Prized HOS Forum members: 

I don't know what other HOS members might have gotten out of membership in the organization, but in the hopes of getting some potentially constructive feedback from Forum members with a potential end toward a newer organizational framework, I'll state my own personal reasons.  Please pardon me and avert your eyes, if necessary, but I am baring myself before you....

My wife and I live a minimum one-and-a-half hour drive from any HOS activities.  As I age, I have become ever more averse to long drives on highways, and find myself ever more of a "homebody".  Fortunately, my wife and I have just a bit short of 20 acres' predominantly wooded property, which allows me to keep my sanity as a primitive naturalist.  For me, the most valuable aspect of membership in the HOS was the springtime scion "exchange", and the autumn "All About Fruit Show".  It was only in an organization like the HOS that I could sample such a diversity of apples and pears and other fruits which, otherwise, would have been utterly absent from my experience.  How is one to discover such an eye-opening diversity if there is no such opportunity to do so?  How does any human get a sense of that diversity if they never have the opportunity?!  I don't know all who of whom contributed fruits to the HOS show besides individual members and (I believe) the Pyrus germplasm collection at Corvallis, Oregon.  Nevertheless, the shows that I've attended have been wonderfully diverse.

Second, of course, is the "scion exchange" in the springtime, which allowed HOS members to potentially acquire scions of some of the exquisite fruit varieties which they may have discovered in the "All About Fruit Show".  What's the point of having your brain awakened to the incredible taste of a particular fruit if you can't acquire it?  Usually, the only prerequisite would be that you know how to graft the fruit in question and are able to acquire a scion.  ...Now that was where the grafting classes offered by HOS came in handy.  

I learned how to graft by watching my dear departed grandfather graft a couple of things back in perhaps 1981, and then by purchasing a reputable book on plant grafting in order to learn more.

These two events of the HOS were -- for me -- the worthwhile benefit of membership in the HOS.  I enjoyed receiving and reading the HOS publication, but so much of it was repetitive, reprinted from other sources, and with so little new original material that I wasn't able to get a lot out of it.  When there was new original material published, by golly I always paid attention and appreciated those unique contributions.

And, of course there's the (former?) HOS Forum that apparently has not been widely used by HOS members, which I've enjoyed checking-in on except for when I've gotten so busy that I've disappeared for some months.  That being said, let me just say that I appreciate those of you who respond to legitimate queries for information; those who share your personal experience and observations regarding cultivation or grafting of a particular plant; those who share relevant newsworthy information that otherwise would be late in coming; and those of you who are always helpful to others in any way that you can be.  Thanks.

The Forum has been greatly informative.  I hope that it will continue to exist in a similar form and -- more than anything -- I hope that there will be a sufficient number of people with true knowledge and zeal who will form the next incarnation of a Cascadian orchard society that meets or exceeds the reach and benefit of the erstwhile Home Orchard Society.

Reinettes

N.B. -- By this post, I hope to "hear" from other Forum members as to what you have gotten out of, or have appreciated about the Home Orchard Society, and what you would like to see potentially arise in the great vacuum created by, and left by, the demise of the HOS.