PACSOF ALLERT! Party Time! May 2014

[Ken Johnson]

It has been a few years since The Palm And Cycad Societies Of Florida has had a meeting but it may be time to start planning. Our original goal of uniting the chapters to form one combined newsletter may not be attainable but the spirit of joining forces for a huge meeting is still alive.

The idea here is to have a meeting either right before or right after the IPS Biennial. This would allow us the best chance to meet people on the tour without having to be on the tour itself and for those of you that will participate in the Biennial this will be an added bonus. We will also invite anyone that is interested in joining us and we will work hard to keep the fees and other costs as low as possible and still offer above average food and lodging. We will concentrate on an itinerary that will allow as many gardens and nurseries to be visited.

We need help. First please respond if you are at all interested in joining us. Then we need help spreading the word. Please let you local members know they are invited. We also need a few people that want to run parts of the tours. The dinner party will be a large affair at a private location. We will need help with that too.

Thanks to everyone in advance if you respond here. Please feel free to be open with any ideas you may have and the Directors will try to make the best of what we come up with. Thanks Again!

[Keith N Tampa (ex SoJax)]

I'll play along. I'm in Central FL and would like to get to know some more folks.

[Ken Johnson]

Keith, See who else is interested and lets see if we can get some momentum. Unfortunately this may need to be during the week so I'm not sure how to do that.

[Mike Evans]

Ken, I think this is a good idea. I will bring this up to our Central FL board members. I always enjoyed when we joined forces in S. FL. We have our meetings scheduled for the rest of the year, so this would be great before or after the Biennial. We are always looking for doing something different for the meetings and adding some IPS members will be that much better. Look for some good gardens to tour, so we can drum up some interest.

[Jeff Searle]

I've already had a few people express interest in coming by my house to have a look at the garden. I would be flattered and "let the party begin"!!! The only downfall is figuring how to get outside attendess to and from. maybe some carpooling would be needed.

[redant]

I've already had a few people express interest in coming by my house to have a look at the garden. I would be flattered and "let the party begin"!!! The only downfall is figuring how to get outside attendess to and from. maybe some carpooling would be needed.

or a party bus

Edited August 2, 2013 by redant

[Ken Johnson]

I will be happy to work out a lot of details but help me with this...please? Can we do this on a Thursday night basis? The IPS starts Friday night.

I have told the powers that B that I would organize 2 days of intense PRA's. This will mean real fast movement during the first day and an easy going dinner party at night with an early end. The second day, Friday, will end at the host hotel for IPS so we can rub elbows directly with attendee's!

Those of you that want to stay on for a Saturday PACSOF party (separate from IPS) let me know and I will see if we can find something to do. Palm Beach?

PACSOF will rent a hotel for visitors like we did when we used The Floridian in Homestead one year. PACSOF will be able to get a buses of any kind and we will adjust for the need. Some attendees may not have cars. We can help arrange transportation from Ft. Lauderdale or Miami airports. This could be important for IPS members that want to join us and we hope you will! This event is open to the public. Guest are welcome. Children should be warned... but are welcomed too.

There will be a fee to attend this grand PACSOF PRA. This will insure funds for the next one!. We will need more people like Keith and Mike to bring the crowd from "up north". We will take up Jeff on his kind offer to visit his garden and see if we can twist his arm for lunch? We can see 2 more gardens at the northern latitudes...any completely hidden gems we have never seen out there? Any interesting nurseries we have never visited?

[Tomw]

I would be interested in participating, and I’ll bring it up at the Palm Beach Palm and Cycad board meeting next week.

[Ken Johnson]

Thanks Tom!

Any check ins from Orlando area? Georgia? Alabama?

[Moose]

I will be happy to work out a lot of details but help me with this...please? Can we do this on a Thursday night basis? The IPS starts Friday night.

I have told the powers that B that I would organize 2 days of intense PRA's. This will mean real fast movement during the first day and an easy going dinner party at night with an early end. The second day, Friday, will end at the host hotel for IPS so we can rub elbows directly with attendee's!

Those of you that want to stay on for a Saturday PACSOF party (separate from IPS) let me know and I will see if we can find something to do. Palm Beach?

PACSOF will rent a hotel for visitors like we did when we used The Floridian in Homestead one year. PACSOF will be able to get a buses of any kind and we will adjust for the need. Some attendees may not have cars. We can help arrange transportation from Ft. Lauderdale or Miami airports. This could be important for IPS members that want to join us and we hope you will! This event is open to the public. Guest are welcome. Children should be warned... but are welcomed too.

There will be a fee to attend this grand PACSOF PRA. This will insure funds for the next one!. We will need more people like Keith and Mike to bring the crowd from "up north". We will take up Jeff on his kind offer to visit his garden and see if we can twist his arm for lunch? We can see 2 more gardens at the northern latitudes...any completely hidden gems we have never seen out there? Any interesting nurseries we have never visited?

I remember that PRA - it was excellent. At the Dinner in a host garden, we had a monster grill on a trailer provided by John Demott. Ken cranked out a massive amount of succulent steaks. Horrace Hobbs (the IPS President at the time) made the trip from Texas to attend.

[Lucinda]

Ken, what an absolutely terrific idea!!! Count me in. One of the great things about biennials is the chance to rub elbows with IPS members from around the world. This event will make it possible for non-biennial attendees from Florida to join in the fun and I have no doubt we'll have an enormous delegation from the northern part of the state. Please assign me to a committee; I want to help make this happen.

Mike Evans, CFPACS West VP, has already weighed in, I see. We next meet at Faith Bishock's place in mid September and you can be sure the Board will discuss the matter.

Meanwhile, your little aside about a combined All Florida journal is extremely interesting. As you know, thanks to Editor John Kennedy (long-time IPS member), CFPACS has an outstanding quarterly newsletter chock full of interesting articles of interest far beyond our circulation area. How wonderful it would be if it and other journals around the state could be put on line in one place for us all to enjoy. Can we set up a committee to explore the idea? If so, count me in on that one, too.

Looking forward to when we Floridians welcome the rest of the palm world at one giant, two-day, memorable party in May 2014.

Lucinda

CFPACS President

P.S. The Carpoxylon and Kentiopsis you brought me are doing great.

[Ken Johnson]

OK Lucinda! Thanks you very much for the check in and offer to help. Johns DeMott as chairman and Christian Faulkner as V.P.have kept PACSOF's status so we can activate it but we will need a few more officers.

A few of you have been on the PACSOF board before so if any of you, or any new people, would like to help on the technical side (read that as treasurer and recording secretary) we could get off to a good start like that.

John wants me to give him a presentation and if it looks like we can rum (sic) it without snafus we will be a "go". Go will mean we need hotel, food and travel information and prices. After that we will need an advertising campaign and a sign up.

P.S. Here is a huge tip for you if you can't make this date or make the whole Biennial but want to meet members. There will be one whole day "off" in Key West...

[virtualpalm]

Hey, Ken, with the biennial right around the corner, did anything come of the PACSOF meeting idea?

[Ken Johnson]

Hey, Ken, with the biennial right around the corner, did anything come of the PACSOF meeting idea?

Unfortunately no...It would be nice to fire up this .org again but it looks like the former officers are not interested. There are some looses ends of PACSOF that still need to be tied up.

[Moose]

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