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Our 10th Annual Central Iowa Water Garden Tour is over and the people that attended had a great time. Lots of compliments on the variety of gardens on the tour as well as how well the tour was organized. We did have one minor glitch on the organizing the volunteers for the Des Moines tour but it worked out okay.
I can say that I have never been so impressed with a great tour committee this year. Lots of volunteers and everybody was willing to do their part. You know what this means? -- not a lot to do for just a few people!! It was indeed a humbling experience. Rod and Kate Mulder (Master Gardeners) served as tour chairpersons and they did a great job.
As for final numbers for the tour -- I do not have them yet. They may be done by "press" time but I doubt it. But -- preliminary numbers indicate that our attendance this year was maybe a third less that the year before. We think that the hot weather had a huge impact on attendance. It was not because people did not know about it. We had great publicity. Some years I can say this but not this one.
On another note -- as I mentioned at the last meeting at Gary Craven's garden -- I will not be serving another term as your President. It is not because I do not want to it is because the group NEEDS new leadership. It is extremely important for organizations to have a change in leadership every so often for at least two reasons. One being an influx of new ideas -- believe me I have pretty much used most of my ideas. The other reason -- nobody will want the job if it is "lifetime" commitment. We need to show anybody that is interested in the position that it is a temporary thing.
So, with that, I want everybody to be thinking of an individual to run for President. Believe me, I will not be serving as your President next January. We will need to be voting on our next leader in October.
I want to reassure you that I will be at the next President's side to assist. This organization is way too important to me to let it down. It also is way too important to a lot of ponderers for you, as a member, to let it down.
When I started the ball rolling on getting this organization going four years ago I had no idea that it would be so popular -- I did know we would have a lot of fun and exchange a lot of ideas. I also had no idea of the quality of volunteers that has stepped forward to get this group to where it is today. We have made a lot of friends and created a lot of interest in water gardening.
So with that in mind -- be thinking of who will be your next President. That person does not need to be an expert on water gardening. However, the person will need to be very interested in promoting water gardening.
The President (the Big Toad) will have a lot of help from the Officers and Directors. Believe me it is a lot easier that it may look -- my secret has been all the great people around me. They have kept me on the straight and narrow.
Okay, for this month's meeting -- Jim and Jill Rose and Duane Russell from Jefferson has organized our mini tour on Saturday, August 13. Please read up on it elsewhere in this newsletter. This is opportunity to see gardens that otherwise may not be on our tour because they are so far away. Remember the last three years we have toured some distant gardens -- they were fun to see -- weren't they? This year will be fun also. This will be our meeting for the month of August.
Hope to see everybody there.
The Big Toad, Jamie