Happy New Year to all our Members and followers here on the Blogsite.

2019 will will see some changes being made in the programme for the club during the year. If you want to get all the ‘Nitty Gritty’ of the changes and even influence the direct we take, then I’d advise that you attend the Club meeting and AGM this Friday 11th January at Cregagh Youth and Community Centre, Belfast at 8pm.

However, the short version, or as short as I can make it, is as follows….

In 2010 we changed the club meetings from ‘talk based’ to ‘workshop orientated’. This proved successful but during the last few years we have seen numbers attending meetings vary widely from month to month. We have looked at this and encouraged feedback from the membership and now feel that 2 hours on a Friday night isn’t sufficient for most people to bring a tree along for serious work. We however didn’t want to roll back to the old format either.

So, as a result, this year we are changing it up a little with each Friday night session being a presentation, talk, demo or focused workshop. This will cover design, techniques, species, etc. Each night will have a show and tell critique to ensure we get plenty of trees at each session. As always, members are encouraged to bring along anything bonsai orientated that they want to sell or swap. We will also be adding Saturday morning workshops to the programme this year running for a 4 hour minimum as a trial to see how attendance goes.

We are also looking into the use of technology to bridge the geographical restrictions we have in Northern Ireland to give us access to teachers and professionals outside for Ireland and even the UK for that matter. Stay tuned for more on this during the year.

The calendar page for 2019 has been updated. Friday night topics will be updated as things fall into place. We are being led by what our members have requested to be covered but this is subject to change.

We hope this adds an extra element to what the club already offers and will boost learning among our membership.