tree blue.

I think the tiredness and overly full days were compounded by the 
fact that some of us weren't in the same hotel as the meetings. We 
were dependent on transportation to get back and forth from some 
hotels to the convention center. There were times when attendees felt 
trapped or held hostage because of the bus and/or shuttle schedules. 
Many of us could not bop up to our rooms, drop off our stuff, rest 
and renew ourselves before the next event.

At the hotels, it was hard to get a straight story on what was going 
on. When I checked into the Hilton, I asked about a shuttle to the 
convention center and the desk clerk said there wasn't one. I asked 
again, saying surely there must be one. She checked with a bus 
captain, who, indeed, said there was a shuttle and it would be there 
in a few minutes to take me to the convention center. When I moved to 
the Scanticon, I asked if the shuttle could take me to pick up a car 
rental right across the street from the mall. I'd called before going 
to Philadelphia to make sure the hotel would do that and was told 
yes. In fact, the car rental place said the hotel drops people off 
"all the time." However, no shuttle for me, so I had to beg a ride 
from a GWA member really early Tuesday to the car rental 
place...that's because the desk told me the taxi service was 
unreliable. When I tried to call a cab company at 8 p.m. on Monday to 
make arrangements for the next morning, all I got was no answer or a 
message that the office was closed.

I thought the trade show was great; however, I wondered where Scotts was???

It goes without saying that we couldn't have been treated better at 
Longwood or Chanticleer. Both were highlights.

And, yes, Jeff and Nancy are right. We should pay our speakers. Many 
of us make part of our income from speaking, so why should we ask our 
speakers to do it gratis? I also agree that some of the sessions need 
to be longer in order to cover a topic adequately.

About the topics: This year, at least 100 of the 660+ attendees were 
first-timers. That's a lot. Just like we writers who dread penning 
another column about planting spring-flowering bulbs, we have to tell 
ourselves that a whole cadre of first time bulb planters need the 
information. I agree, though, that many of us are ready for next-step 
sessions for our business development.

I've attended many conferences on my dime and that of my employer(s) 
over the years and I think our rates are on the low end. Granted, 
$120 a night is a lot of money for a hotel room, but I find a 
roommate and the rate drops to $60 a night, which is quite 
affordable. And the fee includes almost all of our meals. That's not 
the case at most other conferences I've attended.

Also, I look at this annual symposium as an investment in my 
professional development. Spending less than $1,000 a year on that 
doesn't seem like a lot of money. Trust me, I'm not flush with cash, 
either. I haven't had a vacation in years.

Sheri -- I thought Chicago was right on the money on the writing 
skills with Don Fry there. Throughout my 30 years as a full-time 
newspaper reporter, I attended six to eight of his and other Poynter 
Institute sessions and have always come away with new methods, tricks 
and other tactics to improve my writing. The disorienting, odd-shaped 
rooms in Chicago; however, were bad fung shui.

jems
-- 
Jo Ellen Meyers Sharp
Garden writer, author, photographer
Region III Director Garden Writers Association
Phone: (317) 251.3261
Fax: (317) 251.8545
E-mail: hoosiergardener@sbcglobal.net

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