How to start a Garden Club

• Contact the NSAGC District Director in your area for assistance using our form.
• Find a free, centrally-located meeting room and advertise a meeting in the local paper, by posters, by free public service announcements, etc., to see if there is interest to form a club. You could invite a member from a club in a neighboring community or the District Director for your area as a resource.
• At the meeting, decide if there is a sufficient number of people in your area who are interested in meeting on a regular basis in some sort of organized way to share information and ideas on gardening.

• Once it has been decided to form a garden club, choose a name for the new group.
• Establish a meeting place and standard date and time to meet, such as the second Tuesday of each month at 7:30 pm.
• Establish what the main focus of the group should be. Educating their own members and community involvement are two typical goals of garden clubs.
• Establish an executive made up of at least a President, Vice-President, Secretary, and Treasurer.
• Set up a club bank account. There should be at least two signing officers and ideally three to cover vacations, etc. - the treasurer and another member or two, and not from the same family. There will be a nominal charge to set up the account and a charge for ordering cheques.
  Your District Director can provide sample letters to set up a club bank account and change signing authorities.

Garden clubs can have as few or as many committees as are needed to support their activities. Committees can consist of one member or many. Clubs can start off with just a few committees required to function and then add others as the need arises. The following are committees that clubs might consider putting in place.

Executive Committee – Is made up of the President, Past-President, Vice-President, Secretary, Treasurer and other committee chairs. This committee provides direction for the club.

Program Committee – Seeks out speakers for your meetings, arranges any equipment that the speaker might require and introduces and thanks the speakers. The Committee should do some long-term planning (up to one year in advance) to organize for specific guest speakers in order to ensure that the speakers you would like to have are available when you want them.

Refreshments/Social Committee – Looks after refreshments during the social part of the club meetings.

Membership Committee - Usually one person who signs up new members, maybe greets people at the door, gives out tickets for door prizes, has a sign-up sheet at the meetings to record attendance, collects the dues, and updates member information.

Members-At-Large Committee - Members who attend executive meetings and fill in when and where needed.

Plant Sale Committee – Organizes and runs plant sales, which clubs often put on to raise funds for their activities.

Garden Committee(s) – Organizes members to work in gardens that the club maintains.

Publicity Committee - Sends notices to the local newspapers and community papers to advertise information on upcoming meetings, speakers and events. This committee would also typically update the club Facebook page or web site and submit articles about club activities to the NSAGC newsletter.

Yearbook Committee - If the club keeps a yearbook, this committee would update it on a yearly basis and make sure that it is taken to the district meetings and NSAGC conventions.

Flower Show Committee - If the club hosts flower shows a committee is required to organize and run the show.

Special Events Committee – Could arrange for club bus tours, special workshops, or events your club wants to participate in like the NSAGC District Meeting.

Nominating Committee - Usually the past-president is responsible for finding replacements when members of the Executive Committee resign.

• A new garden club should consider focusing on gardening at the meetings. Most meetings consist of a short, informative business session followed by a social and the main feature/speaker.
• Encourage attendance at meetings by offering door prizes, refreshments and interesting programs.
• Take advantage of the group discounts offered at nurseries which are available through NSAGC membership. Organize bulk orders in the winter, a spring and fall bulb order, a spring order on garden supplies such as peat moss, soils, grass seed, etc., and occasional specialty bulk orders like grow mix, chrysanthemums or bedding plants.
• Offer information on the activities of specialty groups (rose growers, Ikebana, organic growers) and circulate or distribute news of trips and conferences available to members.
• Check out the NSAGC web site for links to other member garden clubs' web sites for ideas on how others club work and what they offer to their members.
• Establish excellent speakers for club meetings that cover a wide range of topics and ensure that there is something for everyone over the course of the year. Excellent speakers can be found by contacting other clubs and the District Director for your club's area.
• Expense or availability may prohibit having many speakers however videos, slide shows and films can fill the gap. Museums, the National Film Board, provincial ministries of food and agriculture, botanical gardens and individual club members have proven to be good sources.
• Venture away from the norm from time to time and have a meeting in a park, visit a conservation area, arrange for a guided tour of a greenhouse or nursery. Tour each other's gardens and maybe follow with a club picnic in a park or local garden or beach area.
• Dedicate a meeting to a Q&A session instead of having a speaker. This will give members an opportunity to share their knowledge and learn from one another.

• Garden clubs typically charge an annual fee to each of the members. The fee is set by the individual clubs and ranges from $5 up to $20 depending on the financial needs of the club.
• At first, most clubs will operate solely on the money from fees until they arrange some fundraising events. Initially, what projects or events the club undertakes will be determined by club fees available.
• Of the club membership fee, $5 is submitted annually to NSAGC for each member of the club. This low per member fee is used by NSAGC to provide insurance for your club activities, a plant for each member every year, a quarterly newsletter and many other benefits as outlined in the benefits of joining NSAGC.

Although not required by NSAGC, the new club may consider establishing a Memorandum of Association and By-laws. These provide a framework for how the club will function. They define the club's objectives, the management structure, and responsibilities of the executive and committee chairpersons. A sample Memorandum of Association and By-laws may be found under the Societies Section of the Registry of Joint Stocks Companies website.

NSAGC is registered with the Registry of Joint Stock Companies, but it does not require that clubs be registered.

There are a few benefits to a club of being registered with Joint Stocks:

• The club is able to "legally operate" with a legal status as a not-for-profit in the Province of Nova Scotia.
• If a club wishes to apply for government funding without NSAGC involvement, often there is the requirement that the club be registered with Joint Stocks.

The initial setup and annual requirements by the Registry of Joint Stocks, as well as forms required, may be found under the Societies Section of their website.