MABA Convention News

The MABA 2008 Convention in Indianapolis is now over, but you can relive the event with a report by new 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.

New MABA Officers Elected

New officers were elected during the MABA meeting at the 2008 convention. The new officers are:

President: Paul Weishaar
Vice President: Steve Moore
Treasurer: Ron Fortmann
Janine Catchpole continues as Secretary and Todd Renshaw continues as webmaster.

Contact information for each officer is given in the Contact MABA section at the upper left or by clicking here.

January 2008

Welcome to 2008. The Mid-America Bonsai Alliance in partnership with our host club the Indianapolis Bonsai Club look forward to seeing you at our next convention in June of 2008. Click on the link to www.maba2008.org for all the details and information on being a part of this event in June. They will have a number of different artists to work with and I am sure they will have some great material in those 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 region you are probably within a 4 to 6 hour drive away. And everyone knows you can get a lot more bonsai stuff in your car than you can get on a plane. Not only that if you have never been to the Indianapolis Speedway, June is a great time to visit as the Indy 500 will have been recently completed and the NASCAR race is still months away, so it is a great time to visit the speedway and its museum without all the crowds.

For those of you that do not know much about the Mid-America Bonsai Alliance, it is a group of clubs based around 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 provide a bonsai convention close to home that provides 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 a chance to host. These conventions are a good fundraiser for your local clubs 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 2010 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 a large amount of money that is generated for your local club. Recent conventions have generated over $10,000.00 for the hosting clubs. Imagine what your club could do with this influx of capital. So please have discussions with your club members and consider being a host club in 2010.

Best Regards,

Ron Fortmann

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

Ron Fortmann, President, e-mail: mabapres@charter.net, phone: 262-490-8733
Helene Magruder, Vice President, e-mail: finewine@dwx.com, phone: 515-961-2323
Janine Catchpole, Secretary, e-mail: J9-Catchpole@comcast .net, phone: 217-494-8510
Sharon Schmidt, Treasurer, e-mail: sschmidt27@wi.rr.com, phone: 414-540-0123