Semi-Annual State of the Chapter Report

by Marsha Gebhardt
President, Wild Ones St. Louis Chapter

January-June 2019

 

As president of the Wild Ones St. Louis Chapter, I have decided to start providing a Semi-Annual State of the Chapter report. The chapter Board and I hope this gives you more insight into the work we do, which many of you contribute to with your time and/or membership fees. This is your chapter, one of the largest, oldest and most active of the 50+ in the country.

We encourage you to be as active a part of our learning and sharing as your time allows. Spread the word to friends, relatives, and neighbors. Invite them to help with Healing the Earth, One Yard at a Time.

Wild Ones – National

• In the Summer 2019 edition of the Wild Ones Journal there were three articles featuring events and people from the St. Louis chapter.
• From the Wild Ones.org home page
  We Can’t Stop Now: A report released in November by the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine shows native plant communities are the most promising weapons against climate change. Pollinator action is still in crisis, with mortality rates for many bee species remaining high due in part to pesticide poisoning and loss of habitat. Without these pollinators, the world’s food supply cannot be maintained. There is much work yet to be done by Wild Ones. We cannot continue to do this work without the generous support of people like YOU!
• The Wild Store is still closed. The organization is seeking a new fulfillment company to handle the online purchasing of Wild Ones-related merchandise.

Wild Ones St. Louis Board of Directors
Chapters are required to have four officers: President, Vice President, Treasurer and Secretary. Also, there can be up to four board members at-large.

2019 Board members

• President, Marsha Gebhardt
• Vice President – Dawn Weber is now the chapter Vice President, and will continue her work as Technology Committee Chair. James Faupel, VP for more than three years, had to step down from the board this spring due to the time-consuming job requirements of his new job at the Litzsinger Road Ecology Center.
• Treasurer, Penny Holtzmann
• Secretary, Ginny Johnson
  Members-at-large
• Marypat Ehlmann
• Fran Glass
• Sue Leahy

Membership in Wild Ones St. Louis Chapter
Membership Chair: Fran Glass

• We have 200 members; a milestone! We are honoring Lisa Pestronk as our official 200th member! Lisa joined at our June Gathering at Connie and Joetta Alwood’s home in Ferguson.
• As in any organization, members ebb and flow.
  • At the end of 2018 we had 180 members; an increase of about 50% over the previous couple of years.
  • In the first six months of 2019, we gained 35 new members.
• Fran Glass is seeking to form a Membership Committee, with the intent of having someone take over as Membership Chair in 2020. Fran has served in this role for four years and will continue to mentor and assist.

Treasurer/Budget
Treasurer, Penny Holtzmann, continues to help us carefully describe and account for all income and expenses.

• 2019 Budget
  • Income budgeted/anticipated
    –Dues reimbursement – $1,400 – Our well-established chapter receives fewer than $10 from each member’s annual dues.
    –Plant sales – $4,000
    –Shaw Nature Reserve on Mother’s Day weekend – The bulk of our income is from this long-running, well-managed plant sale.
    –St. Louis Native Plant Garden Tour – $1,000
  • Expenses (major) budgeted
    –Grants – $4,000 to schools and other non-profits
    –Contributions – $3,500
       Shaw Nature Reserve – Native Plant School
       Wild Ones National – enhancement of website
    –Miscellaneous, including expenses for the Winter Speaker Series, advertising, Circle of Support rack cards, website

Partnerships and Projects 

• Partners for Native Landscaping Workshop
  –We had about 125 participants on Friday night and 250 on Saturday.
  –All the partners were unanimously enthusiastic about how well it went
• St. Louis Native Plant Garden Tour
  –This annual tour is produced by Wild Ones St. Louis and St. Louis Audubon/Bring Conservation Home.
  –Our joint committee decided to use 2019 to “get ahead” of the planning for 2020. Dawn Weber and Fran Glass will visit the potential landscapes for the 2020 Tour, which will be held on June 20th. Visiting with possible tour hosts ahead of time enables the committee to consider how each landscape will look in the tour time frame, as opposed to viewing them the previous winter or spring, and it gives the selected homeowners a year to make any enhancements. Many homeowners on the Tour use it as extra motivation to do things they’ve been wanting to do.
• Note: we are the only partner on these major projects that has NO paid staff. Let’s hear it for the power of committed and energetic volunteers?

Programs
Program Committee: Chair Susan Orr, with Prem Barton and Anne Horton

• Winter Speaker Series
  • Our excellent Program Committee (Susan Orr, Prem Barton and Anne Horton) is providing a second year of programming for members and the public.
  • Attendance at our January, February and March programs at Brentwood Community Center averaged about 100 people.
  • Remember to click on the Blog tab on our website to be reminded of past events. And notice that within some of the blogs are links to lists and photos that speakers promised during their talks.
  • Victoria Hatfield (February) provided her slides of plants from her Grasses, Sedges, Rushes, Oh My!
  • Susie Van de Riet (March) provided her plant list for “Fighting Bad Bugs with Good Bugs”.
  • The success of these programs has caused us to decide to refer to the three months of programMing as The Winter Speaker Series.
• Monthly Gatherings
  • From April through October our Monthly Gatherings are held in home or public native plant gardens.
  • The consistently appealing programming and effective reminders have produced even higher attendance: monthly averages of 80+ people!
  • Highlights of each Gathering are sent to our subscribers and are found under the Blog tab on our website.

Publicity/Marketing
Publicity/Marketing Chair: Sue Leahy

• Circle of Support cards
  • This year we printed an additional 3,500 copies of the Circle of Support cards which we created in 2018.
  • The cards point people to four primary organizations that support native plant gardeners in the St. Louis region: Wild Ones St. Louis Chapter, St. Louis Audubon Society/Bring Conservation Home, Shaw Nature Reserve, and Grow Native!.
  • Again this year they are used extensively, by all four organizations, at tabling and speaking events.
  • At each monthly Gathering we also encourage members to pick up multiples to share with friends and neighbors as they spread the word
• Occasional, timely ads have been placed in the Gateway Gardener, and the Webster/Kirkwood Times.

Tabling Events
Tabling Chair: Marypat Ehlmann

• We provided a Wild Ones display and various materials at 10 events in the St. Louis region (excluding the Spring Native Plant Sale at SNR)
• Thirty eight volunteers each contributed two to three hours to these efforts.

• This year the board increased the allocation for native plant garden grants to schools and other non-profits, from $2,500 to $4,000.
  • To date, $2,655 has been awarded
    –Wren Hollow Pollinator Garden – $250
    –Geggie Elementary School (Pollinator Project by Girl Scout Troop) – $500
    –Lyon Academy (Elementary school in St. Louis) – $150
    –Westchester Elementary School – $400
    –New City School – $500
    –EarthDance Organic Farm School – $480
    –Don Robinson State Park – $375
  • Grant Site Mentoring Program
    –Coordinator: Kevin Mowrey
    –Kevin coordinates the efforts of Wild Ones St. Louis members who have agreed to mentor the 50+ sites we have given grants to since 2007.
    –A grant site mentor picks up the ball after the site has been planted/seeded and monitors the status of the site. The mentors communicate with the site contact, visit the site at least twice a year, take pictures, identify any issue that may develop and offer advice as needed.

Plant Sales
Plant Sale Committee: Chair, Dawn Weber with Susan Burk

• Plant sales are two-fold for us. They fund our grants, donations and programing and further educate and support the public use of native plants.
• Shaw Nature Reserve – Mother’s Day weekend, annually
  –We profited over $4,000 this year, which is a recent average, despite a very rainy second day on Saturday.
  –This event continues to provide the bulk of our funds for the year.
  –About 40 volunteers made this event possible, under the excellent coordination of Dawn Weber.
• Greentree Festival in Kirkwood – September 13-15, 2019
  –For the third year Susan Burk and Sue Leahy will provide plants, grown from seed, to be sold at the Wild Ones St. Louis booth.
  –Last year this provided about $350 for our projects.

Landscape Challenge
Landscape Challenge Chair: Sue Leahy; Designer: Rob May

• Each year one lucky homeowner is selected to receive a front yard makeover; transforming turf into a native Missouri landscape.
• Shaw Nature Reserve (SNR) and GrowNative! Partner with St. Louis Wild Ones on this project. Scott Woodbury provides consultation about the design and SNR provides some hardscape and mulch. GN! contributes funding.
• This year 16 people applied prior to the June 1st deadline.
• Rob May (designed the past two Landscape Challenge gardens) and Sue Leahy (Wild Ones St. Louis board member) narrowed the field to seven. They based selections on a set of criteria including: enthusiasm for native plants, knowledge, experience, willingness to prepare the site for planting, commitment to maintaining the garden, and high visibility of the yard.
• Based on home visits and interviews with the finalists, the Landscape Challenge committee chooses the winner.
• This year, the unanimous choice was Steve and Krystal and Coxon, of Ballwin

Website and Social Media
Technology Committee Chair: Dawn Weber

• Website:  More than 800 people subscribe to Updates from our website at stlwildones.org. This number continues to grow.
• Facebook:  The number of people following our Facebook page also continues to grow. We now have 1020 followers.  If you use Facebook, be sure to like our page! We post the events and blog updates that you would expect to see, but also share information and news from the native plant community.