Have you ever thought about joining a local gardening club, but don’t know of any? Well why not start one yourself? It’s not as daunting as you may think.
I am the Founder of Hook Gardening Club based in East Yorkshire, which was started in September 2010, after a number of villagers commented ‘…it’s such a shame there isn’t a local gardening club – go on Justine get it organised….’ so I did!!! We are now in our sixth season of talks and meetings and our club continues to grow.
Planning started in late spring 2010. I spent LOTS of time on the internet trying to find other gardening clubs, asking for advice, pulling things together and of course the most important thing; fundraising. Keeping the funds coming in, was and still is vital. Baking and selling cakes and making preserves all contribute to our funds.
We had to tell the world we were here, so I contacted local newspapers, created a website, used social media and advertised everywhere with leaflets and posters in garden centres, village halls, shops and even villager’s windows.
I eventually booked our first Speaker, BBC Radio Humberside Gardening Expert Doug Stewart for our inaugural September 2010 meeting. We had a very successful meeting with more than 50 visitors. I was absolutely delighted that all the hard work had paid off.
Fundraising
We don’t ask for an annual membership fee (although some clubs do). We prefer ‘pay as you visit’, charging £3 per person on the door which includes free refreshments. As well as having a speaker at our meetings, we have a seasonal shrub raffle prize which is donated by our annual sponsor, Henley’s Nurseries at Market Weighton. In exchange for the raffle prizes we give them mentions on our website, encourage visitors to visit their nursery and add mentions on our social media throughout the year.
We also run a plant and seed swap minimum donation 50p (if you haven’t brought something to swap) and a gardening book lending library borrow a book and bring it back at the next meeting. Our monthly meetings continue to welcome 30-40 visitors, with some new faces every month.
Hook Gardening club attends Goole Annual Hobbies exhibition in March each year, which is another opportunity to promote the club and sell a few seeds, jars of jam etc and hand out LOTS of leaflets. We have approached local garden centres and have been online for donations to use as raffle prizes, in exchange I list their company name and website address on the supporters page of our website and mention them on social media. We have been very lucky with the support we have received to date.
