SRGC ELECTS NEW PRESIDENT- Mrs Liz Mills

[Maggi Young]

A light-hearted look at the official proceeding of the Annual General Meeting of the SRGC...........



SRGC President Liz Mills giving her acceptance speech at the AGM




At the Annual General Meeting of the SRGC, held on Saturday 14th November, at the Perth Airport, Scone ( though no-one at the meeting flew in.... at least, not by airplane)  the Club paid farewell
(not that he's going anywhere, we hope) to our dear  President Ian Christie, and welcomed, with Ian's fine words, the election of our new President, Mrs Liz Mills.

The new President immediately declared that while she intended to work hard for the Club, she was most certainly NOT willing to change her name by deed poll to "President Ian 4th".  
This was a blow for the many members called Ian, not least the three previous incumbents of the title, but everyone realised that Liz is her own woman and that she no doubt knew best.

Liz is known to many members far and near from her previous service as Club Secretary and, of course, her service in umpteen capacities for her local Group, Stirling, including as Registration Secretary for the SRGC Discussion Weekends of 2009 and 2010.

When she is not working in her garden, enjoying her rock plants ( which we have a hard job persuading her to exhibit at the shows!) or busying herself with some SRGC project or other.... she is instrumental in so many of those..... Liz does like to take a break.... by hiking in the Scottish mountains.  
So, for those of you who have not yet had the pleasure to meet our new leader face to face, I hopoe you will recognise that we have a dynamic woman at the helm and one who will doubtless serve us well in the coming three years.  Anyone hearing her words of acceptance of the position as our President would not doubt her humble pride in accepting the honour and her heartfelt desire to do a good job.
She spoke of her desire to attend as many functions as possible, shows etc, and to visit all Groups ... well, Liz is a Forumist so we know she'll be dropping in to see us here!

There will doubtless be "official" welcomes to Liz elsewhere, but this greeting is, I hope, very much indicative of the affection in which Liz and Ian, are held!

Liz did, as you would expect, pay sincere tribute to the dedication and hard work put in by Ian Christie during his time of office, which, as we all know, is but a part of his ongoing committment to the SRGC.
Here is a couple of happy photos of the two together on the day...... as Ian was presenting Lix with the official Predisntial Badge ...

[ranunculus]

Hearty congratulations and all best wishes for the next three years, Liz.  You obviously know that you have a hard act to follow - our love and thanks to Ian for all his efforts on our behalves during his illustrious term as President.

[David Nicholson]

Welcome Madame President, and thank you Mr Past President you did a great job.

[Paddy Tobin]

 Sincerest congratulations and best wishes to our new Lady President.

And also, a sincere thanks to Ian for all his work during his term as President. I especially appreciated the fact that the President of the SRGC was a regular presence here on the website and I look forward to the new President keeping in touch with us also.

Paddy

[Lesley Cox]

Echoing all those sentiments.

[maggiepie]

Echoing all those sentiments.

Me too!!

[Katherine J]

Congratulations to this warm, intelligent eyed lady!

[Luc Gilgemyn]

Welcome Madame President, and thank you Mr Past President you did a great job.

I couldn't have said it any better ! 

[art600]

It was my pleasure to meet Liz at this year's Discussion Weekend.  I am sure the SRGC is in a most capable pair of hands.

My thanks to Ian for his excellent Presidency.

[Carol Shaw]

It is going to be 'Women Rule' in the SRGc for at least the next 12 months Pres., Treasurer and Secretary all being of the female persuasion... I'm looking forward to working closely with Liz and know she is going to put her heart and soul into the job! Welcome Madam President!

[David Shaw]

OMG!

[Maggi Young]

OMG!

Ha Ha!!  You know, until Carol  mentioned it, I hadn't even twigged that there was a female bias at the head of things SRGC..... it has long been suggested, on seeing female members  hauling huge boxes of plants etc in an out of  show halls, that the Club should be renamed the SSWRGC .... with the extra SW standing for Strong Women ..... I guess that the  current line-up shows that these women have considerable strengths in more than one sense of the word!   

 

[ichristie]

Hi All ,firstly you all forgot about our dear Maggie so that is 4 women we must not forget our Global Moderator. I do thank you all for your kind words it has been a a great time and I am very proud to have served the SRGC where via this forum I have made contact with so many fantastic people. As Maggie said I am noy going very far away in fact I could not possibly leave my garden nor could I stop visiting and posting on the forum where we all share our gardens, plants and great friendship,  cheers Ian the Christie kind.

[Liz Mills]

Hi to you all
    Very many sincere thanks to all of you for all your good wishes - it really does make me feel proud to be a Lady Pres - and honoured to have so many friends out there.  I know many of you better than you know me for I'm one of the Forum's dreaded Lurkers but I promise to be more active in the future.  If I ever get time to sort out my photos from my Dolomites trip this summer, I'll post the best of them.  When it comes to photography, I'm really a happy snapper so you'll have to be tolerant of the quality (and you'll not see the really bad shots).
For a brief moment, I did think about changing my name to Ina so that I could be fourth in line but decided it wouldn't give me any extra brownie points - I'll have a hard enough job living up to the standards the three Ians have set, with or without a name change.
It's been a hectic week since the AGM trying to get to grips with all the things the Club is involved in but I've at last managed to finish potting on my lily seedlings this afternoon (must go to the Lily section on the website to see if anyone's posted anything new since my last visit) and will have to make a much belated start to tidying up the masses of dead leaves into my leafmould pile.
Hoping I'll maybe meet some of you in person at a Discussion Weekend or the 2011 International Conference in Nottingham?  If not, please keep in touch through the Forum - I will listen and I will try to support you all as best I can.    Liz

[Ragged Robin]

Madame President, Liz, through your post it has made it easier to write and welcome you to the Presidency of the SRGC    The Forum is such a wonderful place to meet and share everything we love about plants and rock gardening.

Thanks to Ian the Christie kind for all his hard work and dedication on behalf of the SRGC during his Presidency