While pondering this coming year's conference theme "Garden Paths 2012," my mind wandered off to reminisce about some of the paths I traveled in 2011. As APGA members, many of you travelled at least some of those same paths with me. Below are a few of my highlights. Perhaps they will prompt you to come up with your own “Top 10”!
The year was kicked off in creative fashion when the conference host marketing committee and I embarked on a “revolutionary” marketing campaign to promote Philadelphia’s More: The 2011 APGA Conference. The level of complexity and the sophistication required to communicate all of the conference changes made this conference go down in APGA’s record books as being “most challenging”! Kudos to all those involved for going above and beyond to make the conference a success.
In March, I was off to Toronto to attend the Canadian Garden Tourism Conference. Speakers from across Canada and around the world collaborated shared innovative ideas and thoughts about raising the profile of gardens as tourism generators. On a side note, while there I was delighted to meet some Canadian colleagues for the first time. I was also happy that I was able to accept an award on behalf of the Desert Botanical Garden for "Top Five North American Botanical Gardens Worth Traveling For." The other four gardens receiving the award were: Kingsbrae Garden, Longwood Gardens, The New York Botanical Garden, and Royal Botanical Garden.
Later that spring, I was pleased to introduce the first national free admission pass for National Public Gardens Day (NPGD). More that 75,000 free admission passes were downloaded from BHG.com, but even more important, we were able to further national awareness of our member gardens. NPGD continues to get better each year thanks to the support of our presenting partner Rain Bird. My NPGD activities also included tagging along with national spokesperson Paul James on the media tour to Sarah P. Duke Gardens in North Carolina and Brooklyn Botanic Garden.
The summer highlights for me were the speaking engagements at the APGA Conference! First, as the emcee for the Keynote Address and Award Ceremony. What a thrill it was to stretch my public-speaking skills in front of over five hundred conference attendees while sharing bits of my public garden career path. Second as moderator of the marketing sessions: More Results for Your Public Garden Retail Operation and Creating MORE Brand Ambassadors: It Starts at the Top.
Next came speaking opportunities at another conference, the American Zoological Association (AZA) conference, where I took part in a session titled Can botanical gardens and zoos live together?" with Catherine Hubbard from Rio Grande Botanic Garden, John Lewis of the Los Angeles Zoo and Botanical Gardens, and Karen Burns of the Indianapolis Zoo and Botanical Garden. The Blackbaud Impact 2011 Conference ended the summer of speaking engagements for me. There I participated in the Arts & Cultural Preconference Workshop—Let’s Talk Arts & Cultural—with Ford Bell of the American Association of Museums, Jeanette Thomas of ACM, and Danielle St. Germain-Gordon from the Arena Stage at the Mead Center.
Fall is my favorite season, and this past year, it coincided with my most memorable 2011 event. I was invited to join an international advisory committee to help establish a botanical garden in earthquake-ravished Haiti. Conference delegates included William Cinea and Tanguay Armand, National Botanical Garden of Haiti; Dr. Peter Wyse Jackson, Missouri Botanical Garden; Chipper Wichman, National Tropical Botanical Garden; Emmanuel Didier, Azur Ground, and Leigh Morris, Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh; Dr. Chad Husby, Montgomery Botanical Center; Dr. Francisco Ortega Javier, Florida International University; Dr.Sarada Krishnan, Denver Botanic Gardens; Dr. Don Rakow, Cornell Plantations; Gilles Vincent, Montreal Botanical Garden; and Fanch Le Hir, Botanique National de Brest-France; and Ricardo Garcia, National Botanic Garden of the Dominican Republic. Visiting Haiti and spending time with my public garden colleagues from around the world and the community in Port au Prince was truly the highlight of my year. Look for more information about this wonderful endeavor in the spring issue of Public Garden, or ASK ME J.
Fall also led me to Pittsburgh with APGA Interim Director Dr. Casey Sclar to participate in Feeding the Spirit: museums and public gardens leading their communities in an exploration of food and health which was presented by the AAM Center for The Future of Museums, in collaboration with Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens, Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh, Association of Children's Museums, and American Public Gardens Association. The symposium was a perfect match for Let’s Move! Museums and Gardens as it served to recruit museums and public gardens to respond to these challenges—internal and external—by helping their communities explore our collective values about food, our bodies, our environment and society. It did for me! And I learned about Let’s Grow, a new APGA program that will be officially announced in the next few months.
Thank you for letting me share a few of my favorite moments from 2011. All in all, it was a year that could best be described as absolutely fantastic—or, better yet, positively chantastic!
Madeline (@MoreMADELINE on Twitter)
P.S. My favorite food moments of the year included the dinner at the Atlanta Botanical Garden for the APGA Board of Directors Meeting, the dessert course under the fireworks at the Longwood Gardens event at the APGA Conference, and the three Pumpkin Spice Lattes I enjoyed from the Phipps Café.
