2300 Evergreen Park Dr. SW
Olympia
Washington State Federation of Garden Clubs 2023 Convention
The Washington State Federation of Garden Clubs Convention and Annual Meeting is being held June 5-8 at the Olympia Hotel on the Lake! The hotel is located at 2300 Evergreen Park Drive SW in Olympia. The theme of this event is “Nurture Our Planet.”
The public is welcome to attend the following paid and free events:
June 6: Lunch 12:00 p.m., $27.00 each (Yelm FFA speaking)
June 6: Dinner 6:00 p.m. $45.00 each (Designer Corrie Ten-Have speaking)
June 7: Lunch 12:00 p.m. $27.00 each (Deborah Erickson speaking)
To attend any of these meals, you must register and pay in advance by May 1. You can access the registration form at www.blackhillsdistrict.com or phone Dorothy Bertram at 360-259-2630. Only WSFGC members are permitted at workshops and meetings.
June 6 and 7: Free Vendor Room to view, open to the public 9:30 am – 12:00 pm and 1:30 – 4:00 pm.
June 6 and 7: Free flower designs are placed around the hotel for all to enjoy the whole day.
Our lunch speaker on Tuesday June 6 is the Yelm FFA. Did you know that Yelm High School’s FFA chapter had the most enrolled members in the nation during the 2021-2022 school year, with 1,280 members! Floral Design and Greenhouse Management are the classes with the largest waiting lists. The Floral Design class sells flower arrangements and the Greenhouse Management class has an annual two-day plant sale that brings in $25,000.
The speaker at our June 6 Design evening is Corrie Ten-Have. She grew up in Canada as her dad owned a Nursery in Victoria B.C. Her parents are Dutch, hence her interest in plants and flowers. Corrie and her husband Ian have two children and two grandchildren.
After returning to North America, they moved to Houston in 1994 where Corrie joined her first Garden Club. As their children needed less of her time, she became increasingly more involved in her club and joined other clubs. She became a Nationally Accredited Flower Show Judge and is now a Master Flower Show Judge. Corrie has served on the boards of these clubs in many different positions and have chaired the 2012 Texas Garden Clubs Convention, the Judges Symposium and most recently chaired two series of Flower Show Schools. All in Houston Texas.
Corrie is a proud member of Virtual Designing Women (formerly known as Houston Designing Women). This club studies the work of choice artists and interpret their art through floral/botanical designs. During the pandemic several of the club members moved on but they were already meeting virtually out of necessity so voted officially to continue as such. Their interpretations tend toward the creative and abstract rather than the more traditional.
Corrie is also a member of the Creative Floral Arrangers of the Americas (CFAA) who meet in Orlando, Florida. This is a design organization which promotes floral design and introduces attendees to new techniques and floral artists from around the country and the world. She is also a member of, and sits on the board of the Organization of Floral Art Designers (OFAD) who meet in San Francisco. OFAD is committed to showcasing all styles of floral design from across the country.
We are pleased to present Deborah Erickson, PhD. at lunch on Wednesday, June 7. Deborah has been growing roses for more than 30 years in a variety of Pacific NW landscapes. She started with tree roses in pots and caught the rose bug that has never left her. She has outsmarted deer living next to a wildlife refuge in Olympia, has won multiple horticultural and arrangement trophies throughout the Pacific NW, has edited a rose society newsletter for many years, and is a past president of Olympia Rose Society. She is an American Rose Society Consulting Rosarian, Horticulture Judge, Arrangement Judge, and the Pacific NW District Webmaster. She encourages roses to be integrated into suburban landscaping with the advice, “Who needs grass?! Plant roses!”
