I was startled to read that the Emerald chapter of NARGS was "forced" to disband. Google doesn't divulge any details of this, so could someone please summarize the sad story in a few words? As for the failure of IBS, I would put it down to a single, primary factor: the membership got too old and too set in their ways. Now, Victoria BC where I live is in a special position, as it is a retirement haven for all of Canada, and there's a constant influx of newly tired blood in the form of fresh retirees anxious to keep doing what they used to do in their old stomping grounds when working. But this only helps the larger and more generalized plant groups: the neighborhood gardening clubs and the quasi- umbrella Victoria Horticultural Society. Specialist societies like the rock garden club (the oldest one in the world, as it happens), VIRAGS, aren't thriving, and I put this down to the aging of their memberships. Fortunately, VIRAGS seems to have stabilized at about half its size thirty years ago, but still has the problem of almost no one under the age of 65. What we in the old duffer generation have to do, what we *must* do, is to encourage younger people and *not* bitch and moan when they then decide to do things in a new way. When I used to be active in the Vic Hort Soc back in the 1980s, someone would suggest "let's do this" and the old farts would invariably retort "oh, we tried that thirty years ago and it didn't work." Well, how about another try? People will only put up with this kind of sniping from the sidelines for a certain amount of time before they say to hell with it. Like it or not, these days society is in a constant state of churn and if you try to keep doing things the way you always have, you are toast. Burnt toast, at that. End of sermon. -- Rodger Whitlock Victoria, British Columbia, Canada Z. 7-8, cool Mediterranean climate