Re: Joint/cooperative ventures, and a New PC-free LCD digital projector

[Paul W Gossett <pwgossett@juno.com>]

Kitty and All,

We are fortunate here in Tulsa, Oklahoma to have the Tulsa Garden Center.
 We as an affiliate of the Tulsa Garden Center may use the facility for
our meetings, shows, sales, judging schools, and any other activity that
we would have to use the facility.  We do have to pay a fees to hold each
event but, it is a reduced fee for affiliates.  We have been an affiliate
since the 1950's and for a long time we had no problems holding events at
the Tulsa Garden Center but, when the City of Tulsa took full control of
the facility, we started having some problems so, we moved our shows to a
mall or another type facility.  But, now all is okay and we take
advantage of the facility.

Because we are an affiliate, we may also use it for storing all of our
supples, we also use their old milk bottles,donated by a milk company 50
years ago to display the irises in  our shows.  We have full use of the
a/v equipment to use for our meetings.  But, some of us do have LCD and
slide projectors for backup if the other equipment is in use by another
organization.  The Tulsa Area iris Society is only one member out of 30+
organizations that use the facility.  The Tulsa Garden Center also leases
the facility out for weddings and other activities that do not involve
the affiliates.

The Tulsa Garden Center is a very beautiful facility and you can go to
their web site at 
www.tulsagardencenter.com and check it out.


Paul

On Sun, 1 Feb 2009 13:25:28 -0800 "K. Loberg" <iris.loberg@comcast.net>
writes:
> I wanted to share a couple of cooperative ventures that I have 
> initiated and
> completed for my local iris club, which might be something that 
> other iris
> societies could consider.
> 
> 
> 
> 1.   Affiliation with a garden club.  My local club has seen 
> membership
> decreases in the past 8 or 9 years.  We've lost more active members 
> who have
> passed on than the number of new members we've gained.  I was able 
> to use an
> opportunity in my community which has benefited two clubs.   Several 
> years
> back I became active in my local garden club, who is very active (2 
> program
> meetings a month) and has about 3 times as many members as does my 
> iris club.
> My garden club is also fortunate enough to own a small Clubhouse, a 
> home which
> was donated to the garden club some decades ago, and it also has an 
> outdoor
> storage room (old garage).   My local iris club has moved it's 
> meeting
> location over the years, often initiated because the meeting 
> hall/location
> became more expensive.   We also were having difficulty finding a 
> members
> home/garage or location to store our show vases, and had resorted to 
> renting
> the smallest mini storage we could find, which was an additional 
> annual
> expense.  For about 4 years, our iris club was experiencing annual 
> deficits in
> our fund balance and we needed innovative ideas to solve this 
> problem.
> 
>      The opportunity I saw was to ask our garden club (affiliated 
> with
> California Garden Club's Inc.) if we could become an affiliate to 
> the garden
> club.   I wouldn't have done this if I hadn't been an active member 
> of the
> garden club for a few years, and they knew me as an avid gardener 
> and a
> collector of irises.  Our garden club already had another group 
> which was
> affiliated, it is a flower arrangement club, and the requirement for 
> that club
> was that their members had to also be a member of one of the garden 
> clubs in
> my county or the adjoining county.    Upon doing research, I found 
> out my iris
> club could become an 'associated plant society' of the California 
> Garden Club
> for a reasonable fee, and that would make all of our iris club 
> members
> "members of a CGCI affiliated garden club/plant society", and that 
> met the
> requirements of my local garden club.   We did not have to pay dues 
> to the
> garden club which happen to be $20 per year.   Additionally, we 
> volunteered to
> help clean out the outdoor clubhouse storage, so that we could store 
> our show
> vases there, and that saved us the annual mini storage rental.  Our 
> iris club
> also volunteered to pay a nominal annual fee equal to what the 
> flower
> arrangement club did, and the garden club welcomed us as an 
> affiliate.   Our
> iris club members do not have to attend any garden club meetings if 
> we don't
> want to.
> 
>      We now have the use of the clubhouse for meetings.  It has a 
> very nice
> kitchen, many folding tables and chairs for a meeting hall.  They've 
> installed
> a permanent screen for presenters to show slideshows.   We're also 
> using it
> for our annual flower show until the time we might outgrow the room 
> in size.
> Our iris club budget is now back in the black.   It became a win-win 
> situation
> for both clubs.   As it turns out, we have about one third of our 
> iris club
> members who were already a member of one of the six local garden 
> clubs that
> are in our two county area, and that also meant a lot of support for 
> our
> cooperative venture.
> 
> 
> 
> 2.   Purchasing a PC-free LCD digital projector.  The second item I 
> initiated
> has to do with a slide projector.   For years, one of the problems 
> we've had
> in our iris club is planning and getting programs for our meetings.
> Distances to bring in program speakers is far, and so often we 
> didn't have
> speakers.   A few of us who did have pictures to share, have them as 
> digital
> pictures but no one has had a digital LCD projector.  Several of us 
> have the
> old style slide projectors, but no one wants to go to the expense of 
> making
> slides from digital pictures.  We also had borrowed the AIS LCD 
> projector
> once, but that required time to handle the shipping.
> 
>      Now that we were affiliated with our garden club, I saw the 
> same need
> with them, the need to have a local LCD projector.   With some of 
> the savings
> our iris club obtained by using the garden club clubhouse, I 
> suggested that we
> again partner with the garden club and jointly purchase a new LCD 
> projector,
> to be used by both groups in the clubhouse.  They both liked the 
> idea and
> agreed.  One of the things that sold us all on getting a LCD 
> projector, was
> that I found a new "PC free" unit, one that runs a digital slide 
> show without
> having a laptop or any PC connected.   I also found it at my local 
> Staples
> store, and after investigation, ordered it online.   At the time I 
> got a $100
> rebate and also used a $120 Staples awards credit obtained by the 
> garden club
> from a copy center order the previous quarter.  The whole unit cost 
> us about
> $800.00 plus tax minus the credits, and the cost was split by our 
> two groups.
> 
>      I have now given one presentation with our new LCD projector 
> and it was
> used by one other speaker.  It does exactly what it was advertised 
> as. no PC
> laptop or computer is needed.   It has a USB port on the back and 
> all you do
> is plug in a USB Memory/Flash card containing jpeg images, and it 
> has an
> internal menu which allows you to select and run a slideshow.  This 
> unit has
> multiple methods of connecting to units, so it can connect to a 
> Laptop or a
> Video player as well.
> 
>      I have mentioned our success to a couple of clubs and have been 
> getting
> inquiries about what unit it is, henceforth the reason I decide to 
> write and
> post this note, hoping it may help other groups.
> 
>      The unit we obtained from Staples, is an Epson EX70 LCD 
> projector.    You
> can read about it here:
>
http://www.epson.com/cgi-bin/Store/consumer/consDetail.jsp?BV_UseBVCookie
=yes
> &oid=63077319  and here:
>
http://www.aboutprojectors.com/news/2008/09/30/epson-releases-ex30-ex50-a
nd-e
> x70-projectors/ and here:
> http://www.epson.com/cmc_upload/0/000/119/948/EX70_ProdPrev.pdf
> 
>     One of the nice benefits I see from having this unit, is that 
> any of our
> members who have digital pictures (just about everyone has a digital 
> camera
> now days), can select 50, 100, or 150 pictures, simply place them on 
> a USB
> Memory card (sometimes called jump drives), and we can have an 
> interesting
> program.   And this will help us retain members and encourage new 
> members to
> join.
> 
> 
> 
> Have a great day everyone!
> 
> Kitty Loberg
> 
> Calif.
> 
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