Shian Carlow welcomed everyone to the meeting and in particular Alison Rankin from the Membership Office.

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1 Minutes of the 15th Annual General Meeting of The Benmore Regional Committee held in the Courtyard Gallery, Benmore Botanic Garden at 2pm on Tuesday 10 th April 2018 Present: Shian Carlow (Convener), Marion Kinns (Secretary), Peter Baxter (Curator), Committee Members Sandy Smith, Rosemary Benn, Jim Ritchie, Moira Gardiner, Hilary Storm, Janice Hampson, Dorothy McLennan and approximately another 25 members. Shian Carlow welcomed everyone to the meeting and in particular Alison Rankin from the Membership Office. Apologies: None were received. Minutes of the 2017 AGM: These were available on the RBGE website for members to read. Copies were also made available at the meeting. Matters arising from the minutes: There were no matters arising from the minutes of the 2017 AGM CONVENER S REPORT FOR AGM APRIL 2018 GOOD AFTERNOON EVERYONE AND WELCOME TO THE 15TH AGM OF THE FRIENDS GROUP. THANKS TO YOUR SUPPORT WE HAVE RAISED OVER 5,500 IN THE LAST 12 MONTHS. I THINK OUR BEST EFFORT YET. I HOPE YOU HAVE ENJOYED THE TALKS THROUGHOUT THE WINTER AND THE OPEN DAY IN MAY AND THE JAZZ NIGHT IN SEPTEMBER. IT IS YOUR SUPPORT THAT MAKES THESE EVENTS SO SUCCESSFUL. KEVIN REID, THE DIRECTOR OF HORTICULTURE AT RBGE HAS ASKED ME TO PASS ON HIS THANKS FOR THE PURCHASE OF THE NEW GALLERY LIGHTS HERE, WHICH WILL GREATLY IMPROVE THE QUALITY OF OUR EXHIBITIONS. IF ANYONE HAS A SUGGESTION OF A TALK THAT THEY FEEL MIGHT APPEAL TO EVERYONE, PLEASE LET ME KNOW. WE AIM TO PLEASE. ON THE SUBJECT OF FUNDRAISING, I WOULD LIKE TO BRING TO YOUR ATTENTION THE PHOTOGRAPHY COMPETITION THAT RBGE IS RUNNING. FULL DETAILS OF ALL THE CATEGORIES WILL SOON BE ON THE WEBSITE. CATEGORIES ARE NEARLY ALL BASED ON HORTICULTURE AND THE COMPETITION IS OPEN TO ALL, SO PLEASE SPREAD THE WORD ABOUT IT. SUBSTANTIAL CASH PRIZES ARE TO BE WON. ANOTHER WAY OF HELPING THE GARDEN TO GROW IS THE GIFT OF MEMBERSHIP OF THE GARDENS. IF EVER YOU ARE STUCK FOR A CHRISTMAS OR BIRTHDAY GIFT, A YEARS MEMBERSHIP OF RBGE GIVES YOU FREE ENTRY TO ALL FOUR GARDENS PLUS 10% OFF IN THE CAFE AND SHOP, AND IT MIGHT BE JUST THE INTRODUCTION THAT SOMEONE NEED TO REALISE WHAT IS MISSING FROM THEIR LIVES.

2 THE OPEN DAY IS MOVING A WEEK EARLIER THIS YEAR, PARTLY TO AVOID THE BANK HOLIDAY WEEKEND AND THE PARKING PROBLEMS WE HAVE HAD IN THE PAST. IT IS ON SUNDAY 20TH MAY FROM 12-4 I HOPE WE LL SEE YOU THERE. THE JAZZ NIGHT HAS BECOME A FIXTURE IN THE CALENDAR. NON MEMBERS ARE VERY WELCOME. THE DATE THIS YEAR IS SATURDAY 1ST SEPTEMBER. TICKETS WILL BE AVAILABLE SHORTLY THROUGH SYBIL, THE CAFE, AND ROSEMARY BENN. IT JUST REMAINS FOR ME TO THANK PETER, SYBIL, NEIL, AND ALL THE GARDEN STAFF FOR THE HELP THEY HAVE GIVEN US THROUGHOUT THE YEAR. IT IS MUCH APPRECIATED BY ALL OF US. THE CURATOR S REPORT Peter Baxter began his report by detailing winter work undertaken. Improvements were made to the Fernery Gully, more regeneration control was undertaken, more Explorer routes were created and general path upgrades were finished. An isolation glasshouse is to be erected and a member of staff will carry out some propagation within it. The bulk of propagation will still be done in Edinburgh but this facility will attempt to minimise plant pathogen movements between the gardens. The Lichen experiment is moving forward and a higher level of monitoring will be taking place. A Lichen trail will be developed for the garden. A site in the garden has been selected to care for a very rare lichen from a Scottish site planting had to be delayed from the more usual spring season until the autumn because of plant movement restrictions. There is to be a big programme of planting in 2018.Tree ferns have been planted in the gully above the Fernery. 1,190 labels have been acquired for the garden since the last AGM. This compares with 735 at this point last year. In terms of fieldwork, Benmore staff, David Gray and Neil McCheyne were in N. Oregon in the autumn. This year they are heading out to

3 Slovenia in August. Money is available for one other to join them for expedition training. There is a possibility of a trip to N. Vietnam in Gallery lighting, paid for with money from the Small Projects Fund, is completed at last. The SPF has also funded a drone for use in the garden. It will be used to monitor tree health, measure tree heights, and to create promotional videos and create short films. These can be released on social media. Two new submissions were made for funding from SPF this year. The first was for funding to collect Scots Pine seed from Scottish sites and to train some Benmore members in the processes involved in collecting expeditions. The second was for funding to produce interpretation panels and leaflets to explain future plans for the walled garden. Chorten steel wallabies for the Tasmanian Ridge have now been in place for some months and chorten steel squirrels show visitors the way to the squirrel hide. The Botanics magazine will in future contain a second What s On leaflet with specific information about Benmore events. Sir Peter Hutchison retired at Christmas as Chairman of the Younger Benmore Trust. A celebration to mark his support will be held in the Courtyard Gallery. The garden has appointed Sarah Kirton to join the horticultural team from 30 th April. This brings the number of staff up to full complement again. Membership Programme Update Alison Rankin, Membership Manager gave the following report. Membership Report We have had another very good year in Membership with us reaching 9,882 members supporting our work through their subscriptions, donations and attendance at events. 14% of our members live closest to Benmore Botanic Garden.

4 Income from the Membership Programme amounted to 285,371 with estimated Gift Aid income of 47K. It costs 97,636 to run the programme which leaves us with a net profit of 187,735, up 16% on the previous year. Our team now has four members of staff, two of which you see here promoting membership to visitors during the flowering of our Titan Arum once again! Together with our colleagues in the Visitor Welcome Team we were delighted to sign up 113 new members during that period in mid-july to mid-august. In total we recruited 1,733 new Friends between 1 April and 31 March (an increase of 6% on the previous year). In addition to the Titan Arum event, we had a membership presence at many of the Friends fundraising events including the Benmore Open Day. We sent out three issues of our members magazine and monthly newsletters by with the most up to date events information and details of last minute special offers. The promotion of Gifts of Membership throughout the year also helps us to expand the membership programme with Christmas Gifts proving particularly popular. We have also been working on the membership portal of the new RBGE website which goes live very soon! Of course, as well as recruiting new members, it is vitally important that we focus on retaining our existing members and so we carry out regular mailings to our lapsed members to encourage them to rejoin and continue to support our vital work. On the recruitment front, we have just recently launched a Refer a Friend promotion to encourage existing members to recommend membership to one of their own friends or family member. This is a cross-garden promotion with all four cafés cooperating with the 10 voucher redemption. One of our most recent recruitment and promotional tools is a bookmark which is on the tables in our Edinburgh Gateway restaurant and at all visitor entry points to the Garden. Supplies are also available at the Regional Gardens to help promote their own fundraising events. Last Autumn we carried out a survey with all our members to explore views on the current membership offer. Over 1,000 responses were received (an excellent 18% response rate). These are some of the headline figures from the survey: Our members are a very loyal and engaged group of supporters with 36% of respondents holding membership for over 10 years. This is consistent with our overall database of members with 35% holding membership for 10+ yrs and 19% for 15+ yrs. Leaflets and word of mouth were the most important sources of information on the membership programme but when this is broken down by individual gardens it is clear that staff at Benmore, Dawyck and Logan are highly instrumental in promoting membership to visitors. Loyalty/attachment to our gardens was the main reason for becoming members, closely followed by free entry to the Regional Gardens (even higher for those who live near Benmore/Dawyck/Logan) and supporting the scientific work of RBGE. The most important benefits of membership were free entry to the Regional Gardens and Edinburgh Glasshouses as well as the Botanics magazine.

5 It is encouraging to hear that 81% are likely to renew their membership suggesting that they are satisfied with their membership of RBGE. Of course, many suggestions for improvements were made and we are taking these on board when planning our future activities and priorities. It was another busy year for the Friends committees and their fundraising efforts at various events across all four Gardens. Despite not having our big fundraiser the Edinburgh Plant Sale we still generated around 34K from various events. The programme of tours (which included a 13 night trip to South Africa and four days in Orkney & North of Scotland) and the day trips to Fife and Angus were also popular and generated significant income for the fundraising pot. The Edinburgh events including monthly coffee mornings, the annual photography competition and other evening talks brought in around 8K and the smaller Open Gardens were also successful. The contributions from the Benmore and Dawyck Garden events were also very important and the donations from the plant creches at Gardening Scotland are a good source of income. The talk from Fergus Garrett of Great Dixter House & Gardens proved popular with a full house in the Edinburgh lecture theatre and we are hoping to attract a similar amount of interest when Carol Klein (of Gardeners World fame) comes to the garden later this month. All income from these events goes into the Small Projects Fund which is then disbursed each year to support various projects across all four gardens that would otherwise not be able to go ahead. In 2017 a total of 11 projects were supported from the profit of 35K from the previous year s fundraising pot. This included the following projects New drone and trail camera technology to assist in the promotion of Benmore s flora, wildlife and landscapes on social media and to monitor plant health at the tops of trees upgrade some of the panels at Dawyck Assist with improvements to the Chilean area at Logan Supporting staff in the science and education teams to create a self-sustaining education programme at the National Botanic Garden in Nepal. And what of the year ahead. Whilst funds that we receive from the Scottish Government continue to be under considerable pressure we have started to diversify and increase our self-generated income in a variety of ways. This includes setting up a new Development team that will be responsible for both Membership and Fundraising for the organisation with a particular focus on attracting major donor support. As previously mentioned, we shall be welcoming Carol Klein to the Edinburgh Garden on 28 th April and increased promotion of the annual Photography Competition and exhibition is a priority for the Friends Committee. In the Membership team we shall be streamlining online membership applications with the arrival of our new website and encouraging increased uptake in payment by Direct Debit. We shall also be out and about recruiting new members where possible at different RBGE events throughout the year and following up with those who bought tickets for the bigger events to invite them to join us.

6 Finally, on behalf of all the staff in the Membership team and RBGE as a whole, I would like to thank all our members for their support in helping us to explore, conserve and explain the world of plants for a better future. Election of Committee Members and Office Bearers No committee members were due leave this year. There were still two vacancies on the committee. Marion Kinns has been co-opted as secretary for the past two years and Sandy Smith has been co-opted for work on the Plant Sales. They were both willing to stand again as full members of the committee. They were proposed by Dorothy McLennan and seconded by Anne Craig. Any other business There was none. As there were no other matters, the Convener introduced Greg Kenicer who gave a most interesting, entertaining and very well illustrated talk on his research on and interest in Sweet Peas. After a vote of thanks by Jim Ritchie, the Convener closed the meeting and everyone moved down the Gallery for afternoon tea provided by the committee.