Where are the younger members

[mark smyth]

No amount of talk or bringing groups together will increase membership. We have discussed it already - adults are too busy and think alpine growers are experts and know long plant names. Younger people are gaming addicts. The young guy up my street who used to come and ask to come in and help is now 1st year and no longer interested.

[Michael]

I became plant-mad before I was a teenager, so I have always been considered a bit weird by my friends and family.  I have never known when it started. My grandfather offered to take me to London to see the sights at the age of 10, and even at that age I requested a day-trip to Kew instead!  Like Michael, family persuasion was strongly against horticulture as a career, but it never stopped it as a hobby for me.
 

Richard, I totally understand that, as I also had a similar background. But what really made me take this decision is the fear of failure.

I realised that if I took something else besides Botany or Horticulture, no matter how high the degree of successfulness throughout my life could possibly be, the lack of fulfilment would soon overwhelm me and then frustration start to take over... And I do firmly believe that if you have a genuine passion for what you do, it is impossible to fail no matter what

[tonyg]

How did the AGS meeting go yesterday?

I'll give you more feedback later but the meeting was a positive affair on the whole.  A chance to put faces to some names and dispel a few myths and misinformations.  The event seems to have been stimulated by members who have recently joined main commitee.  Val Lee summed up with the view that Commitee spends too much time looking back and needs to focus on the future not the past.
Expenses - 1 set of travel expenses per group as if 2 or more members travel together.  I covered 400 miles and would not have gone without expenses.  It was clear that a good attendance was being encouraged - the food was ok too especially the chocolate cake

[Darren]

Tony - did anyone from North Lancs show up? I'm not on the committee at the moment.

Mark,  A succinct and (depressingly) accurate summing up I think!

 If modern adults are too busy then it is self-inflicted (want..want...want...) and i have little sympathy. Like their children they want instant gratification without having to do something as frightening as having to think. Even if I lecture to garden groups I get people who approach and ask how I remember all those names. Personally I'm amazed when people can't. They are just a string of syllables like any other word and i see no difference between remembering those names and remembering the other new words we encounter every day. Perhaps they fill their brains with celebrity gossip or something?

Oops, I'm ranting again....

calm down Darren... deep breaths...

see what happens when I injure myself & do no yoga for a couple of weeks? Another week of this and it'll be rubber room time.

[Maggi Young]

Another week of this and it'll be rubber room time.

 Shall I sent you the building specs. of mine, Darren? 

[tonyg]

Tony - did anyone from North Lancs show up? I'm not on the committee at the moment.

Mark,  A succinct and (depressingly) accurate summing up I think!

 If modern adults are too busy then it is self-inflicted (want..want...want...) and i have little sympathy. Like their children they want instant gratification without having to do something as frightening as having to think.

Darren - I was not aware of anyone from N Lancs but that does not mean they were not there.
Feedback on the AGS day does not really belong here - although there was one delegate under 20, the members were all agreed that the young are not the best chance for the future of local groups.
Not wanting to have to think is just one of the many malaises of modern society .... don't get me started!  However I do sometimes feel that my brain is full   This problem rarely stops me from remembering plant names but I do have trouble with peoples names, even if I only got introduced 5 minutes ago

[mark smyth]

Selective bad memory Tony!

[Maggi Young]

Feedback on the AGS day does not really belong here - although there was one delegate under 20, the members were all agreed that the young are not the best chance for the future of local groups.
Not wanting to have to think is just one of the many malaises of modern society .... don't get me started!  However I do sometimes feel that my brain is full   This problem rarely stops me from remembering plant names but I do have trouble with peoples names, even if I only got introduced 5 minutes ago

 Well, if that was the  feeling "the members were all agreed that the young are not the best chance for the future of local groups" and there was only one person under 20 ( are you sure he was meant to be there, hadn't just wandered in, following the smell of chocolate cake?).... then it doesn't help this discussion , I agree! 

[maggiepie]

Do schools have fundraising days where they have cake stalls, white elephant stalls etc?
If so, maybe there could occasionally be a stall for various club members to show off some wares, sell raffle tickets for a few plants and answer questions.
I know if there had been something like that at school fetes when I was a kid I would have developed the itch right there and then.
Plus there are lots of parents attend, I bet there would be quite a line up at the display table.

[tonyg]

Yes - there is a school of thought (sorry!) which suggests that if you can hook the kids you might catch the parents.  But it does not address the issue of 21st Century lifestyles!

[Katherine J]

Wow! What a thread has became from my question! 
Now I think I also should say something about myself, young or not. Sometimes I disappear, and don't come to the Forum for weeks long. That's not because I'm bored or something. It's just because I have much to do, and I simply don't dare to open the Forum, because than I sit here for half a day and my "duties" are left for tomorrow and tomorrow, and so on.  I simply don't know how some of You have so much time for reading and writing here.
Maybe my problem is, that the nights are not for me. I have an arthritis disease, that causes - besides pain - that in the evening at about 10 pm. I'm ALWAYS awfully tired. OK, sorry, I did not want to bore You with my health problems.

Interest for plants fell into my life at about 30-32. (So before 35  )
Neither Hungary (at least nowadays), nor my family was famous about gardening, so I hadn't it in my blood.
I simply began to realise more and more that people in general are not so interesting, not so reliable and not so good as they seem to be, and that the beauties of nature and plants can't be exceeded by nothing, not even by art, which I was always interested in. OK, this "revelation" took several years for me. But I've also discovered since than, that people who love and cultivate plants, not for or not only for money but also for their joy, are more lovely and also more friendly than the others. (I have to mention again: in general. There are exceptions on both sides, I know that.)
But I think, in fact does not matter what does one make: gardening, painting, music, building, children educating or whatever, and does not matter if it is a hobby or a matter of livelihood, important is to make it with pleasure, and to find in it the sense of one's life. That's what many people are not able to find in a lifetime. I know many of those...
Anyway, I think that plants are the best of all hobbies 

[Darren]

Katherine - I absolutely agree with you. To my mind, most people and the things they want so much seem so artificial and can never be as beautiful as the natural world and I just wish more folk could see that.

Susan and I visited Budapest two years ago and greatly enjoyed it. Especially the cakes at Gerbauds...




 

[Ragged Robin]

Kata, your comments are spoken from the heart and I feel the same as you about Nature, plants and people who have this deeper appreciation of the gifts we have for free whenever we learn to enjoy them in our lifetime, young or not so young 

If you ever come to this area I will take you to the thermal pools - a wonderful relief for aches and pains 

[Katherine J]

Susan and I visited Budapest two years ago and greatly enjoyed it. Especially the cakes at Gerbauds...

 

[tonyg]

Wow! What a thread has became from my question! 
I simply began to realise more and more that people in general are not so interesting, not so reliable and not so good as they seem to be, and that the beauties of nature and plants can't be exceeded by nothing, not even by art, which I was always interested in. OK, this "revelation" took several years for me. But I've also discovered since than, that people who love and cultivate plants, not for or not only for money but also for their joy, are more lovely and also more friendly than the others. (I have to mention again: in general. There are exceptions on both sides, I know that.)
But I think, in fact does not matter what does one make: gardening, painting, music, building, children educating or whatever, and does not matter if it is a hobby or a matter of livelihood, important is to make it with pleasure, and to find in it the sense of one's life. That's what many people are not able to find in a lifetime. I know many of those...
Anyway, I think that plants are the best of all hobbies 

I can agree with so much of what you say.  The last three sentances especially.  You put it very well.  Thank you! 
You should visit Robin - the welcome will be even warmer than the water