President’s Letter for March 2024
Silhouette Show at Cantigny
On February 24, 2024, we held our fourth Silhouette Show at the Cantigny Park Visitor Center. The first show was held in 2020, just before the pandemic began. We skipped 2021 and held shows in 2022 and 2023. It seemed that the number of people at the park was lower than last year when we were swamped much of the day. That was likely due to the snow which fell the day before. If the weather had been as warm as Monday and Tuesday, we would have been swamped again. We had 18 tables of 6 and 8 feet long and we had a total of 18 trees entered in the show from only eight members. We had room for more than twice as many trees as were entered in the show. We hope for much greater participation at future shows. In other good news, we had many volunteers to help in setting up and tearing down the show. The show ended at 4:00 PM, and we had all the material back in the storage unit by 5:15 PM. Thanks to everyone who participated!
We are on the move for three more months
As we did for February, the next two meetings of the year will move from our typical location in the TEC Building to the Homeland Security Education Center, room HEC 1020, next door to the north.
The May General Membership meeting will feature Mauro Stemberger from Italy as our guest artist, and we will move the date of the meeting and the location to a much larger room for that event. That meeting will be held on May 15, 2024, two weeks later than our usual date. We have reserved lecture hall HSC1234 in the Health & Science Center at the southeast corner of Lambert Road and Tallgrass Road.
Election
According to our By-Laws, “Election of officers will take place at the Annual Meeting in even numbered years” and March is designated as our Annual Meeting. The election of officers to lead the society for the next two years is scheduled for the March 6, 2024, General Membership meeting. A Nominating Committee was appointed late last year, and we have the following members who have agreed to run:
President . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Badar Zulqarni
Treasurer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Doug Bradbury
Secretary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . John Comastro
Programs Director . . . . . . . . Larry Magee
Special Events Director . . . Craig Cronquist
Membership Director . . . . . Jim Beck
Publicity Director . . . . . . . . . P.K. Ganeshan
Newsletter Director . . . . . . . . Katlin Mulligan
Website Director . . . . . . . . . . Rick Manning
At-Large Board Members . . Steve Fluett
(3 to be elected) Nick DiBattista
Charlotte Field
And finally, thank you!
Thank you to everyone in the Prairie State Bonsai Society for making the past two years special for me. I have been a member since early 2013 and never had any plans to become an officer, let alone president of the club. We have had a challenging time getting the club running normally again following the pandemic, but were able to build upon the efforts of Dean Cooper, who served as president during 2021 when most of our activity was via Zoom. We finally had our first in-person meeting in February 2022.
No president accomplishes anything without the efforts of the Board of Directors and many other volunteers. Thank you to the following people served to make the club operate for the past two years: Badar Zulqarni (Treasurer), Char Field (Secretary), Larry Magee and Jennifer Price (Programs), Nick DiBattista (Special Events), Jim Beck (Membership), Katlin Mulligan (Newsletter), Rick Manning (Website), Steve Fluett (At-Large), and Dani Fogarty (Publicity). In addition, thanks to Jason Davids, who handled the project to order shirts and hats last year. Also, thank you to Jim Beck, who chaired, and Badar and Char, who served on the Nominating Committee, which recruited the candidates for PSBS officers for the next two years. I apologize in advance if I have forgotten to name anyone.
I am looking forward to seeing you at the March 6th meeting when we will elect new officers and work on forest plantings. We hope you have fun and learn something new whenever you participate in the club activities.
To quote our friend Andy Smith, “Remember, if it ain’t fun, it ain’t bonsai!”
Craig
