What a great description of the event, and love the personal touches and the doggie story. I'm so glad it was a success and that the more innovative format and subject matter were well received by the audience. Maybe this will wake up the old fuddy duddies of ARS (oops, I meant the more senior members).

Ingrid

Maybe this will wake up the old fuddy duddies of ARS (oops, I meant the more senior members).

*** HEE HEE . . .
Ingrid, I hope they were paying attention.
If they weren't, well -- others present WERE.
The only way to stay in "business" is to provide what the public wants, after all.

Jeri

I always perk up when I hear that people want to learn. Sounds like a great conference: I'm glad it was a success!
Melissa

Jeri, I never had a chance to tell you how much I enjoyed your talk. I was so happy to hear speakers with substance talking about things I was interested in. We had a lot of fun. We had to leave on Saturday too but were able to see Cliff's amazing place. Thanks for your contribution and thnks to everyone else who worked hard and gave of themselves for all of us and the roses.

Wow! Thank you so much for the great description, Jeri. I have been a member of ARS for 20 years, but I have never been to an ARS conference because I got the impression it was all rose competitions & dressing up & wearing funny hats - the adds in the ARS magazine looked like travel brochures for a cruise.

However, the talks you described sound marvelous! If I had know, I would have gone myself. Next time I hear of one I will pay more attention to the agenda! Whatever the reason (infiltration & contamination by "old rose"
folks?), this is GOOD NEWS!

Jackie

What pleased me the MOST, Jackie, is that the audience for these "subversive" talks was not JUST Old Rose people -- but included quite a few folks who found some of it really new information.

I don't know how many future conventions will use this model. I understand that San Diego RS will host a convention in the relative future -- and they have a history of putting on Conventions like this one -- rich in information. So I have hopes for them, at least.

We'll just have to do as you say, and read the agendas carefully. :-)

Pam -- Thanks. It was great to see old friends, and meet new ones, too. (And the dogs had fun.)

Jeri

Before this gets away, let me tell you that Benny Lopez belongs in every fragrant garden. It was wonderful, although I may have been the only person to sniff it. Many, many of the roses in the show were HTs and for some reason, not many people there expected roses to be fragrant.
Yes, we did fly to California for the Convention- not to show but to hear the talks. We're different that way.
Someday I'll tell you about the tough day we had on the way out, let's just say we got drained by unavoidable stuff.
Then we got to see a bit of LA...chortle...traffic...and more traffic, and we mistimed our visit to the StageCoach Inn Rose garden, so we enjoyed it through the metal gate.

About Stagecoach's roses- still in the shade approaching noon, really good bloom and bloom quality for that amount of shade, good bloom color too...but (easterners and southerners) you would not believe how dense the leaves, the totally healthy leaves, are on those plants. I have never seen such dense leaves on tea roses. Simply awesome.

It was good to visit with the west coasters and to talk with some of the eastern folks we'd been out of touch with.

In retrospect, next time we do something like this with good older rose talks, we need to have a hospitality room that night...for more good talking.

And, yes, Larry got to ride along Rte 66. We even saw some wonderful restored autos driving alongside of us...but they were on the interstate a tenth of a mile away while we were bouncing along avoiding pot holes on 66. That might have squelched his urge to drive a to-be-restored Packard cross country on Rte 66 (you may snap you fingers appropriately).

Ann, was anything reported about virus research?

Ann -- You're right about the Hospitality Room. That would have been the finishing touch.
(One with COMFORTABLE chairs!)

And you're right about "Benny Lopez."
What a wonderful rose it is, in every way.

Jeri

Thank you all so much for sharing your experience of the conference. Almost as good as being there. Is there any chance that there will be transcripts of talks by the speakers? I'd much prefer that to the photos, though you all know I love you dearly and like to look at you. ;-)

Sue

Sue, I saw someone with a video camera from time to time, and I heard whispers of a CD.
That would be pretty slick, yes?

Jeri

Thank you much for posting the synopsis. I really wanted to attend that convention, but I just couldn't do it this time.