The Orchid Society of Great Britain

Letter From The President
Henry Oakeley
Future orchid exhibits
Singapore Orchid Festival, 2010
The Society is still basking in the warm glow
of our successes at Chelsea Flower Show and
Peterborough, and your committee is
planning the activities for next year. Is there
anyone out there with design experience,
perhaps from setting up exhibits at other
societies who would like to help the team?
We are all getting older (and some of us
have reached ‘old’ already) so need to hand
on the task to others as we do not wish to
die in harness. We have the London Orchid
Show in March 18-20, Chelsea in May 23-28,
Peterborough in June 17-19, Darlington and
District Show in Durham on April 10, and the
World Orchid Conference in Singapore on 13-
20 November, and possibly the Devon Orchid
Society show on October 15-16 and the BOGA
show at Dinton Pastures (which was another
successful exhibit for us a few weeks ago).
Let Val Pugh or myself know if you are
interested in being involved.
Singapore 2010: New Guinea exhibit
224 • OSGBJ 2010 (59), No. 4
In preparation for the World Orchid
Conference in Singapore in 2011, I went out
there in July to set up the orchid display for
the Singapore Botanic Gardens at their
orchid festival. I was hugely impressed with
the facilities and help that is given to all
exhibitors. The SBG exhibit was on a circular
table top, divided into six triangular sections,
to represent five different continents where
orchids grow. The sixth section was a lake
with a vast central tree trunk with a
waterfall descending from it; there were
orchids in an illuminated cave under the
tree, and great circles of woody vines
festooned with orchids hung from vertical
tree branches. No expense was spared. I had
a design company with half a dozen staff to
build the exhibit, an electrician, two
botanists, and another half dozen gardening
staff to set out the plants and moss it all up.
Their skills were wonderful. The plants were