The Gala Water Horticultural Society had been an active society that existed in the village for many years. In 1981 however it had run its course and for the next 13 years it lay, not so much dead as dormant. In 1994 however a number of interested parties called a meeting to see if there was sufficient interest to get the society up and running again. A new committee was formed which fortunately included a number of people from the previous 1981 society and they provided a very important mentoring roll to the new innocents who were encouraged to take over.
Over the course of the next 16 years the society evolved into a more broad based organisation and whilst the show is still an important and integral part of its calendar, the annual bus trip to a garden of interest, the plant and pancake, (cosmic, I believe) morning, the collective seed purchasing with its resultant discount and “car share” trips, organised to more local gardens have also become important features in the area’s social calendar. For example, we went to Gifford on 25th Sep!
The structure of the show has also been altered in that many of the categories in the schedule have become friendlier to people unaccustomed to the rigors of the show bench and we have tried to reflect the general interest in organic gardening. We are also involving the school and pre-school groups as much as we can, as can be seen from the creative artwork in the hall today.
Now however we get to the subject of the society’s future development. To move on and develop in the new directions necessary to keep the society active and evolving, new people need to be encouraged to join.
