The Austin Pond Society held it’s monthly meeting on Monday, October 16 at the usual place, the Zilker Botanical Gardens Clubhouse. The meeting was attended by around 35 members with a couple of new ones adding to the group. New members are always welcome. The meal provided by the very popular Stephen Monfrini, consisted of pulled pork rolls with salads and dessert’s provided by the members. As usual, a very welcome start to what was a very busy evening.
This meeting started with Jeannie, the President explaining to everyone the rules regarding the photo contest for next years calendars. The entries would be identified by a number only and the members would choose the first, second and third places in each category. There were four categories, fish, ponds, wildlife associated to a pond and water plants.
Following the time allowed to review and vote on the pictures, the speaker for the evening, Paul Lawrence from “ Texas Land and Water Designs” talked to us for about an hour on the finer points of garden selection which emphasized included plants, where and what sort, contrasts, locations, statues and other solid objects and other ideas that may not occur to most of us. I had some technical difficulties with one of my cameras and it took me awhile to get it sorted out so I missed the first part of his discussion PLUS the camera was out of focus for a bit. My apologies for the poor performance on my part.
Paul Lawrence from “ Texas Land & Water Designs” Oct 2017 from Francis Allcorn on Vimeo.
Following Paul, we moved right into the election of officers for this upcoming year, 2018. As chair of the nomination committee, Julienne Smith explained the format for electing the officers and smoothly switched into announcing those board members who were willing to hold a position and return for another year. These officers were all elected by acclamation.
Business Section October 2017 from Francis Allcorn on Vimeo.
Below is a list of all of the newly elected Officers.
President – Jeannie Ferrier
Secretary – Keith Neuse
Treasurer – Jack Marshall
Parliamentarian – Nancy Reinart
Below is a list of all of the newly elected Directors.
Historian/Photographer – Glen Hubenthal
Hospitality – Stephen Monfrini
Programs/Special Events – Barbara Lenhardt
Librarian – Margaret Boeneke
Membership – Rodney Lewis
Publicity/Public Relations – Ellen Filtness
Webmaster – Francis Allcorn
All are returning officers with the exception of Keith Neuse as the Secretary. Keith is no stranger to the Board as he helped Rodney with the Membership this past year. Welcome Keith.
We would like to give our thanks to Julienne Smith who has been an active Board Member for seven years and has finally decided to step down. Thanks Julie for all of your hard work over all of those years.
The only position that was not filled was that of the Pond Tour Director without whom there will be no Pond Tour in the foreseeable future. This is probably one of the the most important and definitely the busiest position on the whole board for at least half of the year. Although there are many people that step up and work on the various Pond Tour Committees, the Director is the one that pulls it all together.
Please note that without a Pond Tour Director and therefore no pond tours, we will NOT be able to make the donations and charitable contributions that we normally make as this is our only substantive fund raiser.
Following the voting, Jeannie welcomed all of the members that have volunteered their pictures and then branched into a discussion regarding the actual Pond Tour. Notwithstanding that we need a Director to fill that position, she suggested that maybe we should consider holding the Tour every other year or cutting it back to a single day or both. Her reasons, apart from the obvious one of lack of leadership, is that it takes such a lot of organization and involves so many people. Another reason is that Austin has so much going on that other clubs in our organization, AAGC have also cut back on their tours and shows finding it difficult to compete. A further suggestion from another officer is to have two Directors, one North and one South to halve the organizational time and responsibilities and also to cut back on the mileage. All good talking points and something to think about.
At this point, Darren and Glen announced the winners of the Photo Contest for this upcoming 2018 Calendar. The pictures, in order, will also be posted on this website on a monthly basis starting January 2018. The final act of the evening as it usually is, was the drawing for the door prizes.
The next and final meeting for the year is scheduled for November 20th and it will also be our Holiday Party. Details to follow.