CGCI Orange District Club of the Month – September
Newport Hills Garden Club   Bea Lacey-Buchan, President, 2016-2018
Our Garden Club was organized June 10th 1970 and became federated September 15th 1973. We are a member of Orange County District, California Garden Clubs, Inc. Pacific Region and National Garden Clubs, Inc. Our Club Bird is the Hummingbird, our City Flower is Bougainvillea and the City Tree is Coral.
We support seven Philanthropies with 100% participation. We also have six ongoing Projects that our members support individually but through our Garden Club. We are a nonprofit organization and our dues have been $30 for many years. We abide by our BYLAWS and they are kept current.
Recently we have been averaging 45 members with about 26 attending each month.  A few of our members have been with us since 1970. We really want to encourage younger gardeners to join us and help us build for the future.
We have met over the years at one of the clubhouses in a residential area in Newport Beach. Neighbors there started our club and some still live in the area but we have members coming from many other areas in Orange County. We meet September through May on the third Thursday of the month at our clubhouse. We advertise through The Echo, a neighborhood flyer and The Port Street magazine where our monthly meetings are published, at times with pictures. We also mail our monthly Newsletter to our members.
Our club has been involved in many different programs over the years, some involving the community. We have a Program chairman who researches programs for us and the board decides which ones are best suited for our members.
We try to plan some local trips now, as longer trips that we used to do have become more difficult for us. We generally have a ‘Themed’ fundraiser each year, also encouraging our members to bring their garden plants or items to sell. Our members help with setting up the chairs, bringing the refreshments and doing whatever they can at our meetings. We are a very social group, recognize birthdays and love to have friends come by.
We would enjoy having visitors from other district Garden Clubs.
Bea
Elaine Davis Director Orange District edavis1@cox.net or elainedavis@ocdistrict.org