July 2025 Monthly Meeting Recap
- Jul 15
- 3 min read
07/15/2025
The July monthly meeting was held in-person and via Zoom from 6:30 - 8:30 p.m. on Tuesday, July 18, 2025. Attending this meeting can be counted as 2 hours of Continuing Education. (Find the recording in the Archives of the Monthly Meeting page.)
Board Announcements
Kay Wimer, Board Chair, opened the meeting of the nonprofit organization.
Project Updates
Plant Sale|Susan Cathey
The RCMG Plant Sale 2025 raised almost $24K! These proceeds are available for RCMG projects. Project leads should ask Kathy Passe how to request these funds. Darren states that the Speakers' Bureau is also a revenue stream for RCMG.
Garden Gnomes|Darren Lochner
The Garden Gnomes project still needs volunteers, especially lead positions during August. The Garden Gnomes are mini-lesson activities for youth at area farmers' markets. Each lesson has an environmental theme, comes with complete instructions and supplies, and takes about 10 minutes to complete with the kids. This is a fun volunteer activity that can use some extra hands. Please sign up if you're able.
Volunteer Hours|Brianna Gohde
Please get your volunteer hours entered in the system! Estimates are that only about 40% of volunteer hours have been entered to date. Follow this link to report your hours: https://mastergardener.cfans.umn.edu/verifyVolunteer.aspx. For your convenience ,this link is now available on the Sign-Up Genius pages as well.
Program Updates
Darren Lochner (RCMG Coordinator) delivers news from the central Master Gardener office, Extension, Ramsey County, and other partnering organizations to bring volunteers up-to-date on the program changes and updates.
August Meeting
The August monthly meeting will be held jointly with Washington County Master Gardeners at St. Andrew's Church in Mahtomedi. The guest speaker will be Dr. Mark Seeley, retired Climatologist and Meteorologist! Attendance will be limited to 80 people due to the size of the venue so sign up early if you want to attend. There will be no Zoom option for this meeting.
Upper Midwest Regional Master Gardeners Conference
The Upper Midwest Regional Master Gardeners Conference will be held September 14-17, 2025 at the Chula Vista Resort in the Wisconsin Dells. Please visit the conference website for more information: https://midwestmgconference.wordpress.com/
Report a Missing Volunteer Form for RCMG Volunteers
Please report an absent volunteer by using the Report an Absent RCMG Volunteer Google Doc available here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScXfhX0mmL261gViIX6yVpUKZr4WcefhgBStF7pAWmkiRb_yw/viewform. We are not requesting this reporting for punitive reasons. We want to be able to check on the volunteer, follow up with them, and be able set practices in place for better communication and planning. Related to this, Sign-Up Genius (SUG) does send reminders to folks ahead of their commitments; however, there are some email platforms that use spam blockers that are interfering with SUG's reminders. Known email providers with blockers in place are Hotmail, Outlook, and sometimes AOL.
Internal Incident & Concerns Form for RCMG Volunteers
Incident Reporting is also important. Please report things like broken or missing equipment or supplies, if something goes wrong at an event, or safety issues. Again, this is not punitive, we just need to know something's happened so we can address it.
"Help a Friend"
This is something new we're trying. This is an internal RCMG resource to help each other out. Do you need help watering your plants while on vacation? Do you have a one-time project that's too big for you? Do you have plants or other items to give away? Try using our "Help-A-Friend" resource: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/30E044CAEA62DAA8-57458827-help#/. Please note, these hours cannot be recorded as RCMG volunteer hours, this is simply a way to help each other out as neighbors and friends.
Educational Program
Share your stories!
We want to hear your volunteering stories! RCMG is looking to highlight your favorite moments in the field with the community for publication in a variety of formats. Whether it's featured in RCMG's social media, the monthly RCMG newsletter, the quarterly public newsletter, or included in the report to the state leadership. We're looking for anecdotes, stories, feel-good moments, and photos and videos. There are writing and image guidelines and suggestions here, and photo and video releases available here. Once you have your story, you can share it with us by emailing it to rcmg2@umn.edu, or entering the information in the Google Form here.
Here are some tips for sharing your stories successfully:
Share something you personally experienced
Consider what readers / the target audience want to know
Suggest to us where to share the story
Make it inspiring to other volunteers locally and across the state
Include purpose, outcomes, and data from our projects
Write in the active voice
Shorter articles are welcome!
Choose language that is easily understood and accessible to readers
Use narrative rather than technical writing (narrative writing elicits feelings, technical writing conveys information)
We look forward to reading your stories!
Recap provided by Sarah Hatch
RCMG Volunteer
