No matter how experienced one is, it can be a little overwhelming when your role changes from something familiar as Treasurer to taking on a new role as President, but I have felt the support of so many of our Garden Club Members who have been so encouraging as I take on the Presidency.  I was recently reading a book by Mathew Kelly, The Three Ordinary Voices of God.  In the book he points out that “Each human being is endowed with a specific and particular set of gifts, talents and abilities. They are divinely bestowed and intimately linked to a person’s life mission.”  We each have our personal mission in life whether it’s raising a family or making a living or caring for others.
What is our mission as a Garden Club?  As members, we have a common interest, calling or mission in our love of plants and flowers, and nature in general.  It involves beautification of our homes, community gardens and landscaping, conservation of our natural resources (land, water, and wildlife), and education of our community and our youth.  All of our committees and projects are geared to accomplish these goals.  If you aren’t currently involved in a committee or project, we need your talent, gifts and abilities working together as a team with other members.  I’d like to humbly ask that each member step out of your comfort zone and take on a new role or responsibility.  It may be as a committee chairperson or volunteering to serve on a new committee that you haven’t been involved in before.  You may have talents such as writing skills, teaching skills, physical strength, plant identification, landscape design or floral design.  We as a club can use all of these talents and skills.  Our mission as a Club can only be accomplished with everyone’s involvement, commitment and TEAMWORK. 
We need your ideas to improve our current projects and initiate new projects.  Some of the community projects we are going to be involved in or ideas we can consider are:

• Moncus park – planting of our own flowerbed with signage identifying it with our club. We’ll need planting and maintenance volunteers
•  Dees garden- planting a memorial garden  for Dee at Covenant Church for our longtime member and dear friend- we need volunteers
• Re-dedicate/enhance Blur Star Memorial Marker garden- cleaning and planting flowers around the, Marker at the Lafayette Visitor Center on I-49 and possibly holding a patriotic ceremony around the 4th of July
• Registering Live Oaks in the Live Oak Society- we need help in identifying and measuring large, very old Live Oaks which may qualify as members of the Live Oak Society. 
• Possibly expanding our reach and ideas for Arbor Day by planting more trees in areas such as, a walking trail, school, library or park – I’d like your ideas
• Horticulture Therapy at Senior Living Centers- plant butterfly/ pollinator garden and sensory plants in tubs in their courtyard or outdoor space.
• Cleanest City- Litter Control- This is one of our most outstanding projects that we need member assistance with:
  
• Litter Control School Poster Contest Judging. Involves going to City Hall and judging the best Elementary, Middle School and High School posters
  
• Cleanest Schools- ride along with a group of our members to judge cleanest schools in the Elementary, Middle and High School categories. (43 - total)
  
• Trash Bash- Serve food to city volunteers who pick up trash in various parts of the city (sit in the shade under a tent, enjoy the breeze and visit with club friends while you serve food)
  
• Hazardous Waste Day- Members serve food for workers after they collect waste from homeowners or businesses. Under a tent and visiting with friends. We have a picture of Dee last November assisting the team.
• There are many more projects.  Please look at your yearbook and let me know where you’d like to serve.

In order to accomplish these goals, as you can guess, would require all of us to be involved in some way, but we also need to recruit new members who would be active and willing to participate.  I have some thoughts on how we can recruit new members, but I would love your ideas as well. 
Thanks to the work of our fundraising committees and individuals (Bulbs and Bloomers, grants, and silent auctions), we are in a very positive financial position and can support these community projects.  We’ll use our money wisely and for the most benefit.
I want to bring excitement and activity to our club and have more member involvement in all that we do.  We seem to have the same members involved in most of the committees and activities.  What are your talents?  What can you contribute?  We’re all aging but we still have abilities that would benefit our community.  Sometimes our brain is as good as our brawn.  You may have organizational skills or writing skills or speaking/teaching skills.  We need you!!!!
When we work on these amazing projects, we apply for Louisiana Garden Club Federation (LGCF), Deep South and National Garden Club awards.  We have been successful in winning many awards over the past years.  We will need our committees’ help in applying for awards as you know the specifics of your work and you will know the criteria for the award. In this way the AWARDS Committee will be expanded and awesome.
Just writing this message to you makes me excited about the possibilities we have before us!
Your President,
Becky Lege