GCFM Districts & Clubs

• Caribou Garden Club
• Danforth Garden Club
• Houlton Garden Club
• Presque Isle Garden Club

• Bloomfield Garden Club
• Central Maine Garden Club
• Kennebec Valley Garden Club
• Monmouth Garden Club
• Mt. Blue Area Garden Club
• Waterville Community Garden Club

• Bath Garden Club
• Boothbay Region Garden Club
• Camden Garden Club
• Topsham Garden Club
• Garden Club of Wiscasset

• Bangor Garden Club
• Brewer Garden & Bird Club
• Hampden Garden Club
• Milo Garden Club
• Orrington Garden Club
• Sebasticook Garden Club
• Veazie Garden Club

• Eliot Garden Club
• Harbourside Garden Club
• Old York Garden Club
• Seacoast Garden Club
• Southern Maine Garden Club

• Bar Harbor Garden Club
• Bucksport Garden Club
• Ellsworth Garden Club
• Evergreen Garden Club
• Franklin Garden Club
• Mt Desert Garden Club
• Pleasant River Garden Club
• Sea Breeze Garden Club
• Surry Garden Club

• Buxton Garden Club
• Cape Elizabeth Garden Club
• Foreside Garden Club
• Gorham Garden Club
• Harpswell Garden Club
• Lakeside Garden Club
• Longfellow Garden Club
• Not Your Mother's Garden Club
• Osewantha Garden Club
• St Mary's Garden Club
• Scarborough Garden Club

Kennebec District Annual Report – June, 2010

Shelly Hanson, District Director

Kennebec Valley Garden Club hosted this year’s annual District meeting on May 18 at the Augusta Country Club.  The theme for the meeting was “Storybook Gardens”.   All of the table arrangements were based on various children’s storybooks.  Our speaker was Maureen Heffernan, Executive Director of Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens, who gave us an update on the new Children’s Gardens scheduled to open this summer.  She also spoke about other children’s gardens she has designed at various botanical gardens in other states.  We had 53 members from the six clubs in the District attending.  We all had a good time visiting with other garden club members in the District.

This year we have had a new club join our District, the Monmouth Garden Club.  They started their club in October with 8 members and now are up to eighteen.  They are holding their first garden tour on June 26 with 11 gardens on the tour, a very ambitious undertaking.

On June 19, clubs in the District will be participating in the annual garden party, “Summer Solstice in the Garden”, to benefit Hospice Volunteers of Waterville Area.  The event will be held at Fieldstone Gardens in Vassalboro.  We will be doing workshops on container gardening and flower arranging as well as having tables with information about the various clubs covering what the clubs do and describing the benefits of joining a club in addition to offering other gardening advice.

As District Director, I am trying to attend at least one meeting of each club.  I visited the Waterville Garden Club’s last summer.  They celebrated their 80^th birthday by holding a garden party at a member’s home.  I attended a meeting of the Mount Blue Garden Club, at the home of one of their member’s where we toured her garden of daylilies that she hybridizes.  Last month I attended Monmouth Garden Club’s meeting where they were finalizing details for their upcoming garden tour.  I plan to visit the other clubs this summer.

All of the clubs are very busy working on community projects in their areas.

Medomak District Annual Report – June, 2010

Kathleen Filtranti, District Director

This year the annual meeting for the Medomak District of the Garden Club Federation of Maine was held on May 3^rd at the Tugboat Inn in Boothbay Harbor. We had a beautiful view of Boothbay Harbor and as an added bonus the day was warm and sunny.  Our theme was “Green Side Up”.   The Boothbay Region Garden Club provided lovely table arrangements as well as favors for all guests.  54 members were in attendance representing all clubs within the District.  Maureen Heffernan, Executive Director of Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens spoke on the use of native plants for landscaping.  The Medomak District is proud to say that eight members of Medomak District Garden Clubs were on the original Board of Directors for the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens.   

Each of the clubs had time to update other members on their projects, accomplishments and upcoming events.  Boothbay Region Garden Club had a display of their National Award for Garden Therapy and the Chair for that project spoke.  Clubs participate in a wide variety of civic beautification projects.  There were also announcements regarding various plant sales, flower shows and garden tours.  This will be a very busy summer for Medomak Clubs.  Next year our annual meeting will be held in Camden and hosted by the Camden Garden Club.

This past year I was able to attend functions with the Bath, Boothbay Region, Topsham and Wiscasset Garden Clubs.  I look forward to attending functions with all of my clubs this year.  Each club in the Medomak District is filled with talented people.  I am awed by their accomplishments, and proud to be their director.    

Annual Report  Penobscot District

Pat Snyder District Director

The Penobscot District looks to the future through programs for youth and through concern for conserving and restoring natural resources. Brewer sponsors a junior garden club for elementary students who have participated annually with special exhibits in our district standard flower shows. Orrington members continue to volunteer in various capacities at the Fields Pond Audubon Center, which offers many programs year round for children of all ages, including busloads of school children. Bangor Garden Club maintains a weekly program at Eastern Maine Medical Center, providing activities with plants for the pediatric ward.

A River Runs Through It – The mighty Penobscot River is a central focus for our area. Learning how to properly manage agricultural and residential property so as to protect our waterways and aquifers is one of the topics our garden clubs incorporate in their programs. The Brewer club includes a conservation/environmental report at every meeting. Their program on the Penobscot River Restoration Project attracted 75% of their membership attending to learn how the removal of dams and installation of more advanced fishways around the remaining dams has the potential to raise fish populations in the river well into the millions, restoring a valuable food resource for wildlife and people.

The City of Brewer has started a new community event, “Brewer Days” held the weekend after Labor Day. Brewer Garden and Bird Club jumped on the bandwagon and provided four activities for children in the Children’s Carnival section. Milo holds a summer fair and plant sale (August 5). Hampden’s summer garden tour is July 20, 9 to 3, starting at Harmony Hall, 24 Kennebec Road.

Through plant sales, holiday decorations, crafts, bake sales, and other fund raisers our small clubs can think big with their projects, funding student scholarships and camperships for children in addition to beautifying their communities with plantings, and honoring those who served in the past with memorial plantings at Blue Star highway markers, in cemeteries, and around war memorials.

Annual Report  Piscataqua District

GCFM Convention 2010

Mary Ericson District Director

The Piscataqua District is pleased to be hosting the 79^th Annual GCFM Convention.  We have spent much of the year planning and working to make this Convention a memorable one.  Over one hundred Club Members from our five Clubs will be working at the Convention. 

The Convention Committee consisted of two or three members from each club.  They attended the Board of Directors Meeting last September and each Club were given assignments.  Eliot and Seacoast Garden Clubs were responsible for the registration bags.  Harbourside Garden Club will be organizing and handling the Raffle Table.  Old York Garden Club took on the important responsibility of coordinating all the volunteer workers.  Old York will be assisting with the Garden Tours and providing Green Sash Information Ladies.  Southern Maine volunteers with check tickets and sell raffles.  As  District Club Members, they are supplying “ man/women power”.   They have used no money from their budgets.  The District is funding all cost relating to the Convention.

As always,  the Piscataqua District Clubs are very involved with beautifying their communities.  Driving through the towns we serve, you will see traffic islands, whiskey barrels, monuments, parks and window boxes overflowing with beautiful, colorful flowers thanks to all their efforts.

Open meetings are well attended.  Programs are diversified and very educational.  As with most Clubs,  recruiting new members and getting members to serve in leadership roles is sometimes difficult.

I am most proud that so many Piscataqua District Members have taken a very active role in the Convention.  It is a pleasure to serve as the District Director and to get to know more of these “devoted gardeners”.

St Croix District Summer Update

Alvion Kimball District Director

We invite you to visit down east Maine this summer to whet your appetite for the attractions you will enjoy next year surrounding the GCFM convention in Castine from 21-23 June 2011. In addition to beautiful public gardens, picturesque towns and natural landscape vistas we have the following events this summer:

Wed. 14 July: Bucksport A'Bloom. Author Theresa Matoor will discuss Designing the Maine Landscape and sign copies of her book at the Alamo Theater at 10:00 am. Sonia Cianchette will demonstrate container gardening along w/ other craftsmen and artists along the Bucksport waterfront. Details at: http://sites.google.com/site/bucksportgardenclub/home.

Sat. 24 July: Mt Desert Open Garden Day Tour sponsored by the Garden Club of Mount Desert. Details at: www.gcmdgardenday.com.

Sat. and Sun. 30 and 31 July: Woodlawn in Bloom, a standard flower show, 10 am-5 pm. All area gardeners with any interest in learning more about flower arrangements and floral displays are encouraged to participate. FMI: mary.blackstone@regina.ca.

All clubs and gardeners are encouraged to have the youngsters in their communities participate in the 2011 Poetry and Essay Contests. Eligibility for the Poetry Contest is K-grade 9,  most any style of poem, doesn't have to rhyme, just be in on time; deadline 19 Nov 2010, theme; Fields of Daffodils.

High School Essay Contest: H S freshmen-seniors, $1,000 NGC award, "The environment-Our Personal Responsibility", deadline 1 Dec. 2010, 500-600 words. FMI and submissions for both the poetry and essay awards contact Margot Haertel; phaertel@roadrunner.com, PO Box 1431, SW Harbor, ME 04679.

I look forward to seeing you at our Fall District Meeting in Columbia Falls on Fri.15 October sponsored by the new Pleasant River Garden Club or at the GCFM Fall convention on Wed. 27 October in Lewiston. That will be a good time to celebrate the Golden Days of the Fields of Daffodils we've just planted for a golden daze in 2011. Time to mow.  Cheers, Alvion.

Annual Report Stroudwater District

June 2010

Linda Frinsko District Director

The Stroudwater District Board of Directors which included all club presidents, Newsletter Editor and Ways and Means Chairman met in September 2009, November 2009 and March 2010.  The meetings were held to address clubs’ concerns, plan for the Annual Meeting and relay information from GCFM and NGC.

The Annual Meeting was held on April 28, 2010 at Keeley the Katerers in Portland, Maine.  48 people attended.  The speakers were Amy Witt who spoke on Native Plants and Libby Jordan Sawyer who gave a floral design program.  Surveys to determine what club members wanted for an annual meeting were distributed; club presidents were asked to take a survey back to their clubs so non-attendees could respond.  These surveys will help plan the Annual Meeting in 2011.

The Director was able to visit 3 of the clubs in the district this past year.

The Stroudwater District Newsletter was published three times this year.  The cost of subscription is $3.00.  At the Annual Meeting, members were encouraged to receive the newsletter via email.

The budget for 2010-2011 was submitted to the Finance Committee and the GCFM Officers.