[Arisaema-l] AEG in danger

[Gouda, E.J. (Eric)]

Thanks Keith,

I think your conclusions are right. I already contacted Pascal, one of 
the FB managers, but used an old email address which bounced, but try an 
other one.

I will let you all know what the outcome would be. I just attended the 
FB group myself, although not very active on FB.

If FB is working for all of you, we can abandon this discussion list (I 
have closed down several of  the -L lists already). The only problem 
with FB is that is does not interact well with an other mail service 
(you can not post from email to FB).

Interesting question to all of you: who is not on FB Arisaema 
Enthusiats? Because we have to choose!

All the best,

Eric

Op 12-4-2022 om 13:25 schreef Keith B via Arisaema-L:
> Dear Eric and group members,
>
> Here’s my perspective, as someone relatively new to the AEG and 
> growing Arisaema.
>
> 1. The group resources were a great help when I first began five or 
> six years ago. Firstly the seed exchange, but also the online articles 
> and pictures. I have read the mailing list but, as Eric points out, 
> without someone actively running this it will decline. So far there 
> have been 10 responses to Eric’s appeal for help for the AEG: such a 
> limited response to an existential crisis suggests to me that very few 
> of the AEG members are reading the mailing list.
> 2. There’s a lot that I don’t like about Facebook, but it is easy to 
> use, the ‘Arisaema Enthusiasts’ Facebook group has 3800 members and a 
> regular stream of contributions. Many of the contributions (including 
> most of mine) are ‘here’s a picture of my Arisaema …’, but there is 
> also some more in-depth botanical discussion.
> 3. Combining the above two points, in my opinion, the ‘Arisaema 
> Enthusiasts’ Facebook group has become the /de facto/ discussion group 
> for Arisaema. Perhaps it is time to encourage AEG members to use the 
> Facebook group for discussion.
> 4. The AEG seed exchange is a very worthwhile, and unique, activity. I 
> would go further and suggest that there is a need for an Arisaema 
> tuber exchange (I’ve just finished repotting my Arisaema and I have 
> more A. fargesii offsets than I know what to do with). However, 
> appeals for seed from Eric seem to have gone largely unheeded this 
> year, and I fear that this is because of the low readership of the 
> mailing list. In the past I have used the Facebook group to encourage 
> people to contribute seeds to the AEG seedex, and suggested it as a 
> source for seeds, but this has been in response to people asking 
> questions so has limited visibility. The next stage would be to liaise 
> with the Facebook group owners so that the AEG seedex can be 
> publicised on Facebook in a more direct way (there is no/very little 
> selling/swapping of seeds and tubers on the Facebook group, in fact I 
> think it is discouraged, so the AEG seedex wouldn't be in competition 
> with anyone).
> 5. That leaves the picture gallery, the articles and the other 
> resources on the AEG website. Again, they are very worthwhile but I 
> fear they are little used. I am afraid that I am at a loss for ideas 
> about how to make these better known.
>
> In summary, I think that the future efforts of the group should be 
> focussed on the website resources and the seed exchange.
>
> best regards
>
>
> Keith
>
>
-- 

All the best, / Met vriendelijke groet,
Eric

--
*Drs. E.J. (Eric) Gouda* | Curator Utrecht Botanic Gardens | Utrecht 
University | Address Gardens: Budapestlaan 17, 3584 CD Utrecht | Postal 
Address: P.O. Box 80162, 3508 TD Utrecht, The Netherlands | +31(0)30 253 
9281 | e.jgouda at uu.nl | botanische.tuinen at uu.nl | uu.nl/botanischetuinen 
<http://uu.nl/botanischetuinen> | Follow us on Facebook 
<https://www.facebook.com/BotanischetuinenUU> | Twitter 
<https://twitter.com/UUbotu> | Instagram 
<https://www.instagram.com/botanischetuinenuu/>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://mailman.science.uu.nl/pipermail/arisaema-l/attachments/20220413/45fd08bc/attachment-0001.html>