By: Philip Paul, Vice District Director

In her opening remarks at the Mid Winter Meeting and in her first DSD Bulletin article our new District Director, Karen Prevatt expressed her desire for the DSD to become known as a sharing organization. Her idea is to ask for contributions from all societies of their "best practices", ideas, programs and program presenters. These contributions will be made into a library of materials that can be downloaded from the DSD website by any Society.

The reference to a library is fitting as this is not DSD directing societies on what to do, but as in a library it is making material available to those in need. The power of today’s websites will allow us to bring many capabilities to each other. It will permit computer links from our DSD Bulletin or local newsletters to the information you need on the DSD website.

To get this concept started we presented two officer training sessions at the DSD Mid Winter Meeting. Our first program "On Being President" of a local society and the second "The Program Chair in Your Rose Society" started the leadership information sharing. If you missed these presentations, they will be among the first to be available in "DSD Shares". The term "DSD Shares" is the name for all our sharing and information. It will be found in a unique area on our website.

We have established a team to work on the sharing concept which includes: Louise Stafford, our DSD Bulletin Editor, Jim Harrell, our DSD webmaster; Al Whitcomb, Past President of The Tampa Rose Society; Debbie Coolidge, who has worn many hats in the Greater Palm Beach Rose Society; and myself as Chair. Our hope is to build up our communication interaction and overall support with all of our local societies. To do that the team is very interested in your needs and ideas for contribution. The group has selected the name "DSD Local Society Support Team". You will hear a great deal more from these people. They are already hard at work.

Your team members can be communicated with at the e-mail addresses below:

Topic                                             Contact

We started asking people to join a new "Speakers’ Bureau" at the Mid Winter Meeting as a test of interest. So far we have had good acceptance from seven individuals and the list is growing. If you would be willing to become a speaker in the DSD geographic area, please contact one of the team members listed above. We would be happy to add your name to the list.

Very soon we will post that speakers’ list. It will indicate the speaker, the program topics that they have prepared, the distance he or she will travel and any other help they might need with the event.

At the October 2009 DSD Meeting, a first meeting of newsletter editors was held and at that time all editors’ e-Mail addresses were collected. Thanks to Bobbie Reed who has accepted the task of Chair of the group, we held a second meeting at the Mid Winter Meeting. The group was able to meet with Linda Kimmel, the Chair of the ARS Newsletter Competition Committee to learn about the new Electronic Newsletter classification offered this year. The DSD Editors have started a "DSD Shares" activity where most are sharing their newsletters all across DSD using the e-mail addresses collected last October. This will mean many more choices in articles for editors that will be useful in our growing area for all societies. The Editors will also have an area on the "DSD Shares" portion of the website where they can share information, common articles (e.g. National Conference Information), and techniques for building good newsletters. This group will be called the DSD Editors’ Forum.

The DSD Library will contain materials of special interest. As an example, Dr. Tommy Cairns talk on "Innovative Rose Growing Techniques" and the Connie Vierbicky talk to the CR Class on Fertilization and Nutrition are being prepared for this area. Both of these talks were requested by the audience at the Mid Winter Meeting 2010.

Most materials will be presented in Adobe PDF format in order to enable all members access without regard to computer type. Each document will have a Summary Sheet that indicates the audience for the document, the author, contact information and a short abstract of the material.

Other topics will be added over time. If you are a DSD Chairperson who is not yet on the above list, please let us know if you would like space to post your ideas and materials.

Please let us hear from you on your needs and ideas for contribution!