March 2014

The meeting was opened by President Lori Maracle at 7:13 p.m.

There were 59 people in attendance.

Lori welcomed Rotary Club members who attended. We are partnering with them this year to help them with landscaping around Muddy the Mudcat.

Sue Mazi discussed the minutes from February. Ian Steel moved to have them accepted as read and Pauline Bradford seconded the motion. Motion was passed.

Kim Christoff discussed the treasurer’s report. No questions were raised.

Lori Maracle touched on a few things that have been going on. We all know about the devastating fire at Rosa Flora so we passed around a card for everyone to sign. It’s important to let the owners of Rosa Flora know that they are in our thoughts. She also spoke about Charlotte Huitema who is the daughter of members Nick and Cindy Huitema. She is recovering from a terrible car accident and her story was recently covered by the Sachem. She is truly a remarkable young lady.

District 9 is holding their annual AGM on April 5th in Smithville.
Information was posted on the bulletin board.

Lori informed the members that we will not be attending the Home and Garden show or the Mudcat Parade this year. These projects require a huge amount of manpower and time and the payback isn’t always worth it. We will look at these things again next year, but for now we will concentrate on the basics: plant sale, planting flowerbeds and Trillium awards.

The plant sale is May 10th (Mother’s Day weekend). Members were asked to donate plants and to please have them in pots and have them labelled. We’ll have more detail about the sale at the next general meeting and a sign-up sheet for volunteers.

Debbie Thomas spoke about our new “Hodge Podge” table. Some items that our members made at Krista Barlow’s Kornhusk Kreations workshop were on display. Beth Powell also displayed various seeds to share with our members. If you have any odd or unusual items, or plants that need to be identified please bring them to display on this table. Judy Jeffery offered spring bulbs for sale at a 25% discount to members.

Debbie explained that we will be purchasing Nincompoop for the downtown flowerbeds as a fertilizer. Nincompoop is available at Rice Road nurseries by the yard and is sterilized and produces no weeds. Don Davis graciously offered to help with picking it up. At the moment we don’t have any available for members to buy, but members can pick up at Rice Road Nurseries in Welland.

After a short break Lori introduced our guest speaker Jackie Lynch. Jackie’s presentation was “Glorious Grasses for all Reasons and Seasons”. We learned all about different types of grasses, which ones are invasive and which one aren’t, and how to use them to make our gardens beautiful in all 4 seasons. Jackie was also kind enough to donate a $20 gift certificate as a door prize which was won by Robert Marr.

The Ways and Means draws were called. They Ways and Means table looked spectacular this evening. Thank you to everyone who donated items. We raised $73.00. Calling out names of winners is proving to be much easier than using numbered tickets. Thank you to Betty Ballanger and her team of helpers. Good job as usual!

Thank you to Mary VanOosten, Mary McKinney and of course Maura Cooper for providing tea, coffee and snacks. Everything was absolutely delicious.

Meeting was adjourned at 9:00 p.m.

Sue Mazi, DHS Secretary