MorningGlory Associations,Clubs,Societies & Groups logistics

well then, the answer to his question is even more important.. The world needs to know about the beautiful and interesting species of the Mornig Glory Plants.

There was a YAHOO one mentioned above or on another page that brought us here;although I cannot find it now. I personally had a bad time w/yahoo groups in past TOO complicated and there was a mention by the poster of its inactivity and when I looked at the posts they all looked old. 2007 was the most recent date I saw, though that could be a membersip issue; in conclusion, there still. lol, are no (?) MG groups...as good as this forum with such teriffic daily activity for sure anyhow~!
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There are local asagao clubs in Japan that attend the asagao festivals and take part in the competition shows...although at this point they only show Ipomoea nil and perhaps some Ipomoea purpurea...

There may be a National Club in Japan...

The bulletin board devoted to Morning Glories at Kyushu is active,but only for professionals who are registered to be able to log-in and post photos and replies...


TTY,...


Ron

wouldn't it be great to post a show and have all of us involved in it! just a thought..

We can contact the MG National in Japan.

I f Joseph can find money to translate the EDO book , the translator can help us to meet someone how write english in this Club.

Dany

Debra - The asagao festivals and shows are physical events that take place...flower shows (like orchid shows but ) devoted exclusively to Morning Glories...they're not something that primarily takes place on the web,although photos of the physical festivals and local shows may be posted on the web...

Asagao have a long history in Japan for many centuries,so they have had a very long time to get organized...

Dany - I said that there *might* be a National Asagao Club or Society of sorts in Japan,but then again it is likely that events are sponsored and organized by the local asagao groups...the department of cultural affairs...

I spent several years writing physical letters to different organizations in Japan inquiring about information and showing a sincere interest to try to spread enjoyment of asagao in this country...I had a professional post my contact information and my interest on the main bulletin board at Kyushu...no response...

The few responses I received from the physical letters were 'token' and they simply were not interested in 'spreading' their interest to the West...they just did not show an interest in 'outsiders'...they were apparently very content to continue to enjoy what they viewed as 'japanese' culture amongst themselves in japan...so,I kind of gave up on trying to garner an enthusiastic response from the japanese...

I wrote my letters about 6 - to -10 years ago and maybe the advent of increased online translators will make a significant difference at this point in time...please feel free to write to whoever you think may respond...

My view is that making increased contact with individuals in Japan who are members of the clubs may be the best entry point...although they may be concerned about export and export restrictions as imposed by japanese and the import codes of other countries...

There are many individual japanese who post their asagao on the web and their email address...a google search on 'asagao' will bring up many personal sites in japan...start e-mailing people and see if there is interest to correspond and to share...

You could start a thread specifically devoted to trying to increase contact with japanesae asagao enthusiasts...particularly those who are not motivated by trying to make a monetary profit by showcasing their asagao...


TTY,...


Ron

Well Ron,

or should I call you Moses........ I am of course glad to see this subject come up again.

A society would give the old veterans something to get their teeth into, other than being the sticky for soq s, .

We would have structure, direction, rules,order,decorum, offices to delegate authority to. Officers to go/get/report on info, documents etc. We would then have an image and some new clout. There would be a correct way to do things and to get things done or corrected. Guesswork would no longer be acceptable as ok.

Definite areas of long term interest would be addressed. A Genuine International Morning Glory Society could achieve much that a cyberspace forum cannot. Our selected goals would cost dollars, but we could come up with ways to generate dollars to do those projects. As always, I like the idea. Frank

about mg festivals, none of you guys have in your state? I've heard that Toronto/GTA has one at the Japanese cultural centre but I've never heard of it until a member of our hoya club/togetherness mentioned it to me. I've noticed that we might have a bottle-effect/genetic drift on the seeds here in North America as there are not many sources and you all know that the Japanese have more variation in colours/growth habit/leaf characteristics..

I know/I've heard a couple times that some of you guys do not like this organization concept, true there will be pros and cons and true that MG forums had helped alot but i believe that it'll be an advantage for all. Frank, very well said about the guesswork and getting things done correctly.

A suggestion/comment/question for the database:

1. Should it be categorized according to
- cultivar name OR
- bloom pattern OR
- bloom colour OR
- vine habit

2. Should the naming be followed be English or Japanese?
Ex: in English, we call/say "maple-willow" for those mgs who are exhibiting this phenotype, but in Japanese, they are described as "willow" only.

3. Kyushu site had a "system" of naming/categorizing their mutants. Should we follow this naming?

How about a newsletter sort of thing (hardcopy or online or both), featuring member's photos? or am I going too far? -_-

liz

This message was edited Nov 19, 2008 12:44 AM

another thing...about the money...

here in canada to register as a non-profit organization it costs about 300-500 CAD. not sure if this includes finding the business name and checking if they are taken. Would this be the same case for a society?

Found out something about colour classification/nomenclature.

Imai and older genetic studies used the "Ridgway" nomenclature. From here we can compare the colours that they are talking about in their articles. Maybe we can use this system too to describe colours instead of subjective descriptions of purples and magentas and etc's?

http://www.elibron.com/english/other/item_detail.phtml?msg_id=10062024

http://books.google.ca/books?id=7j8VGSgL-ZcC&pg=RA1-PR78&lpg=PR76&ots=GWtzy_ur7p&dq=COLOR+STANDARDS+%26+NOMENCLATURE%22+&lr=#PRA1-PR65,M1

http://www.bio.utk.edu/mycology/Color/Color-index.htm

Frank - Thanks for your input on the topic...

You mentioned:

"A Genuine International Morning Glory Society could achieve much that a cyberspace forum cannot.

Thank you for your input outside the 'box' of a forum...


evr - Thanks for your recent input...

Should precedes could on any aspect...

The descriptions can always be cross referenced,but I think that any plant should be accurately classified as to the accepted International Taxonomic standards...classification via the accepted botanical taxonomic rank of species,subspecies,variety and forma precedes classification by any 'subtaxa' and a cultivar is subordinate to the taxonomic ranks of species,subspecies,variety and forma...

The Western descriptions can be cross referenced and coexist with any japanese nomenclature...

The Royal Horticultural Society has a hard copy color chart which is most often used Internationally to determine the color of any flower and I think that following the International color chart of the RHS would be the way to determine the color of any MG's...

I envision a MG Society that includes the many species that are currently cultivated and the many more species which have not as yet entered into cultivation...

The Japanese style of Morning Glories would be an aspect of a comprehensive International Morning Glory Society ,but I see no legitimate reason to confine the broader spectrum of a Comprehensive society to whatever nomenclatural trends as are applied by the japanese...

There is no such thing as going too far...it is a question of considering any multitudinous aspects first in terms of

1) should (is it appropriate and / or required at all and if so at what point in time and space)

and then

2) could (is it realistically feasible at all and / or at what point in time and space)


Thanks again for everyones input on the topic...


Ron

Ron, would we be able to compare Ridgway's chart with RHS's colour chart? I'm not trying to confine any notions and I did not mean to say that we should follow the Japanese system, but most information about I. nils are coming from the Japanese. Just like with Imai's articles and Kyushu's they they describe some of the colours according to the Ridgway chart. When I was reading this, I had no idea what they were talking about until I looked "Ridgway" up.

Eliz - Do you have a good link to the Ridgway chart (?)...

The usage of multiple charts may be useful as alternative and / or secondary references...

Ultraviolet reflectance,presence or absence of extra-floral nectaries...anything of value to humans or other pollinators should be considered as per potential reference charts...


TTY,...


Ron

To think about it, I think Royal Horticultural Society's colour chart would be more of a practical use since it's updated and most people use them.

I have a link to the colour plates of Ridgway but they are just samples from google.
http://books.google.ca/books?id=7j8VGSgL-ZcC&pg=RA1-PR78&lpg=PR76&ots=GWtzy_ur7p&dq=COLOR+STANDARDS+%26+NOMENCLATURE%22+&lr=#PRA1-PR63,M1

A link to info on Ridgway
http://www.bio.utk.edu/mycology/Color/color-intro.htm

Ridgway can be useful when reading old articles written by the Japanese doctors, just to see what they are talking about, but trying to standardize/categorize colours is hard as most of you guys have mentioned.

Is there a way to convert colours of Ridgway to colours of Royal Horticultural Society's or the other way around? Both colour plates are expensive and not so cheap that anybody could get them.

I would be happy to contact folks I North American Rock Garden Society to seek advice on how we could get an organization off the ground, is that ok at this time?

As much as I like the principal idea of getting a MG club or association off the ground for all the reasons mentioned above, I would still very much favour a book on MGs first.

This book would contain the information provided by both experts and enthusiasts and basic information on the ipomoea genuses, pictures, description of cultivars, genetic information etc.

I think it may be difficult for a group to write a book together though not impossible...but 1-3 people might want to do it, the others could help by providing information, pics and finances...

Martin

Martin - Societies often publish books...of course anyone is free to write a book or article whenever they are of a mind to do so...

Joseph - The AHS would be the society to contact to have any registry recognized and they offer starter kits...

TTY,...

Ron

I put in a request for information to AHS this morning. Let's see what is in their response!

I am glad to see this subject warmed up again. I think a society will contribute order where the norm is chaos. If we just set a standard, for name quotation, a standard format, that would be a huge contribution to order. Without this, people selling seeds contribute fresh misinformation every day . It seems like most people out there with seeds don't know what the specie origins of blue tye dye, and flying saucers are. They don't have any bookkeeping method to preserve the names as they go. Ant then there are those who imbue mystery into a name by being VAGUE, and enchantingly mysterious. I look forward to a day when everyone who sells seeds uses the same international naming format.

Joseph, I can remember times, when at church, it was prudent to update the church's constitution and by-lawes. We just got copies of similar churches, and used them for comparison. Some of the things in those other constitutions, sounded whacky. They were just protecting themselves from
some self proclaimed Guru and his associates. You really do not want to go where they have been, just to learn from your own mistakes instead of theirs.
The basic framework of a society that has been around a long time is a good starting place. Frank

Quick suggestion before I go..

Hoya enthusiasts have been taking advantage of this online journal for free: http://www.stemmajournal.com/

It's called stemma journal and people who are interested contribute to articles, pictures and such.

Perhaps something similar to this might be attainable for this mg group?

Eliz

good Ideas Frank, and Eliz...

So far, no response but in follow-up elsewhere, it appears that many societies have been set up as non-profit organizations, for tax purposes among other reasons. More to come.

I briefly read about establishing a non-profit organization, and I am not sure that is what we want to do. I saw guidance where as an alternative, we could contact an already established horticulturally oriented organization and see if we can join as an affiliated garden club whose focus would be what we talked about above in this thread. Here's where I had read about all of this stuff:

http://www.mncn.org/info/basic_start.htm#Alternatives%20to%20starting%20a%20new%20nonprofit

A blanket organization that might be suitable to join might be National Garden Clubs, Inc. http://www.gardenclub.org/home.aspx

Just tossing ideas out for discussion...

Joseph

American Horticultural Society got back with me. I learned that AHS used to provide direct to groups wishing to establish formal associations or clubs, but they no longer do this...I learned that they will publish an announcement in the AHS magazine (American Horticulture? Can't remember exactly).

While I have a strong affection for all you guys, I still recognize this.

The family, Convolvulacea needs a group of people to step up and fill leadership positions for the preservation of species we all love and enjoy. The glaciers have melted, and we are in a period of extreme change ecologically. THESE CHANGES ARE NOT GOING TO STOP!!!!! Habitats as we have known them are under much changing pressure. HUMIDITY-CLOUDS-SOLAR-NIGHT TIME TEMPS ---ETCETERA..... New species are being discovered every year! There are species waiting to be discovered, that will never get preserved or saved.

We need to make an organization that has a seed bank common people have access to, not just people with Phds. We are better at it , and we have people to help, unlike congress and all that infighting.

I believe that it we could get as many as 100 members in the first year, that then we would really become a force for the preservation of the CONVOLVULACEA family and all its species, known and yet to be known.

The major stumbling block is that people can't trust the instincts of their leadership persons. IF i were to go out on a limb, and do the paperwork with the "International Botanical Congress", and then the "Not for Profit Organization", with the IRS, and get the ball rolling, the next thing that would happen, is that many people would like to question every thing I had already done, instead of researching it themselves. THIS IS WHAT STANDS BETWEEN US AND AN "INTERNATIONAL CONVOLVULACEA SOCIETY".
Frank

Great... it is all about the politics then.. sounds like my work place.. no faith in the people that you hired to do the job..
I agree.. we do need a seed bank and we do need to find what unfound species we can..

i also agree and would like to do what i can to ensure a public convolvulacea seedbank...

i'm going to research seed storage and will continue to collect and grow out what i can.(i'm still learning...)

Kew sell long term seed storage kits... and one has extra litrature aimed at school projects which may be useful...
http://www.kew.org/shops/miniseedbank.html

should i start a new thread for long term seed storage links/ideas?

Colin

probably so..

Where do we go from here?

still waiting to see what if why we need to move from here until we figure out what we want in the way of a society of sorts for MGs

First of all, we need to agree to agree and not split hairs. That can be a real quagmire.

We need a universal type name, that covers all bases, and is deserving of world wide recognition. Including the International Botanical Congress, RHS, ETC. All those old organizations, whose recognition we would like to have, will of course be interested in our objectives. ie, to preserve vanishing and rare species, to promote
literature, provide information, preserve historical records, contribute to world knowledge of this family, to produce a Monograph of this Family, all its Genera, and Species. etc.

Frank