President's Notes
by Jon Batson
May 2008
Writing the president’s notes is a ‘time thing’, first by having to write something within a deadline, second that deadline is a month before anyone gets to read it. So it’s hard to imagine where we’ll be a month from now (as you’re reading this), I only mention this for our March meeting was only a few days ago, so it is fresh in my mind, as for you it is now May, you know the rest. Our March joint meeting with GSLA I thought went off very well, each of our speakers offered very interesting sessions as well as a good discussion from our panel in the afternoon. I thank everyone on the panel for their input, as well as each of our speakers for taking the time to farther educate us on each of their fields. Many thanks are in order to the Education committee for putting it all together and all those others who took the time to work out all those many details involved in setting up this meeting, and to that person (unknown) who provided the touch of snow for our last day of winter meeting. So I’m am sure I speak for everyone, in thanking everyone involved for continuously to doing such a great job.
With the panel discussion at the March meeting they touched on with what really is at the core of why NHLA was even created, in that to promote the high standards and practices within our profession, to offer continuing education by working with other organizations to help raise those standards, and to inform the public, non-members and members of these practices for the betterment of this profession.
In all the years I have been a member, coming to each of these meetings it has meant a great to me, I am always learning something new, even with topics I wasn’t sure I would even be interested in. If there was anything that I saw as a shortcoming it was that I couldn’t be in two places at once (maybe some day we’ll be able to video record each session for later viewing). The educational aspect is important at these meetings as well the opportunity to meet and to get to know others, whom you learn to have great respect for, because they are there too, to continue to learn, to grow and to make the most of their profession. Landscapers and a lot of the related fields run the gantlet from those who have very little knowledge about their field, to those who on some level view it as art. It is art in a very creative way for it isn’t just like putting paint on a canvas and then you’re done, rather it is placing the paint there with the knowledge, understanding and experience of the medium and watching and working with it over the years, so it evolves into the ‘living work’ that one had envisioned in the beginning.
With higher education it was good to see that 11 people had become new NHCLP’s, which is the highest number yet to be certified at one time and it was also my pleasure to have been able to announce that NHLA had given out 4 scholarships this year. Congratulations to all of you.
Other part of NHLA’s mission is outreach, and with an ever greater concern about changes that are occurring with our environment and the increasing number of regulations directly affecting our profession, it is even more important that our members and the larger audience of non-members and the general public are provided with the information that will help us all in making better informed decisions in regards from one’s own garden to the larger impacts upon our environment. It is also important for us to work with other organizations in the receiving and dissimulating of this information.
These are all very good reasons for why we all joined, and why there is a NHLA.
Happy Mother’s Day to all you mothers out there
Times up put that keyboard down
Jon Batson
NHLA President
jontree13@aol.com
