All members please note.
This email was sent out on the morning of Sunday 3rd May.
We were contacted yesterday by the Manager of the Cricket Club to be informed that they had discovered that a “funeral tea” which had been booked for the afternoon of 7th May now involved far more people than the club and/or the hirers of the rooms were originally expecting. Some 200 plus people are expected to attend this event celebrating the life of a recently deceased child. In consultation with the Chairman we have therefore agreed to forego the use of the room this Thursday evening.
The meeting will now therefore take place on Thursday 14th May at the usual time.
We hope that this does not cause any undue inconvenience to members.
Best wishes,
R and A
I make no apology for re-printing here an email which was sent out earlier about various aspects of the show. What must be emphasised is the need for you to advise David about the number of trees that you wish to bring along to the show, otherwise we risk being overwhelmed with exhibits.
The first part of this email concerns MBS members.
The MBS Chairman has been making enquiries about new clothing with the Society logo thereon. He has found a reliable and cost effective source which he assures us produces good quality goods. He would like to hear from members by return or certainly by the next meeting whether anyone is interested in purchasing some “new gear”.
There is a range of goods as follows:
Please let the chairman or us know if interested.
The Chairman’s Email: :chair@midlandbonsai.org.
Now the remainder of this email concerns everyone.
Firstly we need to know how many trees you propose bringing to the show this year. This is most important as things got a bit overcrowded last year and overcrowding does not make for a good show. Please tell us as soon as possible how many trees you want to bring and we will decide whether there is any need for a limit being placed on overall numbers being brought by an individual member. We hope that this will not be necessary. Please send a reply by email or WhatsApp to your chairman/show secretary.
Secondly the traders will be placed in the same location as last year but we want to try and improve lighting there if we can. Does anyone have access to any form of spotlighting that they could loan for the day to sort this problem out?
Thirdly, members of both societies will be able to enter trees in the usual classes although there is a slight change to the criteria for the Masterclass this year. The Masterclass criteria now reads: “This class is for trees which won in their class at the Annual Show last year”.
Fourthly, will any member holding a trophy please return it to their society at the next meeting. Thanks.
Fifthly, there will be a trip arranged in the early autumn, but more about that later.
David, your Chairman, has been to a meeting with Shannon Parker at the Gardens to discuss arrangements. Here’s what he learned:
Editor’s note. Any volunteers to tell Angela that she has to have her kitchen kettle PAC tested?
Fliers have already been sent out to you in the hope that you will be able and willing to post them up in your area. Copies will be available at Thursday’s meeting if you do not have printing facilities. Please do try and put up as many as possible.
We set out below the competition classes for the Annual Show. Note the change to the Masterclass.
Trees must be no larger than 6” (15cm) tall.
Trees must have been exclusively designed and styled by a member from non-bonsai material within the previous three years.
Trees must be no larger than 12” (30cm) tall.
Groups of two or more trees and raft plantings.
Penjing, root-over-rock etc.
This class is for trees from 12” (30cm) to 18” (45cm) tall.
This class is for trees which won in their class at the Annual Show last year.
When Dennis Lloyd, a former chairman, died prematurely in 1982 his family donated his trees to the M.B.S. and the proceeds from their sale were used to purchase this trophy which was first presented in 1983.
Matt was a founder chairman of the M.B.S. and presented this salver to the society at the end of his period as chairman. Matt died in 1986.
The tree winning a public vote.
This speaks for itself. A recent addition to the line up.
Measurements are from soil level. With the exception of Starter Trees, trees must have been owned by the entrant for at least six months prior to the Show.
Members are advised that, as last year, they are also asked to:
Placement of “competition trees” from MBS and Redditch members will be under the sole jurisdiction of David Attwood (MBS).
Organisation of the Redditch display will be managed by David Haw.
The May meeting will be a “Bonsai Bring and Buy”. There will also be discussion/conversation about final show preparation. This meeting will now take place on 14th May.
The Redditch meeting on 21st May will feature an update on your trees in development, showing trees and getting ready for a show, plus, if there’s time, a critique of any trees on display. The evening will be assisted by David Cheshire.
Pinch back pine candles to encourage smaller foliage and back budding. Look out for aphids and don’t forget vine weevil.
This autumn we hope to run a day trip to a Bonsai Centre and Meditation Garden in Derbyshire. It’s called The Cascades and it’s at Bonsall near Matlock. Have a look at the website and let us know what you think. Teanah will be giving more information at a later date: cascadesgardens.com.
Website update: We have been looking at updating the website to make it look more modern and to have a greater focus on bringing in new members. We initially started looking for a new WordPress template to achieve this but since we couldn’t find one that fit our needs, we decided to start building our own. This gives us long term flexibility over the look and feel of the website.
We are now happy with the WordPress template and the different sections and will be working on moving across the old content next. We are also looking at different options for hosting providers to ensure we have the best balance between cost and website performance.
Finally we looked at search engine optimisation to make sure we are one of the top hits on Google for bonsai related content in the area once the new website goes live. A sneak peek of the new website can be seen below.
As part of the content update, we also want to display members’ trees to show off the collection of nice trees owned by our members and to give an idea to potential new members what they could achieve with some guidance and experience in the future.
For that reason we would like to ask members of the MBS to send in pictures of their trees for displaying on the website. We will be anonymising these to help protect individuals’ privacy while also giving credit to the owners, for example: Satsuki Azalea by RG.
We have started planting gladioli in succession to try and ensure a long season of blooms for the house. The dahlias have also been started off in trays at home. The cold weather in the last couple of days will have given them a shock! We planted out some Larkspur which we had grown over the winter. Fortunately they are currently protected by a cloche. Whatever the weather the weeds still grow so try and keep on top of them. Is anyone observing “No Mow May” this year?
After about eight months since moving house, I finally managed to put the bonsai bench back together. It had to be dismantled into four big pieces to fit into a trailer for transport.
Once back together I took the opportunity to give it some coats of wood preserve and some coats of fence paint and it is now looking in decent nick again – if I say so myself.
If anyone is interested in the plans or has any other questions regarding cost of building, let us know.
Sven Vanroy.
We should like to express our sincere thanks to Sven and his team for the effort that they have put into preparing the new website. They have done a sterling job.
Please reflect upon this and respond by sending in, and continuing to send in, the photographs that Sven has mentioned above. After all it’s your website, so do please remember that!
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