We are pleased to announce that the International Master Gardener Committee is accepting nominations for the 2017 International Master Gardener Search for Excellence (SFE), through August 1, 2016.
We are opening SFE nominations a bit earlier this year for two reasons. First, members of the SFE committee have requested more time to carefully review nominations. Second, our goal is to inform folks that their project has been selected as a 2017 International Search for Excellence awardee ~ in time for them to register for the conference at the early bird registration rate.
[As an aside, early bird registration will be from October 10, 2016 through January 13, 2017. Regular registration will be from January 14, 2017 through May 31, 2017.]
Visit the 2017 IMGC SFE page, to review the 2017 International Master Gardener SEarch for Excellence Guidelines, and for full details on how to submit a project for consideration.
You may also find it useful to read a bit more about some of the 2015 Search for Excellence Award Winners.
- Florence Community Garden (Community Service, 3rd place)
- Executive Residence of Tennessee (Demonstration Garden, 1st place)
- Sweet Taters (Demonstration Garden, 2nd place)
- “The Misadventures of Peter Rabbit in Farmer McGregor’s Vegetable Garden” (Youth, 1st place)
- Garden Candy; a kindergarten tomato planting project (Youth, 2nd place)
- East Austin Garden Fair (Workshop, 2nd place)
- Seed to Supper (Workshop, 3rd place)
- Accessible Gardening for Life (Special Needs, 1st place)
- Twice on Tuesday Program (Special Needs, 3rd place tie)
- Project GROW Garden (Special Needs, 3rd place tie)
- Plant Problem Scenario Training (Innovative Projects, 1st place)
- Sarah’s Garden (Innovative Projects, 2nd place)
- Online Gardening Chats (Innovative Projects, 3rd place)
- Researching Biochar (Research, 1st place)
One of my fellow Master Gardeners who is going to the conference, discovered some info that the Inn at the Convention Center has been know to have bed bug – yikes! Is there any way the local conference folks can do a little investigation into this matter & get back to me? Thanks!
Hi Penny,
I can assure you that we chose our three conference hotels after a group of 5-7 Master Gardeners and myself toured eight hotels and carefully considered and debated several points. We chose our three based upon price, value, location, cleanliness, amenities and service. I, myself, have stayed at all three hotels (on my own, not hosted by the hotel . . . so they did not ‘know’ I was checking them out) ~ and found them all to be great properties. The Inn at the Convention Center is a basic, budget hotel (i.e. no hotel restaurant, a bit older), . . . but it is clean, and the staff and manager are fantastic. City view rooms and king rooms have a mini-fridge and microwave (great for saving money on food), free parking and free internet. So, even though I personally prefer newer hotels, the price, location, value are hard to beat . . . and the staff and manager are top notch. I checked each property’s TripAdvisor report before signing contracts, and found that the vast majority of reviews within the past 1-2 years give each property positive reviews. The online reports that I could find about bed bugs at the Inn are 5 years or older ~ but I will still swing by this weekend, and will talk to management.
Hi Penny,
I stopped by the hotel this weekend, and talked to the front desk staff. They report that the information you have is incorrect and / or very dated.
I have a question:
Will there be T-shirts available for purchase with IMGC logo and
location of 2017 conference?
Hi Deborah, The group that I thought would sell the t-shirts opted against selling t shirts. If no other group opts to sell, I may get a few hundred printed up and for sale. But, I haven’t started to investigating options, just yet.