October 13 was a lovely day in San Mateo and perfect for the AFS Annual Meeting at the San Mateo Garden Center. Over 60 attendees were treated to a sandwich, salad and dessert luncheon as well as a meeting which was open to the membership covering current business and future plans for the American Fuchsia Society. Our President, Judy Bligh did a roll-call of Branches of which nine were represented.
Four members in attendance were from as far away as Crescent City. Judy also presented Jaguar Glass items, all of which had beautiful fuchsias patterns sketched on them, to the several AFS members as a token of our appreciation for their many years of service in support of our society.
The program after lunch was a computer slide show titled, Appealing Front Gardens presented by Charlotte Masson and Joyce Richardson. They provided everyone with a handout which showed some great tips on how to make your own front yards more attractive.
Mac McWhirter our new AFS Librarian, advised the membership that since he took over the library responsibilities he has been restructuring the library books numbering system, so books of a set would now be located together even though they had been received years apart He also removed numerous copies of the same book from the numbering system, keeping only one or two copies of a particular book. He also plans to convert VHS tapes to digital DVD.
The afternoon finished with door prize drawings for fuchsia lore donated to the Society by Golda Dakin’s family and mite-resistant fuchsias donated by Dr. Peter Baye and Rodney Bergquist. Much appreciation to the San Mateo County Branch, which had the largest number of members in attendance. Their primary members, Vera and Oscar Colin obtained the great meeting space for us.