Idaho State Florist convention December 2001

The overall convention was truely enjoyable and those who attended had a good time as usual. Saturday attendance was 75 and Sundays design show jumped to 110.

Saturday morning Mike Kusoda from Ogden shared money ideas and asked- what’s the point if not profit? "When I came into this business with my parents I looked at what they had after 30 years of work and it was only a good name and a list of accounts. They had no actual assets to sell. I didn't want to retire on that so I consciously set out to build saleable assets into the business." He stressed goals, contests and rewards for special sales to keep everyone motivated.

John Kliengel (sponsored by Harris Wholesale) put on the Sunday wedding design show where he used what he called "permanent botanicals", a term he much prefers to "artificial flowers" or the even worse "fake" label. He presented a "million star" theme with million star gyp and lots of jewels in a variety of settings.

Lynn Moss (sponsored by Greenleaf Wholesale) created many funeral pieces and gave suggestions on how to please funeral directors, the grieving family, and the purchaser, all at the same time.

Besides the usual raffle where vendors give away booth decorations, a $100 shopping spree at Ensigns, and a free convention registration for the 2002 meeting in Boise, we had a genuine power blackout this year to liven things up. While we all sat elegantly dressed at table for the Presidents Banquet, a drunk driver hit a power pole and plunged the hotel into darkness for 4 hours. The table candles, intended for decoration, became our eating lights, and afterwards we carried them to our rooms to see by. It was rather enchanting going up and down long dark hallways with small lights bobbing along ahead or behind.

On the Saturday afternoon tour of shops LD Woofly, (Flowers by LD) showed a simple trick to prevent costly mistakes. Almost every shop has clips or hooks for orders with Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, etc on them. "When an order gets on the wrong hook and it is delivered on the wrong day, customers can get pretty upset so we simply put a colored tag with the day name on it over the order sheets. To put an order on the hook you must physically lift off this tag and replace it after putting on the new order. This little change was enough to stop mistakes since we began using it."

The 2002 officers were elected with Ric Martindale (Capital City Floral, Boise) as President and 3 Vice Presidents- Diane Hendrickson (Diane’s Country Floral, Idaho Falls), Scott Weigt (Cluff Floral, Boise), and Debra Lyon (Staker Floral, Idaho Falls).

For me personally one of the high points of the convention was a long talk I had with Tonya Caswell of Extra Touch Florists. That’s a group whose concepts I believe in and I encourage those with long term vision to join them. As a wholesale florist and reporter I have seen many different floral organizations come and go and I carefully choose those to support that I believe will provide long term benefit to the floral industry. Northwest Florists Association, Society of American Florists, and others. We even sent in our money and joined the FTD co-op in the past because 20 years ago they were the best source of national floral advertising, provided quality control training in design and linked the retail florists into a "family" that supported and cared for each other. Times have changed and FTD Inc is now a for-profit mega business which in many ways is directly competing with the retail florist and the concept of being a "family" is long gone. However, when the FTD Association formally disconnected from FTD Inc early this year, the old vision was re-born under the Extra Touch Florists name. Family; Community; Mutual Support. Yes they are a full service wire service, accounting system provider and business support center but the important thing that I see is the underlying vision of working together as a co-op for the common good of all members.(888)419-1515