Mid Winter Meeting 2012

Deep South

“Champions of Roses”

30^th annual Mid-Winter meeting

January 13-15, 2012, Gainesville, Fl

The Bradenton-Sarasota Rose Society cordially invites you to the 30^th annual Deep South District’s Mid-Winter meeting to be held January 13-15, 2012 at the Best Western•Gateway Grand in Gainesville, Florida. This new location (one minute NW off Exit 390 of I-75) has a large banquet room that will give us some extra elbow room for our programs. It also provides a scrumptious continental breakfast including Belgian waffles. There is free Wi-Fi, a computer room and a large, outdoor pool area right off the main lobby. The outdoor area has comfortable chaise lounges, a hot tub, and a fitness room downstairs for guests. If you need a Publix, Starbucks, McDonald’s, Subway, Walgreens, golf course or restaurant, this exit has them all.

This year there will be two large rooms for the vendors to occupy. One room will house the nurserymen selling rose bushes (place your orders early), Jim and Daisy Mills of K and M Roses, Geoff and Debbie Coolidge of Cool Roses, Tim Myers and Jinger Gordon of Jinger’s Jungle. The other room is for Wendy Tilley of The Rose Gardner, Jim Young of Purely Organic, Clayton Beaty of Mills Magic and several vendors that have been invited but not yet responded. This vendor area will be set up with every rose related item you could possibly need, and most of the vendors accept credit cards for your convenience. For those ladies who love rose jewelry, you will be delighted with vendor Valerie Frayer (she is tentatively committed). Her rose jewelry is beautiful and she is also known for encasing ARS Bronze medals in beautiful copper bezels.

We have a wonderful hospitality suite for you to visit during the weekend. It is a beautiful room with a very large balcony (extra seating) that overlooks the pool area. Stop by and chat a while or lounge in the sunshine while sipping a delicious beverage and check out the rose bushes near the pool. There will be plenty of goodies and beverages for all. Because of the hotel’s restrictions on food brought into the main dining area, there will not be a formal dessert party on Friday night of this year. However, they have informed us that anyone can bring in goodies for the hospitality suite on Friday and Saturday! We do hope that some of those incredible carrot and chocolate cakes, brownies and cookies that were brought to the dessert party last year can make it to this year’s hospitality suite…..how sweet it will be!!

We would like to extend a special invitation to all rosarians who have never been to a Mid-Winter meeting. It is a wonderful way to make new rose friends while attending some very informative programs. We are offering an exhibiting workshop, on Friday from 1:00 to 4:00 PM called “Winning with Roses,” taught by Ralph Stream and others, featuring Satish Prabhu and Bob/Sandy Lundberg among the speakers. It will be a workshop designed to help you improve your edge on growing and competing with roses. This class will fill up quickly so register early.

Friday evening we will enjoy a delicious welcome buffet followed by a short presentation by Nancy Fischer of Visit Gainesville informing you of what major attractions you can enjoy over the weekend. After that, there will be pertinent information for us from our DSD director, Karen Prevatt. In closing the evening we will have a delightful program given by Steve Jones, past-president of the American Rose Society (then visit the hospitality suite if you can). By the way, the Best Western Hotel will extend your reservation at the same room rate ($79 for a double, $99 for King) on Thursday (12^th) and Monday (16^th) so you can visit this charming city.

Saturday, we have great programs lined up for you. Satish Prabhu of South Carolina, an accomplished national exhibitor (along with his lovely wife, Viyaya), will be speaking on “A New Look at Our Old Hobby.” Next, Stephen Hoy, acclaimed newsletter editor will give his program called “A Spotlight on the Roses Bred by Amateur Hybridizers". Lynn Griffith of A and L Laboratories from Deerfield, Fl, follows with his very informative program called “Common Rose Growing Misconceptions.” Alabaman, David Clemmons, hybridizer of great mini, miniflora roses named after racehorses, will speak on “Joy in the Thoroughbred Rose Garden”. Capping off the speakers’ programs will be Sandy Lundberg, accomplished national exhibitor of the Bob and Sandy duo, talking about her favorite new cultivars. This program is called “Sandy’s Pics”.

Saturday night we will have a wonderful dinner buffet (see registration for details), and then the bronze medal winners and the Anita Smith DSD award will be presented. We are happy to announce that our keynote speaker for the evening will again be Steve Jones, ARS past president, talking about his ten country tour last summer of rose gardens of the world. His PowerPoint presentation promises to be an extraordinarily, beautiful one.

The Sunday morning Consulting Rosarian School will wrap up the weekend events. If you plan to take the test to become a CR or audit to renew your certification, you will need to promptly contact Ralph Stream (streamj@gmail.com). If you have any questions about the Mid-Winter Meeting, please do not hesitate to call or e-mail. Contact Connie Vierbicky at 941-922-6006, gatorrosequeen@verizon.net or Vinny Celeste at 941-358-6991, vincentceleste@verizon.net

Please refer to the registration form for the hotel information and make your reservations early, as the DSD low rate rooms will only be guaranteed until mid-December. After that these rooms it will be based on availability at the hotel. We believe this is the best hotel rate the DSD has had in several years. A dinner count of all rosarians will be required of the BSRS five days before the conference. This is so the hotel can prepare for the appropriate number of meals to serve. If you wait and do not register until after the 8th^th of January, you may not get to eat with the group, so please register early.

We hope you can make it to this “Champions of Roses” Mid-Winter Meeting this coming January, 2012. We know you will find it to be a fun filled, informative, and action packed, rosy good time.

Send questions or comments to: webmaster@deepsouthdistrict.org