CalFlowers held its biennial Member Meetings in August.  Members were treated to a Member Appreciation Lunch where they could catch up with other members from the area.  Thanks to FedEx for sponsoring the Member Appreciation lunches again this year. 

The meetings were a big success with a combined total of 127 attendees for the three meeting locations.  Michael LoBue, CalFlowers CEO, kicked off each meeting with a state of the Association report that included goals for 2016/2017 and a review of how the Association is doing. 

Attendees were then invited to participate in two round table discussions of their choice.   Each session went for 20 minutes and the topics were:  2017 Fun ‘N Sun; Transportation and Related Issues; and Promotions & Marketing.   Please contact Monnaie Pepin ([email protected]) if you wish the full list of topics discussed across all three meetings; the highlights are:

Promotions & Programs:

• Continue with (market) "momentum builders":
  
• Memorial Day Flowers
• Pilot "Flowers for Kids"
• Women's Day
• Help drive consumption during late February and all of March
• Programs to educate Mass-marketers
• Continue to grow Flower Summit collaboration with other floral associations

Fun 'N Sun:

• Adding a table top display option to the current booth option for the flower fair was discussed. 
• The idea of changing the grower tours to Friday and Flower Fair to Thursday was brought up.
• Have the Welcome Dinner be a night to have fun and catch up before the weeks events start instead of having a speaker on that night.
• Gear education on these topics:
  
  • How to market minor holidays
  • Forecasting, trends and colors
  • Social Media
  • Hands on classes for designing
  • More industry related education

Transportation:

• Members were very interested in a new shipping program that CalFlowers is putting together with GSO.  Members are anxiously awaiting the launch.
• Members are happy with the current FedEx rates but expressed some concerns about on-time deliveries being late.  Also the new FedEx freight box is of great interest to our members as well with many wanting more details.
• Members enjoyed speaking to Alaska Airlines representative Michael Yu about the merger with Virgin America and new services that are in the works.
• Member shippers also were interested and curious about Greyhound and their shipping products.  Members wanted CalFlowers to explore this new option since it may provide some new and beneficial shipping solutions to the industry.

Alaska Airlines raffled off two round trip tickets at each location and CalFlowers gave a $50 gift card to three lucky members for participating in a short survey.

The Member Meetings ended with a hour long vendor reception where attendees meet face to face with our Associate Service Members to discuss business and get more information on their services.  

Thank you to the following members for donating the flower arrangements for the 2016 Member Meetings:

• Monterey – Green Valley Floral and Swenson & Silacci Flowers
• Carlsbad – Dos Gringos, A Flower Company
• Santa Barbara – Myriad Flowers International