The Austin Pond Society held its October meeting on Monday, October 19 at the usual meeting place, Zilker Botanical Gardens Meeting Room. It was attended by about 30 members who enjoyed a meal of Chines Food provided by Bamboo Bistro, one of our sponsors.  Members brought desserts to complete the meal. We are still looking for a Hospitality person to provide us with these meals. Not that there was anything wrong with the food from Bamboo Bistro. In fact, it was delicious but there is nothing like a home cooked meal.

The meal was served at 6:30 pm and as usual, the first 30 minutes were dedicated to meeting, eating and drinking. At 7:00 pm, Jeannie Ferrier, APS President opened the business part of the meeting by referring to the fact that we had a lot to get through with nomination of Board Members for the upcoming year plus judging the pictures for the APS 2016 Calendar and the presentation that was going to be made by Matt Boring of Texas Ponds and Water Features.

The first order of business as outlined by Darren Bayhi, was the voting process to select winners and runners up in the Photography Contest. All of the entries were at the back of the room and laid out in the four different categories, Fish, Ponds, Plants and Wildlife. All of the pictures must be associated with ponds or taken in or around a pond. Each voting member was issued four different tickets that reflected the different categories on which the member had to write his or her number of choice.

The next order of business was nominations for members to the 2016 Board. Our bylaws require that we have a nominating committee that this year, comprised of Steven Monfrini, Barbara Lenhardt and David Slimp. Even though several of the current Board are willing to continue in their position this upcoming year, our by-laws require that they be nominated and be voted in at the next meeting.

Of the current Board, Jeannie Ferrier, the President was nominated to continue as were Julienne Smith as Secretary, Glen Hubenthal as Historian/Photographer, Cynthia Bennett as Parliamentarian, Barbara Lenhardt as Programs/Special Events, Betty Blackson as Librarian and yours truly, Francis Allcorn as Webmaster. The following positions are still open and we are looking for responsible volunteers to step up and fill the gaps, Treasurer, Publicity, Membership and Hospitality.

We had one self-nomination by Tad Paone to fill the role of Pond Tour Director. All of the nominated positions will hopefully be confirmed at the November Meeting along with volunteers to fill the remaining vacancies.

Following the nominations for the 2016 Board, the winners and runners up of the Photo Contest were announced plus the overall winner (the one with the most votes) as the Calendar Cover. The pictures are also used as the lead in picture on the Welcome Page of the website and Facebook page, to coincide with each month.

With the business out of the way, it was time for our speaker, Matt Boring of Texas Pond and Waterscapes to make his presentation. His topic was “Pond Preparation for the Winter”. He outlined all of the usual steps to take and fielded a few questions from the floor. He then made a presentation on some of the larger ponds he helped to build.  Finally he showed all of the steps it took to build a pond for one of our members who was on this year’s Pond Tour, Dan Mackay.  This was a very difficult project and it took much longer than he had anticipated but it turned out to be an absolutely beautiful pond. I was very impressed when I photographed it during the Tour and am even more impressed after I heard how difficult it was to build.

After Matt had completed his presentation, there was the usual drawing for the floor prizes and then Jeannie adjourned the meeting at 8:20 pm.

Below is a video of the Business Section of the meeting:

October Business Meeting Revised 2015 from Francis Allcorn on Vimeo.

Below is a video of Matt Boring’s presentation:

Presentation Matt Boring October 2015 from Francis Allcorn on Vimeo.

The next meeting will be the final one for the year. It’s hard to believe that the year has already slipped by and got away from us yet again. Mark the date on your Calendars, November 16. We will have a meal which I believe (hopefully, will be a roast of some sort with all of the fixin’s and lots of deserts supplied by the members. Following the meal, which will take up a lot of the evening, there will be socializing and dancing. Yes, you read that correctly, DANCING. So put on your best bib and tucker and your dancing shoes, bring along a desert and a very big appetite and come and enjoy yourself. We encourage all of you to dress up for the occasion. Heck, even I am scratching around trying to find something other than shorts to wear. Let me see, I think I got a Tux somewhere. Where the heck is it? Now I remember, I loaned that to a friend but darned if I can remember which one. How about a suit and tie? No, I gave all of my suits to Goodwill the minute I retired but I did keep one tie to be buried in. Guess I’ll stick with the shorts and an ugly sweater.

Oh yes, just a reminder that IF you are interested in filling any of the four vacancies on the Board, you can nominate yourself or have another member nominate you at the November Meeting when we vote on the nominations. Please, please think about volunteering as we do need new blood.

We have two items of scheduled business on the docket. One will be to see if we have any more nominations and then to vote in the new Board for 2016. The other will be to make a presentation to Blue Santa a check for $1500 from the Pond Tour proceeds.  Please remember to bring along a small gift to give to a needy kid in Austin as a part of the Blue Santa Program.

Hope to see you there.

We do not meet in December as it comes way too close to Christmas. The next meeting in the New Year will be January 18, 2016