Chairman’s Report 2024

 

Yet another year over, my fourteenth year as chair, and as I say every year, I cannot believe how quickly the year has passed.

 

We ended 2023 with 61 members which is down from last year, but this was expected as some whose membership had been rolled over after Covid did not rejoin. We have had new members join throughout the year and the average attendance at meetings being 42 which is up slightly.

 

The accounts continue to look healthy, and we are happy to be able to maintain the annual membership fee at £15.00 for single members and £25.00 for joint membership (this has not increased for over 5 years) and meeting fee at £2.00.

 

I am sure that you will agree that we have had an incredibly good programme of events this year, and that all the meetings and events have been very enjoyable.

 

The Flower of the month competition has been well supported, and I am sure we all enjoyed seeing the lovely blooms from everyone’s gardens. The quality and variety of flowers throughout the entire year has been amazing and everyone who has taken part should be verry proud. I will be pleased to announce the winners later this evening.

 

The Photography competition at Baytree was a remarkable success, with over 400 votes cast and it provided a lot of good publicity for the group. Unfortunately, we have struggled to sell the calendars, and whilst we will be holding the competition next year, we may have to take the decision not to print calendars.

 

We also had a good number of Pot grown Daffodils at the April meeting and we hope to be able to build on this and display many more pots at the Lincolnshire Daffodil show this year.

 

2024 is promising to be a fun year for us, an interesting and varied program with a wide variety of talks, an evening garden visit, Summer Garden Party, Pot of Bulbs, Daffodil Show and Photography competition. Whilst we have no day trips organized, I have provided details of Garden-related trips being run by Hallam Travel, which gives access to Garden days out.

We had hoped to take part in the Tulip Parade but unfortunately that has not panned out for this year but are not ruling it out for future years.

 

I would like to thank the Committee for their support and hard work, I really value every one’s contributions and ideas. The group would not be able to function as well as it does without all your efforts.

We are always looking for people who feel that they can contribute and would be willing to join the committee so have a word with me if you feel you could help.

 

Many thanks to you all for making the Holbeach & District Horticultural Society such an excellent group of people to be involved with.

 

 

Sue