Thank you. That is too bad that she has to take it down. There are many valuable interviews with famous hybridizers such as the Storks and Jeff Smith plus footage of several National Shows. Maybe someone knows how to archive it before it is gone. Joanne

I hate to see this go but I am surprised it lasted as long as it did. With taking care of her plants, going to shows, doing her knitting stuff, practicing her bagpipes, taking care of her house and working, I don't know how she found the time to sleep! I will miss her, though!

Loved the interviews, especially Gary out of Africa!

What a pity...can this material be preserved someway? To keep the the website alive - it takes money - but may be it can become a part of a AVSA website if both sides agree?

And there in lies the problem, Irina. Annie/Adrienne has made it quite clear that she has no plans to give her work to the AVSA (which is curious seeing as she always encourages people to join that organization,) nor will she give permission to those who have asked to help her archive it or make it available on YouTube or similar site. She is polite, but firm, saying that she has the episodes quite safe but making it clear that she is retaining complete control over them. Several people have commented on another forum that given the fact that she wanted to make these an educational source, it does seem odd that she is closing them off now. Maybe someday we will find out what prompted this action....or perhaps we'll never know what she is thinking.

Joanne, I agree with you about the Gary's Out of Africa episode - what fun to see how he has made use of "unusable" space!

You can save each video separately at your hard drive. It will take 300mb x 111 videos - 33.3 gb - plus minus.Or at least the ones you really want to keep. I wish we could talk Annie into publishing the DVDs.

Maybe someone who knows her personally will make these arrangements with her. She is a businesswoman devoting hours of her time and travel money to this project. She deserves to be adequately compensated. Maybe she already did try to cut a deal with AVSA. She works in a job where she knows the law. She is the author and has every right to retain authorship, copyright, royalties. She was right to encourage people to join AVSA, but she doesn't have to give away her business. Maybe the AVSA should have hired her.

Annie has every right to control her creative product.

Many of us have derived immense enjoyment from her generosity over several years.

Recall what happened with optimara who refused to be controlled by AVSA and set off on a separate path. They soared to a level of excellence unsurpassed by anyone else. Even if you don't like the commercialism if the plants, they deserve respect for achieving their potential.

they have soared into a top quality world wide business with top educational materials, highly professional in every way.

Annie put herself out in public, not an easy thing to do. She seemed sad in her last podcast, so this clearly was not an easy decision. And she does not owe any of us an explanation.

If she packages her podcasts, I would buy them to support her, she went above and beyond.

joanne

Annie put a lot of effort in her programs - they belong to her - if somebody will persuade her to publish them and sell as series - would be grand. But - it is her call and her intellectual property.

AVSA is doing a whole lot of good for AV world, but sometimes they are too conservative. Probably it will take a change of generation to get this organization more attuned to the modern world.

As an example on a local level - we have several members in our AV Council who do not own computers and need to have the Newsletter printed in Office Depot and sent by a snail mail. And of course we accommodate them - even it cost money. I think mainly because we all used to have it with bunch of color photos - which do not cost anything if emailed in pdf format - but bite us when we print them.

Irina, many AVSA clubs started in the 50's to 70's, the heyday of AV collecting, have many older members who are as you describe. But I don't think it is generational, as the society itself has many younger people on staff. I think the AVSA has been conservative from the beginning. Diana has shared about this. I vaguely recall in the 1970's when I first grew violets, reading about the disputes. It seemed so petty especially because I lived near an agricultural college that was all about making plants to be new and improved and providing mass availability. The "heirloom " movement had not started. I could not grasp why amateur gardeners should be restricted in what they wanted to hybridize or why the society was so timid about Optimara commercialism. The AVSA always struck me as driving with the brakes on. That is merely my outsider's POV, so don't take it too seriously.

However, I'm glad they are around. But I sometimes wonder what is the purpose of maintaining archives of plant names that fleetingly existed when even the hybridizers' families don't care. Unless the plant made a substantial advance in AV horticulture. But we don't know the genetic code. We often read there are 16,000 varieties, but maybe there used to be, now most exist only in archives.

I just had a wild thought, human beings are absolutely not repeatable. Nature craves diversity. Even so-called "identical twins" among humans are genetically not identical. And if they appear to be, growing up, they seek to be known as individuals, not copycats.

Sometimes when I see the Chinese or russian conventions on you tube videos, I see exciting new ideas. In the U.S. and Canada there are younger people who are Internet savvy introducing dynamic websites. Joanne

Joanne -

I still think that new ideas will come with young people. While the venerable oldtimers rule the roust there - nothing is going to change. They probably were very progressive 50 years ago.

The fact that they keep archives on old AVs - doesn't hurt anybody. On the other side - the fact that they do not release the names of the hybrid parents to the public - that's obsolete. New hybridizers should have the information about AV genealogy.

In Gesneriad Society - you can upload the Judges Manual if you are a member - for free. In AVSA - you need to pay for the paper copy and then put the stickers on the pages where the Manual has changed. Do they raise money for the Society? Some. Do they miss a chance to promote an excellent growing and judging by making this Manual free? Oh Yes!

But - I am not the one to cast stones. People put a lot of work in the Society - they have their own ideas. It is easy to criticize, much harder to put lots of hours into implementing things and just making sure the Society is running smoothly.

Joanne,

Identical twins are genetically identical. They may change in various ways while growing up but they will always be genetically identical since they started out as one before dividing.

Linda