MABA Convention News

The MABA 2008 Convention in Indianapolis is now over, but you can relive the event with a report by MABA Vice-President, Steve Moore. Follow this link for Steve's report. (Or find it in the Articles section on the lower left.) MABA wishes to thank the entire show committee and volunteers at the Indianapolis Bonsai Club for all their hard work in hosting the 2008 convention. You put on a wonderful event.

The next convention will take place in 2010 in Grand Rapids, Michigan and will be hosted by the West Michigan Bonsai Club. See the President's Message below for more information.

April 2009

Welcome to the Mid-America Bonsai Alliance web site. The Mid-America Bonsai Alliance (MABA) in partnership with our host club, the West Michigan Bonsai Club, look forward to seeing you at our next convention in June of 2010. The West Michigan Bonsai Club will have a number of different artists to work with and I know they will have some great material in the workshops. As always there will be a large number of vendors at the convention to help you find whatever you may have been looking for to feed your bonsai desires.

Please consider attending this convention as it is centrally located in our region and except for the far reaches of the MABA area you are probably within a 4 to 6 hour drive away. And as everyone knows, you can get a lot more bonsai stuff in your car than you can get into the overhead storage compartment on a plane. If you have never been to Grand Rapids June is a great time to visit. Grand Rapids is large enough to have it all – the world class Frederik Meijer Botanical Gardens and Sculpture Park, the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum and of course an amazing variety of restaurants and shops.

For those of you who are not familiar with the Mid-America Bonsai Alliance, it is a group of clubs located throughout the central part of the United States and our main purpose is to promote the use of plant species that are native to this region to be used as bonsai and to also provide a bonsai convention close to home that offers a good value for your money. We try to hold a convention every other year and move its location within the region so that all clubs that are within the MABA organization have the opportunity to host the event. These conventions are a good fundraiser for your local club as the host club keeps 65% of all profits from the convention. This can be a real boost to your club and the activities that your club can do with these funds.

The MABA board will be looking for potential hosts for the year 2012 convention and now is the time to start discussing with your club members about considering hosting the next convention. I will be honest there is some planning work that needs to take place and then there is the work during the convention, but the payoff is and has been the amount of money that is generated for your club. So please have discussions with your club members and consider being the host club in 2012.

The MABA region is comprised of Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Wisconsin, Ohio and Ontario Canada. There is no membership fee and any club within the region is cordially invited to join. While we are organized as an alliance of clubs we realize there are those who have an interest in bonsai but do not live close to a club location. You are also welcome to join. Simply forward your name, address and email address to the MABA Secretary at the address in the Contact MABA section.

Again, thank you for visiting the MABA web site.

Paul Weishaar
President Mid-America Bonsai Alliance

If you have any comments or questions please let me, or any of the other board members know your concerns.

Paul Weishaar, President, e-mail: pweishaar3@comcast.net, phone: 317-846-2640
Steve Moore, Vice President, e-mail: treebeard20@gmail.com, phone: 574-268-7749
Janine Catchpole, Secretary, e-mail: J9-Catchpole@comcast .net, phone: 217-494-8510
Ron Fortmann, Treasurer, e-mail: rfortmann@charter.net, phone: 262-490-8733