As the name implies, the Central Florida Palm and Cycad Society (CFPACS) primarily focuses on growing palms and cycads in Central Florida.  Definitions of what constitutes Central Florida vary widely, and that is further skewed by a large amount of new membership in what is typically considered Northeast Florida and Southwest Florida.  Our membership  includes out-of-state and international members.  We share members and host meetings with other palm societies as well!  Everyone is welcome to join!

We meet four times per year and participate in plant sales throughout Florida.  As many of our members can attest, it is hard to beat the prices of our vendor sales and auctions.

Some CFPACS history:

• Dent Smith, founder of the IPS, lived in the Daytona Beach area - an area covered by CFPACS.
• The previous two presidents of the IPS before @ASHCVS were CFPACS members ( @Robert Blenker + @SubTropicRay )
• Our society has recently released all of our publications back to 1990 for free public use.

More information about us:

• Website: https://cfpacs.com/org/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/p/Central-Florida-Palm-Cycad-Society-100064719099155/
• Email: cfpacs.membership@gmail.com

Everyone is welcome to come attend one of our meetings or visit us at one of our sales.  Look for us in the AFFILATE NEWS AND MEETING DATES section.

Given the geographic split and the fact that palms have been successfully grown in so much of the state unprotected since at least the 1960s (and almost certainly could've been the entire time since the Little Ice Age if there was the will to do it, and really even during the LIA in warmer places like Chattanooga, Fayetteville and Memphis), perhaps it's time for our own regional Palm Society chapter? I'm not a great organizer - my autism means social skills are mostly learned, not something that comes naturally - but if someone started a chapter including us, I'd be on board!

Suggested meeting points, if it's Tennessee-specific:

• Murfreesboro - this one is a no-brainer. Literally in the middle of the state, plus it's a major city and probably the safest one in the state.
• Chattanooga - this is probably not as inconvenient as the rest of East Tennessee would be. Plus, Chattanooga has comparable winter averages to Memphis and has been shielded by the plateau from the worst of recent Arctic outbreaks, meaning Chattanoogans can grow palm species nowhere else in Tennessee can. Just please not around Hamilton Place or Rossville Boulevard which are very dangerous areas.
• Nashville - this is the state capital city, the state's biggest city and nearly as centrally located as Murfreesboro. Another no-brainer.
• Franklin - Franklin is right by Nashville and Murfreesboro in a position that may make it less traffic-choked than Nashville and more convenient than Murfreesboro for people from Clarksville or West Tennessee. Nonetheless, Franklin is also the biggest non-major city in the state and may well become our seventh major one in the 2030 census, so it should be entirely doable.

Nonetheless, I'm also open to us being included as part of the already-suggested Carolina Palm Society (given our North Carolinian origin and nearly-mirror geography) if we have a fair meeting point like Asheville, Chattanooga, Spartanburg or Charlotte. Me going to Charlotte or Spartanburg would be less of a stretch depending on the timing given that I wouldn't have to book a hotel as long as it only lasted a few hours, nor more days at a hotel than the days the event actually lasted if it was a multi-day event. Another idea could be an Appalachian Palm Society covering Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana and West Virginia with a meeting point in Lexington (the Lexington in Kentucky, of course) or Frankfort?

What do you think?