Events Past

Reports of previous HPS Norfolk and Suffolk Group events, as told by our members.
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Christmas Bash

Written by Chris Davies. Posted in Events Past

Winter Event 30th November 2013

About 60 members attended, bringing lots of lovely food to share, all of which drew compliments as we ate.

John Metcalf had set up a very educational quiz (ie: we couldn't do it!) of dead stems. I think the top score was 6 out of 21. ( Training course needed?)

Colin Pusey, his wife, Maria, and Lionel Ponder took care of the raffle, with an interesting assortment of prizes including a pheasant which had grown into a turkey, and back again, during the course of the day.

Ben Potterton was his usual entertaining self, demonstrating the production of three seasonal arrangements which he kindly donated as raffle prizes. This probably boosted the raffle proceeds.  Ben also introduced the self-explanatory term 'spriglet' and said that he was not a 'real flower-arranger', but a 'plonker'. He had a range of very non PC artefacts, which he used to identify the character of some towns and villages within the group, (lynching party from Ipswich?) - and who was it defined by orange string, or the plastic flowers?

 
  
 clickon pic to view

We also had an “ideas board”, and book where members could vote for some of our present activities or alternative ones, or write new ideas in the book. These will be considered at future committee meetings to see what the consensus is, and what we can do to brighten up our drab wretched lives!

After lunch, Andrew had devised a set of themes, one for each table of up to 8 members, requesting them to create a flower arrangement, prompted by Ben's demonstration, as a group. A vast amount of props had been provided by Andrew, plus quantities of greenery, dried material and frivolous bits for decoration, as well as quantities of extra material generously provided by members. We voted by placing a coin in the pot for the one we liked best. One group won by a wide margin. Ben presented prizes to the best three. I asked him afterwards which one he thought was best, and he said that the winning one had been 'outstanding' in it's flower-arranging quality. They were all interesting and good enough to take home, so each group agreed amongst themselves who would have their creation, (remembering to return to Andrew any special artefacts after Christmas.)

 
  
click on pic to view

Thanks to the committee, especially Anita , Cynthia and Andrew for the detailed organisation, and other committee members and the 'usual suspects', plus some new ones, for helping in the kitchen and clearing up. We all had a great day which has started us off towards a very happy Christmas to everyone.

Chris Davies
photos by Colin Pusey

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Taste of Autumn

Written by John Metcalf. Posted in Events Past

HPS Norfolk and Suffolk Group display at 'Taste of Autumn'
On Sunday 6th October the Group took part in the 'Taste of Autumn' event at Raveningham Estate.  We were invited by Lady Susan Bacon to provide an educational display about the work of the Group.  Pamela Clark and Linda Hall decided to focus on the life and plant introductions of Alan Bloom as he was one of the four founders of the Hardy Plant Society.  We also decided to have a display showing the benefits of national and local membership of HPS.  On the day itself Pamela and Linda were joined by new committee member, Colin Pusey, to mount the display and man the stall during the event.  Colin had recently organised the purchase of a gazebo and branded aprons on behalf of the group and this new branding made us stand out from the rest of the stands.  We also had pole position at the entrance to the event space that meant that no one could avoid our stand.   

 
  

(click on pic to enlarge)

We had lots of material on display from HPS National and from our own local group - magazines, booklets and copies of our local events programme.  Visitors were also interested in what the Society offered members and quite a few membership leaflets were taken away.
What made our stand all the more interesting were the Alan Bloom artefacts and plants.  For these we have to express our great gratitude to Jaime Blake, curator at Bressingham Gardens.  We had Alan Bloom's original potting bench and garden tools, as well as his gardening jacket.  Jaime had prepared for us a display of Alan's means of propagating trilliums, on which he spent sixteen years before getting a commercially viable collection together.  We had many photographs of Alan Bloom plant introductions as well as cut material and plants in pots, again courtesy of Bressingham.  Linda and Pamela had borrowed Bloom catalogues and Alan's original sales and purchase ledgers and prepared display sheets from each.  We showed examples of Alan's sales strategies, of his plant introductions and of the problems he experienced due to weather and plant failure.  We found lots of interesting names in the sales ledgers (Margery Fish, Waterperry, Notcutts, R. Veitch, etc.).  At the end of the event we gave Sir Nicholas Bacon the copy of the sales ledger which showed sales to the Raveningham Estate during his mother's lifetime.  Armed with this information he plans to search the family archive to see if he can trace the associated purchases.
The weather was glorious, as you can see from the pictures, and we had a great day.  Our thanks to everyone who helped us make this such a successful event.  We are extremely grateful to Jaime Blake for the support he gave us and to Jennifer Harmer, the HPS archivist, for copies of  the Society's historical material.

Pamela Clark

 

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