Our “Summer Celebration” was held on Saturday, August 12, 2023. In the past years we held it on the two days, Saturday and Sunday, but everyone is so busy so we tried to combine everything in one day. The tents were set up a couple days earlier by our trusty ‘tent’ crew, headed by Mike Walliser, and Marilyn McArthur had ordered and prepared all the supplies we would need.
The morning started off with two separate dahlia classes; Ken Jensen had the advanced dahlia people, and Deb Hatt had the beginner group. Both groups learned a lot and Deb’s group used the information binders that were created for the ‘Mini-lessons after the work bees’. They had a lot of fun learning the different forms, sizes, colors and how to use the Classification Handbook with examples cut from the show garden. Ron surprised us all with how much he already knew and we didn’t know that Herb could speak Japanese.
We took a lunch break, many of us had brought a bag lunch and then the fun! After lunch Marilyn McArthur, Shirley Cullum and Evangeline Pastor demonstrated how to make an arrangement. All the containers, flowers and fillers were available for $20 ($10 for members). We all really enjoyed making our spectacular arrangements; they were just as good as any you find in a flower shop! Then we attached numbers to each of the arrangements had had a ‘viewer’s choice’ contest. It was hard to choose but we ended up with four winning arrangements. This was followed by a delicious supper of pulled pork, salads and dessert. All of this would not be possible without the support and dedication of our club members and volunteers. Thank you to all!