2025 Fall FGCV Fall Meeting Wrap-up from Martha Dale, FGCV President
- The Federated Garden Clubs of Vermont
- 5 days ago
- 2 min read
The Fall FGCV Fall Meeting was recently held at the Manchester Country Club in Manchester, VT, on October 7th, hosted by the Southern District Clubs of Arlington, Bennington, Brattleboro, Manchester, and the Green Mount
ain Gardeners, and coordinated by Donna Davis, Southern District Director. Fifty (50) plus members of our Vermont garden clubs attended, along with New England Garden Clubs Director Polly Brooks and New Hampshire Federation of Garden Clubs President Winifred Schmidt. The Manchester Country Club provided a beautiful setting under gorgeous autumn skies and looked after our every need to make the day such a success. Our speaker, Martin Mahoney, Executive Director of the Bennington Museum, regaled us with the many good reasons to stop by and enjoy the art in this important state asset.
Our theme for the FGCV this year is “gardening fosters connections,” and as such, we conducted two activities to get our guests to mingle and meet fellow gardeners, as well as take away helpful club management and gardening tips. One of them, a speed dating exercise midmorning, brought attendees together through a number of short, one-on-one, off-the-top-of-the-head responses about their connections to others through gardening.
On a more granular level, here is a short list of what we have accomplished in the last four months:
We are filling out Committee Chairperson roles – Scholarship and Youth Chair
We have taken a fresh eyes approach to our financial reporting as we consolidated our records into an improved reporting format
We have brought home to VT numerous NGC awards from the Spring 2025 National Garden Club South Carolina convention for work done by individuals, clubs, and/or the Federation
Doris van Mullen has begun work for the 2026 New England Garden Club’s fall meeting, to take place October 13-14, 2026, at the Killington Grand Resort. She has a strong committee that will guarantee a not-to-be-missed club event.
Our Isabella Gardener Museum trip that also included the NE Botanical Gardens, run by Deb Flanders and Charlie Nardozzi, raised approx. $1,500 for our Federation. Please consider joining the fun on the June 16-17, 2026, trip by the same duo to three Hudson River Valley gardens: Innisfree, Beatrix Ferrand’s, and Stonecrop.
Our FGCV website continues to evolve. It is able to showcase events, individual club contacts, links to gardening resources, upcoming fundraising trips, award opportunities, and a growing photo gallery. We know there are many more ways we can extend the website’s usefulness.
Our Blue Star Memorial program has new energy, and as we look toward our nation’s semi-quincentennial (250 years since 1776 and the Declaration of Independence), we have a couple of BSMs in the planning phase.
Flip Chart ExerciseOctober 7, 2025
Representatives of Vermont’s 16 FGCV garden clubs participated in an exercise at our Fall meeting. Attendees were asked to record on Post-It Notes answers to general gardening and club management questions. These were then placed on big flip chart sheets posted around the room. What follows below is a summary of all the Post-It Notes from our gardening friends.
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