March 2017 NEWSLETTER & Meeting Notice

March 2017 Newsletter
EVERGREEN CHRYSANTHEMUM ASSOCIATION
Seattle, Washington

Evergreen Chrysanthemum Association

Email us at: steve at ecamumclub dot org
Furney’s Nursery >>——-> Partners with ECA in Chrysanthemum in Propagation and Exhibition
MARCH ECA NEWSLETTER
MEETING OF THE ECA –THURSDAY, March 9th, 2017, at 7 PM at the Seattle Police Athletic Association Office (SPAA) site at 11030 East Marginal Way South, Tukwila. REALLY! Leadership is in transition at the SPAA – our apologies for the building NOT being open last month. Steps are in place to assure we can meet at SPAA this Thursday.

DUES – Members are encouraged to pay 2017 dues to Treasurer, Sydney Ogilvie. Annual dues are $15/member or $20/couple. Dues must be paid before or at the March meeting for members to be listed in the clubs 2017 yearbook

DRAFT Minutes from February 9th Meeting
Draft Minutes, ECA Meeting, Feb 9, 2017

Meeting called to order at 7:30 pm Vice President Steve Joyner presiding—13 members present.
Meeting location was changed to Foster Library because the Seattle Police building was locked
January 2017 meeting minutes were read by Secretary Susan Joyner. A motion to accept these meeting minutes was made by Kris Stevens and seconded by Bob Ewing. Those present approved the January meeting minutes
Treasurer’s report – Sidney Ogilvie was not present so no treasurer’s report was given. The January treasurers report – $6,276.68 total of all accounts – cash, checking and savings.
Business:

1. Ron Elliot reported that the 2017 National Chrysanthemum show dates conflict with our fall show dates. A conversation ensued. Rich Aldrich reported that he had conversed with Furney’s about the date change and they could accommodate our date change request. Ron Elliot moved that we change the ECA fall show dates from October 27th – 29th to November 3rd – 5th. June Kubo seconded the motion. The motion was passed by the members present.
2. With the fall show date change the banquet date will be pushed out a week to Nov16th. More details to follow
3. Rich Aldrich and Ron Elliot reported that the April Plant sale will be held at Furney’s Nursery on Saturday April 22nd. The plant sale date was pushed out because Easter is the second weekend in April. Our April meeting date will be changed to April 20th to facilitate getting plant starts to the sale. Rich and Jill Aldrich will have the April plant sale flyers at the March 9th
4. Fall mum show flyers will be completed for distribution at the April plant sale
5. There was a brief conversation about entering our early blooming mums in the Puyallup fair this Sept.
6. Bob Ewing reported that David Helgeson, head horticulturist as Volunteer park would appreciate any extra mum cuttings that the club members might like to donate to him
7. Chris Stevens, face book administrator reported that she has been posting information on the ECA Facebook (FB) page. Kris encouraged all ECA members who use FB to share our FB page. Additionally, if you would like to post anything club related on the ECA FB page contact Kris and she will set you up with the appropriate permissions. Lastly, if you use FB please share any ECA posts with your FB friends.
8. Discussion about improving the ECA web page presence was postponed. Those present at the meeting had no updated information to report.
9. Supplies available at the February meeting:
Plant labels, white and yellow 100 per pack – $1.00/100 tags
2 1/2″ plastic planting/starting cubes – 5 cents/cube
1/4″ x4″ Twist Ems
12-45-10 fertilizer – $2.00/bag

New Business:

1. Need Buzzy’s contact number and a plan to remind him of our meeting date and time
Buzzy’s mobile number is 206-999-8029 and his e-mail address is [email protected]
2. Steve Joyner asked all ECA club members to email him a list if their cutting starts at [email protected]. Steve will compile a list of all ECA 2017 cutting starts.
3. June Kubo raised a question about reimbursement for meeting refreshments. Ron Elliot reported that his wife Sue was being reimbursed for the meeting refreshments.

Meeting ended at 8:45 pm
Respectively, Susan Stark Joyner, Secretary 2/9/2017

IMPORTANT INFORMATION – 2017 ECA CALENDAR:
March meeting: Thurs March 9th 7:00 pm at SPAA – Club plant sale
April meeting: Thurs April 20th 7:00 pm at SPAA – Club plant sale
(note date change-3rd Thurs of month)
April Plant Sale – Sat Apr 22nd at Furney’s Nursery 9am – 1pm
May meeting: Thurs May 11th 7:00 pm at SPAA
June meeting: Thurs June 8th 7:00 pm at SPAA
July meeting: Thurs July 13th 7:00 pm at SPAA
Aug meeting: Garden Tour – To be determined
Sept meeting: Thurs Sept 14th 7:00 pm at SPAA
Oct meeting: Thurs Oct 12th 7:00 pm at SPAA
National Chrysanthemum Show Oct 27th-29th in Portland, Or
Nov 3rd-5th ECA Fall Chrysanthemum show at Furney’s Nursery
Nov meeting: Nov 16th ECA awards banquet
Dec meeting: Thurs Dec 14th 7:00 pm at SPAA

CULTURAL NOTES FOR FEBRUARY
PLANT CULTURE – Continue to start plants for our public sale in April. Plants must be given protection for the first few months and carefully nurtured to establish strong root systems before potting or repotting. In February, take starts for the early blooming varieties. At this month’s meeting, the focus is growing plants.

PLANT SALES – The member plant sale will be at the March meeting, March 9th. We will have a second member plant sale at our April 20th meeting. (PLEASE NOTE CHANGE to Third Thursday for this meeting only)

Our public plant sale will be April 22nd (Saturday) from 9 AM to 1 PM:00 at Furney’s Nursery in Des Moines (21215 Pacific Hwy South). At least 8 people are needed for Set-Up on Friday April 21st and will discuss staffing the sales at our March 9th and April 20th meetings.

PLANT CULTURE and SUPPLIES – Members are reminded to bring in their extra plants for our member plant sale and the public sale. Only healthy looking plants are accepted for the “Sales Events”. For those bringing in plants, please also bring in newspaper or a cloth to cover the table if your plants are in an open bottom carrier. This will help the clean up crew when tidying at the end of the meeting.

CONTACT FOR SUPPLIES
Please contact Ronnie for soilless and supply needs at the March meeting as soon as possible.

PLANT SELECTION IS A VERY IMPORTANT ASPECT OF THIS GAME.
You older hands, if you have grown the same cultivar from your own stock with poor results, throw your stock away and buy a plant or two of that cultivar at the plant sale. Select carefully, you want a healthy cutting, and if the grower didn’t think enough of it to put his initials on the tag, go get a different one. Keep looking for the best stock available.

New Members are encouraged to contact Richard Aldrich to be assigned a coach who will provide personalized growing instruction and advice. It is highly recommended that new members take advantage of this membership service. Don’t be shy give Richard a call!!!

ECA WEB SITE History & Background information
WWW.ECAMUMCLUB.org went live in April of 2007 and we began trying to do monthly posts in December of 2008. The website is hosted by Rob Dunn of Mascot Theory for the exorbitant sum of $10 per month. Our Domain Name is paid up for another 2 years. Rob has helped us with the website design over the years at no charge. We currently use Word Press and the current theme is Arclite, which admittedly is rather plain, but please feel free to browse Word Press website and look at their other themes and website examples as their software is very user friendly for NON-IT Professionals and Volunteers web masters. In December of 2010, we installed a hit counter to measure how many views our site gets. As of this writing we have had 1,729,426 views!! In May of 2013 we did a minor redesign of the site at the request of Don Stark to aid navigation of the site. This includes the category tabs at the top of the page and separate categories for the Newsletter and the Cultural Discussion and TO Do List – creating two posts per month. We do get a lot of SPAM which are filtered into a spam file which is dumped at least every month and we do receive inquiries about our plant sale and requests for Garden Club presentations.