by Earl Ekman

No meeting or activity in August. Let's take a vacation and enjoy our trees. The club has been active, and most recently we had our pottery workshop. Thanks to Linda Kossmann, we created some beautiful and unusual pots. Everyone who attended went away with some great pots. Linda is a true artist and instructor. She showed us how to make a small informal hand-formed pot, gave us a few tips, and then turned us loose. Boy was it fun. Thanks Linda, you made a lot of bonsai people extremely happy. We are going to attempt a meeting next year when we bring the pots we made with a tree in them. I think it would be a lot of fun to see the finished project. I would also like to thank Lee Squires for allowing us to meet at Cave Hill Cemetery and having the building all set up for our workshop.

During July we had our next years planning meeting. Boy, did they come up with a great program. Our own Tom McCurry will be conducting a shohin workshop using Saunders little leaf boxwoods. We will have bonsai master Rodney Clemons from Atlanta to do a demonstration and workshop planting trees on a rock. A group of us saw his demo & workshop at Brussel's Bonsai recently. It was just outstanding. Rodney's demo planting on a stone will be raffled to some lucky winner. Our plans for shows include both Yew Dell Gardens and Hidden Hill Nursery with beginner workshops following each show.

Our Garden tour will include three gardens and bonsai collections followed by a picnic. The planning committee wants to canoe the Blue River in Indiana. We use to do this on a regular basis, but haven't done it in a while. Not only is it fun, but there are plenty of opportunities to look for viewing stones and plants. Another activity we haven't done for a while is a build a bonsai stand workshop. We will get cabinet doors and wooden legs to assemble some real nice display stands. In August Gene Sewell and Tom McCurry will be doing a tropical demo and workshop. This should be a great meeting. Of course we will end the year with a fun Christmas party. It looks like a wonderful year.

Earl