May 2015

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KITSAP COUNTY DAHLIA SOCIETY KITSAP COUNTY DAHLIA SOCIETY KITSAP COUNTY DAHLIA SOCIETY

P. O. Box 502, Silverdale, WA 98383-0502 www.kitsapdahlias.org

KCDS Officers 2

KCDS Board Notes 2

Tuber Sale Recap 3

ADS-Resizing photos 4 FNWDG News 5

Port Gamble Update 5

Inside this issue:

Dates to Remember: • May 21, 7:00 PM General Meeting • June 4, 7:00 PM Board Meeting • June 18, 7:00 PM General Meeting • July 16, time TBD Club Picnic, Brownsville Pavillion • July 18 Federation Summer Workshop • July 25 Judging Workshop • August 1-2 KCDS Show

This will be the last year for our current KCDS show committee. Wanda, Sally and Joan are stepping down, and have prepared an excellent process and procedure book to make the transition as seamless as possible. They are looking for volunteers who would be willing to “shadow” them in the 2015 show season, and lead the 2016 KCDS show. If you are interested in this opportunity, please let Wanda know.

Notes and Reminders

GENERAL MEETING AGENDA

Nenekazi, B LC LB Pt. Gamble 2014

This month’s general meeting promises to be a fun and lively event, with our annual member’s plant auction. This is where donations from your gardens are auctioned off by our “seasoned” club auctioneer, Drew Brant, with the proceeds going to help support the club. This is a good way to share your extra plants—perennials, annuals, dahlia tubers, vegetables, shrubs or trees—and compete with club members for that special purchase. And, speaking of special purchases, rumor has it that there may be cuttings of

Seabeck Hilda there for auction. If so, that’s an opportunity you will not want to miss! Please note, we will not have a raffle this month, to allow for adequate time for our plant auction. We will resume the raffle at our June meeting. Drew is soliciting Art Wureth to speak at the June meeting. We hope to see you there on Thursday. evening.

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KCDS 2015 OFFICERS: President Dan Van Natta 360-908-8054 Vice President (programs) Drew Brant 360-473-3131 Treasurer Bill Jones 360-297-2134 Recording Secretary (minutes) Kim Van Natta 360-692-7231 Corresponding Co-Secretaries (newsletter) Allyn Arnold 360-621-0699 Debra Kurre 360-373-8346 kcdsnewsletter@comcast.net Trustees Steffany Mootry 360-731-7114 Gary Johnson 360-698-2427 Bob Overly 360-377-4531 ADS Representative Leone Smith Federation Representative Drew Brant Sunshine Committee Carol Derrick 360-373-4098 Contact any of these people regarding club events.

Regular Board Meetings

Held on the first Thursday of each Month at 7:00 PM

LOCATION: All Star Lanes, Silverdale, WA

Board Meeting Dates

May 7 June 4

General Meetings

Held on the third Thursday of each

month at 7 PM EXCEPT FOR:

April (held on 4th Thursday) July (Club Picnic)

August (Club Show) LOCATION:

Crystal Grange 2160 NE Paulson Rd Poulsbo, WA 98370

BOTH meetings are open to all. If you have an item for discussion, contact

Dan Van Natta by the Tuesday before the meeting and he will put you on the

agenda.

BOARD NOTES • We exceeded last year’s sales! Marking pencils and books sold out. Bill and Nancy Jones

will have a tuber sale at Port Gamble with what was left from the sale and members’ donations. Bob Overly agreed to head up the sale next year, and suggests we do more quality control when dividing tubers and put a heater in the basement to get eyes to show sooner.

• Club Gardens—Silverdale was planted 5/2/15 with the help of 5 members. Work parties will be scheduled for July, August and September at the Silverdale Post Office, with grilled food to follow. Volunteers are also asked to sign up for garden upkeep. National Avenue was planted 5/3/15 and could also use volunteers for maintenance.

• Some members have expressed an interest in having tours of their gardens this year. This will be discussed at the next General Meeting.

• Website: Michael Lanning has added info and photos to the website and has more ideas as well. The club Facebook page has many “likes”.

• The trailer title transfer is still in process. The tarp for the trailer will be okay for another year. Drew will get the insurance forms filled out after getting current info from Bill Jones.

• KCDS volunteers are needed to help with the Fair check-in of dahlias on 8/24/15, from 12:00PM to 8:00PM. Volunteers get free admission to the fair.

• The KCDS picnic/potluck will be 7/16/15 at the Brownsville Pavillion.

REFRESHMENT SIGN-UP

June—Dave & Leone Smith

Email or call Allyn or Debra to sign

up for 2015! kcdsnewsletter@comcast.net

REMEMBER: Snacks for monthly meetings are reimbursable up to $15.00 per month. Provide the completed KCDS reimbursement form, together with receipts, to our Treasurer.

KCDS NEWSLETTER E-MAIL ADDRESS

Please forward all comments & suggestions

to: kcdsnewsletter@comcast.net

May 2015

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TUBER SALE A GREAT SUCCESS We exceeded last year’s sales, thanks in part to club member’s donations to help support a low inventory from last year’s crop. Initial packaging inventory was 2638 tubers. This inventory was augmented by donations from several members and club friends. There were 127 Worker Bee coupons turned in at the sale. Our club has tremendous member support throughout the year, as indicated by the worker coupon redemptions.

Carol Derrick hosted the tuber raffle this year and sold approximately 300 tickets! The lucky winner was Judy Hughes. She was unable to pick up the tubers, so Carol delivered them to her husband, Doug, on April 27th, in front of Farmland Feed Store in Silverdale.

No detail too small to check and double-check.

The “A” Team on hand to answer the next question or demo tuber division.

First day of sale was almost a sell-out!

SETUP AND FIRST DAY OF SALE—GOOD TIMES!

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In the March 2015 KCDS newsletter, I wrote a short article about submitting photos to the ADS for their online classification guide. (Hundreds of dahlias have no photos.) To recap, you must have taken the photo yourself, and the file name on the photo must be in the format the ADS describes. In addition, your photo must be 640 pixels wide and no larger than 50 kb in size. Complete instructions are at www.dahlia.org. Click on “online classification guide” and then click on the bottom right “how to send your photos”. Getting your photos down to the size the ADS requests requires some resizing of your photos, as most photos we take are several megapixels in size, which is far too large for the ADS to accept. I have found a free program that allows you to easily manipulate your photos to the ADS specifications. You can do everything from their website and don’t have to sign up for anything. You should now be able to submit a photo of your favorite dahlia to be included in the ADS online classification guide. The website for the free program is www.webresizer.com • To resize your photos, go to www.webresizer.com • Click the orange “resize photos here” tab • On the upper right hand corner, click “with rounded corners” (it keeps the photos a smaller size) • Then under “upload an image” click “choose file” • Navigate to the photo you want and then click “open”—your file will then show beside the “choose file” button • Click “upload image” • By the “new size” button in the middle, type 640 and make sure the “width” button is selected • Click “apply changes”—the size of the “optimized image” will show under the picture in kb • If it is more than 50 kb, go to the “image quality” box and start reducing it by 5, then click apply changes. Do

that until you get the photo to 50 kb or less. • Once you have the size down, click on “download this image”. It will download a copy of the “optimized

photo”; save that photo where you can find it; make sure your photo is named correctly, and send the photo to: photos2@dahlia.org.

These photos were resized down to 50 kb using the program above.

ADS NEWS www.dahlia.org

KCDS Representative: Leone Smith By Debbie Kurre

B J’s Reina Greendor Northlake Heritage

May 2015

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PORT GAMBLE UPDATE The KCDS garden at Port Gamble was planted on May 9 with the help of 10 members including two new members, John Tilly and Elena Brenna. With the addition of the new dahlia garden planned and designed by Mark Smith, there are now more than 400 tubers in the three gardens and about 140 varieties. Tubers

were not dug in the original Post Office garden last fall, and fortunately all tubers are growing so no additional planting is required there. We had a very successful tuber sale at the Post Office on Mother’s Day. Tubers were donated by Fred Nelson, Mike Lanning and KCDS friend, Laure Schmuck. Laure also donated more than 300 tubers that were packaged and sold at the Grange. Elena Brenna also helped with the sale on Mother’s day. Residents and visitors to Port Gamble are anxiously looking forward to another beautiful display of dahlias this summer. The flowers have become a big draw for visitors to Port Gamble, and our efforts are greatly appreciated. Hopefully more KCDS members will get out to see them this year.

By Nancy Jones

FEDERATION OF NORTHWEST DAHLIA GROWERS (FNWDG)

• The Federation Summer Workshop will be on July 18, at Mt. Vernon Senior Center, Mt Vernon, WA, 9:00 am—3 pm.

• The Judging Workshops will be on July 25, 2015 at the Mt. Vernon Senior Center, Mt. Vernon, WA and Gloria Dei Lutheran Church, Olympia, WA, 9:00 am—3:00 pm.

• Trial Garden Judging will be on August 2, 2015 at Pt. Defiance Park, Tacoma, WA, 11:00 am

Port Gamble 2014