Normally, I would be pretty involved with a thread like this, but to be honest I didn’t have a strong desire to participate. I have had a couple people here ask me what my intentions were. Would I stay or would I go. Before answering this question I want to say a few things.
There was once a time, when I was very excited about Flower Chat and would encourage others to join. However, things happened over the years and I lost that enthusiasm. A part of the enthusiasm that I didn’t lose was my desire to help others. I don’t care what part of the floral area it is, but if someone would ask a question, I would gladly help answer their question, if I felt qualified to answer. I learned along time ago to be a benefit to others. I still remember my dad telling me this back in the early 1970’s while he was handing me over some plants to set on the greenhouse benches. He said, “My mother always told me to be of service to others, when ever possible help.” I try to live my life that way. Sometimes I fail.
I value my contributions here and I feel pretty good about those comments.
This place is the reason I now know many of you. Additionally, as I have given to this forum, I have also learned. I think it was a good give and take over the past 5 years.
I do have some concerns about this forum going paid private. My main concern is that I have a lot of material, as do others, both professional and personal information here on the Flower Chat forum. I would hope that there will be a way for current members who choose not pay the new fee to maintain access to the old threads. I agree with the Admins here that you can not simply delete posts from the threads. For the forum to remain valuable, the continuity of the threads must remain. Ryan, you have a valuable library at your disposal. Use it well and wisely.
I do ask that you allow former members access to the archived threads. I think that is reasonable, fair and in keeping with the Christian spirit.
Being able to access my FC information from time to time would be very helpful to me. I do refer back to my business threads here when writing articles for other publications or when trying to help someone in the floral business. So, I feel pretty strong about that point. It can be done.
Forums are only as valuable as the people who participate in them. A forum needs people to write their thoughts down and then hit the submit button. This place has flourished in the 5 years I have been here because of the members. It’s the members ideas and contributions that makes this forum valuable.
This place often gets criticized for all the redundant threads and the mantra of some “all talk … no action, but that will change soon when we band together.” I disagree. We did do a lot of talking and within those threads we all learned something new, or at least I hope we did. I know I did. Over the years, I have refined my positions on certain aspects of this industry. That never would have happened had this forum not existed. Rehashing Basement Betty’s or WS issues, or cookie cutters vs custom threads is good. Every time we brought up those issues, new ideas were formed and one’s own position may have been altered for the better. No those redundant threads are good. It’s how we learn.
Reading this thread, I have read a lot about cost.
I know how much it costs to run a Vbulletin forum, as I am one of the owners of Proflorist forum. It is the decision of the owner of these forums how much to spend on it or not. It costs less than $100 per year. If you choose to add certain features that is fine, but please lets not mislead members here that the costs are mandatory they are not. Advertising is Florist Review was your decision not the members, again those are costs you chose to indur.
There will always be new flower forums pop up and I will be part of one of those. I don’t mind spending the money and when PFF was formed, I was willing to bear the entire cost of the PFF forum, but I was talked out of that but some pretty special people. It shouldn’t come as a surprise, but there will probably be a new florist forum out there that will be free of charge to its members.
The good part about forums is that they are non exclusive. A person can belong to as many or as few as they wish.
So in closing, I will not be participating in the new Flower Chat. Please consider keeping the archived threads open and available for all past FC members. It’s a simple request.
Good Luck with your new venture. I will be around until you turn off the power to my FC computer, if anyone is interested in corresponding with me my email address is
[email protected] or you can find me on Facebook, Twitter or hopefully a new florist’s forum.
All the best!
Joe mioux
