Welcome back to another year of orchids. We hope we will be able to hold our shows as planned this year, so far so good.
The Taranaki Orchid Society had a wonderful 50th Anniversary show and celebratory dinner. The show featured a marvellous display of articles taken from newspapers and various other publications to demonstrate some of the activities the society has been involved in over the years. A lovely meal was held at a local hotel on Saturday evening and again the society went to a lot of trouble to make it a special occasion. Congratulations Taranaki!
Yearbook Reminder
Thank you to those who have already sent your contributions to Allan. There is still room for more articles and for those who have already indicated that they will supply an article, copy needs to be with Allan by the end of February. Please send contributions to Allan Rae via email.
Award Photographs
Just a few reminders to the award photographers and to anyone who may take an award photo this year:
- Choose your background carefully, if possible use a black, grey or blue background. These colours tend to work the best, depending on the flower colour.
- Iron the creases out of your back drops.
- Plants in coloured pots: If possible sit the plant inside a black pot or put a black drape around the pot.
- Don’t crop photographs excessively. We like to display award flowers face on in the Yearbook. To do this we need to rotate photos which means we need a decent amount of area around the flower to work with.
National Judges’ Seminar and AGM Weekend
This will be hosted by the Howick Orchid Society over Queen’s Birthday Weekend (June 5-7). The venue is the Pakuranga Bowling Club. Further information and registration forms will be sent out in due course.
Vale – Alf Day
In mid-January OCNZ was saddened to report the passing of Alf Day from South Auckland. Alf was a well-known and respected orchid identity having been a member of the NZ Orchid Society since 1952 and a foundation member of the South Auckland Orchid Society. Alf imported plants and was a keen hybridiser concentrating mainly on Odontioda. In 2006 Alf was made a member of the NZ Order of Merit for services to horticulture. Alf was involved in the OCNZ and NZOS judging systems. The orchid fraternity was well represented at Alf’s funeral service and OCNZ was pleased to read out the messages many of you sent following our notification of Alf’s passing.