By Jennifer Morrissey.
As we continue to navigate life during a pandemic, the San Diego Horticultural Society (SDHS) Board of Directors is settling into new ways of connecting and keeping our organization active while we all hunker down at home and in our gardens. Recent programmatic developments include taking our monthly meetings online and launching a series of online garden tours, the first of which is at Edgehill Herb Farm, the home of our newsletter’s Managing Editor and our new Board President, Karen England. After several years at the helm, Frank Mitzel’s term as president came to a close, and Karen graciously offered to step in to lead our group. There are other shifts of Board roles and the new slate of officers and Board members is listed below.
As you’ll note, there are two key positions that have vacancies, Secretary and Volunteer Coordinator. If you would like more information about either of these roles, please email president@sdhort.org. Board meetings typically take place every two months and will be held online for the foreseeable future. Some of us do have extra time on our hands right now, and we encourage you to consider giving some of your time to SDHS, a group that gives our community so much.
SDHS Board of Directors 2020-2021 Fiscal Year
Karen England, President & Newsletter Editor
Secretary – Vacant
Ray Brooks, Treasurer
Ken Kubarych, Membership Coordinator
Jennifer Morrissey, Program Coordinator
Jim Bishop, Publicity Coordinator
Kathryn Blankinship, Acting Workshop Coordinator
Roy Wilburn, Outreach Coordinator
Volunteer Coordinator – Vacant
John Beaudry, Garden Tour Coordinator
Jason Chen, Member at Large
Frank Mitzel, Past President
Other discussion at the July 20 Board meeting included a Treasurer’s Report from Ray Brooks. Ray shared that SDHS continues to be in good financial health despite the loss of income resulting from the cancellation of our annual Garden Tour. Thankfully, many who had purchased Garden Tour tickets opted to donate the ticket purchase to benefit SDHS activities.
The Board also discussed the success of our first online "Zoom" general meeting on Monday, July 13 and uploading Jim Bishop’s presentation on the 2019 San Diego Superbloom to YouTube. Since the meeting, a new SDHS YouTube channel has been created and Jim’s presentation can be accessed by clicking here:
We have also created a new SDHS “group” on Facebook to encourage more interaction and engagement between members:
And have also launched an Instagram account: