Summer Quarterly Meetings

This summer the NC Gourd Society will hold two summer meetings so more people can attend without driving long distances. Feel free to join whichever meeting / picnic is more convenient for you. As always, the public is welcome to attend.

Triangle Summer Meeting & Potluck Picnic will be held on June 20, 2009 from noon until early evening at Shelly Nowik's home in Durham. Please call Shelly at (919) 382-8260 or email her for directions. Shelly will provide utensils, plates, drinks, hamburgers and probably more stuff. Bring your favorite picnic food and your current gourd projects to share.

Triad Summer Meeting & Potluck Picnic will be held on July 18, 2009 from noon until early evening, at Judi Fleming's farm in Summerfield, N.C. Please call (336) 644-0335 or email her for directions. She'll provide utensils, plates, drinks, hamburgers, chicken, hot dogs and more. Bring your favorite picnic food to share. A tour of Judi's studio and demonstrations of gourd tools will be featured afterwards.

The North Carolina Gourd Society (formerly the Gourd Village Garden Club) first met in Cary in 1937. The oldest chapter of the American Gourd Society, it is among the oldest garden clubs in North Carolina. Early festivals were held in the school cannery, a dry cleaners and a furniture store. Over the years festivals have featured dolls, a gourmet gourd buffet, hard-working, practical gourds, Mother Goose gourds and many others.

Gourds are grown as garden novelties for their strange and wonderful shapes, as craft material and musical instruments, as well as practical, working implements. The smallest can be the size of a marble and the largest a 200-pound armful. A household necessity since the beginning of civilization, gourds still are used today. Many growers raise birdhouse gourds as homes for purple martins, colorful ornamentals decorate our Thanksgiving tables, and luffa sponges are popular bath time buddies. What U.S. gourd growers call gourds are three different plants. All are cousins of squash, some closer kin than others.

Membership in the North Carolina is $10 and includes four issues of the society's quarterly newsletter Gourd News. The newsletter contains dates and locations for the quarterly meetings of the North Carolina Gourd Society officers and general membership in central North Carolina, along with information on the Western Carolina Gourd Patch, and is filled out with interesting and timely articles for gourd crafters and growers alike.

Click HERE to see our current by-laws. The North Carolina Gourd Society is a 501(c)3 non-profit corporation dedicated to the culture and heritage of gourds in America.

In the Triangle area you can contact Shelly Nowick, or Mary Ann Rood at (919) 286-0494, for their monthly gourd workshop offerings.

The Western North Carolina "gourd patch" continues to be a huge success. When you live in a big state like North Carolina it can be a long drive to a gourd club meeting. Because the interest in gourds is so strong in this state, this "Gourd Patch" meets so that folks on the western side of the state can share the gourd word without having to travel long distances. Please email Doreen Peterson for more information on the next meeting of the Western Carolina Gourd Patch and their upcoming workshops.

Also on the Western side of the state, in the Asheville area, you will find Fonda Hadad arranging regular monthly classes with well-known gourd artists.

There is interest in starting a "Beach Patch," so if you live along the North Carolina coast, please contact Rosalyn Moody .

There are two Triad Patches that cover the Winston-Salem, Greensboro, and Highpoint areas. The basics and intermediate work are taught every other month (starting in January) on the third Tuesday of that month at the Flower and Garden Building of the Dixie Classic Fair Grounds in Winston-Salem. The even months feature an advanced workshop in Judi's Summerfield studio. Contact Judi Fleming for more information.

Contact Coleen Atkinson to learn about additional advanced classes in the High Point area of the Triad held on the first Saturday of each month.

This year's 68th Annual North Carolina Gourd Festival will be September 12-13, 2009 in the Kerr Scott Building on the North Carolina State Fair Grounds in Raleigh, North Carolina. This year's festival theme will be "By the Seashore." Vendor and competition packets will be sent to members with the Summer 2009 newsletter, or they can be downloaded from the festival website right now! (see link above)

In 1965, Marvin and Mary Johnson established their gourd museum in a small building on their farm in the Kennebec community, just north of Angier, NC. Marvin grew over 200 types of gourds on the farm and, between them, he and Mary traded gourds and seeds with people in countries all around the world. The museum let them share their treasures with the public and admission was always free.

After more than 40 years, the farm was sold. In 2006 the town of Angier, North Carolina stepped forward to provide a new home for The Marvin and Mary Johnson Gourd Museum and, in the Johnsons' tradition, admission is still free to the public.

To learn more, click Gourd Museum. To go directly to Angier's gourd museum page, click www.angier.org/gourd-museum

Annual dues are currently $10 and include four newsletters. In 2010 dues will go to $12/year.
If you pay before January 01, 2010 you can sign up for multiple years at the same $10/year rate.

For information, write:

North Carolina Gourd Society
2713 Peachtree Street
Raleigh, NC 27608

or call (919) 696-0744 or email Treasurer, Paul Buescher

What are the benefits of joining??? Free seeds, a newsletter four times a year, special speakers at our quarterly meetings, finding friends with similar gourdly interests, crafting, growing, curing tips and a wonderful gourd festival each year!