The Spring 2010 newsletter from the New York Division is now available online. It includes lots of fun photos and a delicious looking recipe for Tomato Basil Soup (I’ve been looking for one – thanks ladies!). This division looks to be having a really good time!
Click Here to download your copy.
Kathy
“Haiti is not a terminal illness”
Dr. Paul Farmer, quoted at Harvard Medical School Conference, February 12, 2010
Although Dr. Farmer’s remarks had to do with medical relief in his over-all assessment of the situation in Haiti, he expressed hope for this island and this hope is something which we in the WNF&G can partake. In the long term, the people of Haiti must be helped to advance their agriculture. Their soil is exhausted and needs fertilizer; they need seeds and people to teach them how to successfully plant and harvest crops, rather then depending on gift of grain and produce from other countries. We should look to our own Agriculture agencies for guidance in sending and money for fertilizer and tools. With this kind of aid, a generation from now things in Haiti would be much, much better.
In the coming months, [and I know you all planning this] we must truly move in the direction of LOCAL. Our health and survival of farmers and agricultural land depend on it. More and more community garden plots, school programs and farmers market will materialize and we must support them and be fully engaged with the process.
And just a word about root cellars and winter storage. Next month we will touch on this so that if you haven’t planned this kind of future for your cabbages, carrots, beets and potatoes next fall. There will be a few hints. Hint one: Don’t fall down the cellar steps.
We are looking forward to being with you in June, sharing friendship knowledge, fun and —
Oh yes, WNF&G, unlike the soil of Haiti, is rich, nurturing and comforting to the inner soul. Lets us plant generously grounds for our children and grandchildren.
FAITH
The information to make your room reservations for the Spring National Meeting in June. You’ll find the links and instructions on the main web site. Please pay careful attention to the instructions so that you can successfully complete your room registration.
Click Here to go there now.
“And when I went to sleep, I dreamed a dream but the dream was not in my
head: it seemed to come through my open bedroom door and settled on my
comforter for me to watch”
Angalina Luongo
Our Dreams sometimes elude us yet they linger some where in the backs of our busy minds …
Little snippets of memory that tend to color our thinking and actions, even though we aren’t consciously aware of it. You, as leaders in our organization, should take pride in the dreams of Woman’s Farm and Garden, for our dreams have fared well in 2009.
Our bee project has been successful. The Greenhouse Welcome Center is almost complete and in the next few weeks we will be working on our book and on plans for our June Meeting. Kathy Beveridge, our Sparkling editor, not only is helping with the book but working on a new branch in the Amber area.
On a personal note; if any of your have before worked in the postal system and the telephone system, relying on e-mail, I have to report to you that I have received no e-mails since November first.
The Chief Financial officer of our company, Edward Huppi has been in hospital and is only now, on Jan 6th at home under care, due to a very grave complication resulting from his cancer chemotherapy. This has been a most serious time for us; he is our nephew, and at Thanksgiving his step-father died so along with unremitting pressure at our plant for delivery of electronics to our troops in Afghanistan, sometimes over-night, you can imagine that our normal 8-5 lives are expanded and stressful. If you need to communicate with me, please write or telephone.
My dream for us at Farm and Garden in 2010 will be our finished greenhouse project, ready for the big, historic anniversary ahead, our book and a new emphasis on doing things locally. Next time I will be writing about the new trend in the United States, and we will want to be ahead of, or on the curve of this trend as were with the bee project, as we deftly close the door on our 2009 dreams.
Faith
“AN INSIDE LOOK AT WNF&GA: IT’S HISTORY AND LEGACY”
Founder’s Day was celebrated by neighboring branches Juliet, Troy and Warren having combined their meetings to share in the significance of the day.
Opening remarks to the 76 in attendance were made by Michigan Division President, Carroll Thomson and a defining letter was sent by National President, Faith Tiberio:
“Our founders certainly knew the importance of a system of independent Branches which are connected with each other and become one under a unifying umbrella known to us as “National.”
“National” provides legal protection, guidance and goals. Branches by themselves do wonderful, important work within a limited circumference of service. Together, the Branches multiply and extend service and influence.
Consider National’s “Bee Project”. Each Branch succeeded in doing what it could to ease this terrible nation-wide agricultural crisis; together all the Branches, all the members communicating, exchanging ideas and plans of action under the leadership of National truly made a difference.
I congratulate you. I thank you and cheer you on. Your founders knew that your combined Branches truly made a “Tree of Life.”
My name is Kathy Maestas of Techkat Web Services and I’ve been your webmaster for the past couple of years. I want to take this opportunity at the Holidays to thank you for the opportunity of serving your excellent organization. It has been a joy to redesign your site and “meet” some of your members.
I also want to thank you for including me in the distribution of the Farm & Garden Magazine. It is lovely and I always enjoy reading up on what the branches are doing and seeing who has won an award. I’m starting to feel like I know many of you. The recipes, stories and poems are fun as well.
I noticed in the last issue of Farm & Garden that you are looking for someone from within the membership to take over the web site. I thought it would be appropriate for me to give a bit more detail about the technical requirements for working on the site for anyone who is interested in taking over the position.
The following are the basic skills that are required to maintain the site:
Much of the site can be maintained using a graphical HTML editor like Dreamweaver or Kompozer, but knowing HTML will come in handy in seeing where the JavaScript elements are and also for editing the JavaScript.
I wish everyone a beautiful and happy holiday season and a prosperous New Year.
Kathy Maestas
Webmaster
As the old year closes and the new year begins, you are probably marking your 2010 calendar with the important events that are coming up.
Please be sure to set aside June 2 – 6, 2010 for the WNF&GA Spring National Meeting in Grand Island, New York. A summary of the meeting schedule can be found on our main web site along with information and a reservation form for the Bus Tour. There’s also a link to the hotel if you’d like to make advance reservations.
As soon as the Spring Meeting Reservation Form is ready we’ll update you again. In the meantime, reserve those dates!
“Come little leaves,” said the wind one day,
“Come ‘ore the meadow with me and play,
“Put on your dresses of red and gold”
”For summer has gone and the days grow cold”
Do you remember that nursery song? And as we reflect this holiday season, how much we have for which to be grateful, even all those piles of leaves, which can turn good use, for our gardens.
Kathy Beveridge, our own wonderful magazine editor, has opened a new business called Spark, a nonprofit consulting firm which may be of use to you as you consider ways of fund raising.
Many of our branches are busy fund raising; Rochester Branch is going all out with their “Greens Market.” Their outstanding newsletters continue to inform and involve members into taking an active role in all the opportunities this busy club offers. Constant communication among the members helps keep branches alive and giving to their communities.
Claudia Scioly is on top of “green” speakers, most importantly involving school programs and promises one for our June meeting, while Mayflower Branch is meeting this week to plan along those lines on a local farm, which has offered to become involved in a project.
Sylvia Anderson is looking for delegates for ACWW. See the magazine for further information. Audrey Ehrler reports that New York and Mayflower have combined for purpose of getting enough member numbers for voting delegates at the Triennial Conference of ACWW. Kay Engelhart is working very hard as the Chairman of International Cooperation Focus to educate our membership.
More stories have come in for “The Book”. Please sit down for ½ an hour or so and put down some memory which your children / grandchildren will read sometime in the future. How surprised I was to read in Thomas Hardy [1804-1928] that bees were being transported by horse and cart from place to place even then, for it was in taking hives to market that Tess of the d’Urbervilles experienced the accident with the mail-carrier’s horse which cost the life of her family’s only means of livelihood, the faithful horse Prince. Luckily for her, the mail carrier was a good and honest man who got the hives to market and saw to it that she got safely home.
Summer really has gone and the days do grow cold, but our gardens will awaken; plans for next Spring and lovely canned, frozen and root cellar vegetables warm us now.
Faith
Celebrating In Style!
Foreground L-R: Bamberlee Barnes, MaryJo McInerney, Kim Vance, Elly Wilson Background L-R: Mary Hemmer, Marilyn Karpicke, RaeAnn Krauss
The Saginaw Branch of the WNF&GA had a tea on the 31st of August this year celebrating the 80th Anniversary of this Branch! The tea was held at the historical Castle Museum here in Saginaw. The Castle Museum was at one time Saginaw’s stately post office in downtown Saginaw. It is a beautiful building with its majestic turrets and marbled halls designed after a French Chateau. The castle was completed in 1898 and was saved twice through the years from demolition. Just visiting the castle is a pleasure in itself. Walking through the castle is so much of Saginaw’s past. You can almost imagine yourself standing there in the past at those places all but forgotten by the people of the here and now. It was such a fitting place to hold our anniversary tea.
We were pleased to have two guests from outside our branch attend our tea, Carroll Thomson (the Michigan Division WNF&GA president) and Claudia Scioly, who gave us a very remarkable and interesting recount of her Frysinger Exchange to Iceland at a lunch we held last year. It was so nice to have guests from the Division!! I think the tea topped everyone’s expectations of an old-fashioned tea. Each table was decorated by a different member of our Branch. Some were very fancy while others reflected a simpler tea you might have at home with your best friend. Each table had its own individual centerpieces, table settings, and teapots, provided by the table hostess. Finger foods were provided by members and their own recipes for the most part. They were amazingly good! Everyone had their best dresses on, some of us with hats and gloves. What a site to see! I think the ladies who founded our Branch would have been so proud of us!
