Page 3 - Tạp chí bonsai cây cảnh BCI 2013Q4

President’s Message

his message comes to you from Jintan, China where I In the coming weeks, you will be receiving an online
along with several other BCI directors are attending
Tthe combined 7th World Bonsai Friendship Federation survey form from us. We need your help in evaluat-
and the 12 Asian Pacific Bonsai and Suiseki Convention and ing the BCI website, www. bonsai-bci.com. One of our
exhibits. This grand affair, in the newly constructed 2,000 acre major objectives is to substantially improve the web-
Baosheng Garden, brought together approximately 1,000 peo-
ple from 36 countries to see and learn about bonsai, penjing, site and make it more useful to our many members.
and viewing stones. It is exciting to participate in a meeting
such as this for many reasons. It is a rare opportunity to see
so many of the world’s top artists and masters conducting We have been successful in improving the financial situation
demonstrations, to see hundreds of fine bonsai and penjing on of BCI, and because of this, all of our membership rates for
display, to observe and compare outstanding viewing stones the coming year remain the same except for out introductory
from throughout China, and to have the opportunity to talk membership rate. When we launched our e-memberships ap-
and share information among our many friends from vari- proximately eighteen months ago, we established a low intro-
ous countries. Three of our BCI directors, Budi Sulistyo, Min ductory rate of only $19. The board of directors voted to raise
Hsuan Lo, and Nikunj Parekh were selected to perform tree this to $29 as current memberships expire. We are working
styling techniques to the attendees. hard to keep expenses down as we work to provide more and
A large new bonsai garden officially opened during this better services to our membership. Despite this, we are faced
convention. The new 6.5 acre Bonsai Museum of Baosheng with raising costs and we must be fiscally prudent as we move
Garden contains 320 beautiful trees brought to Jintan from forward in 2014.
private collections from different regions of China. These are Finally, I urge each of you to consider attending our planned
displayed indoors in two of the building in the bonsai muse- 2014 BCI convention in the Gold Coast in Australia. Our Aus-
um. A large outdoor display area contains over 300 trees that tralian colleagues have worked hard to develop a fine program
are part of the permanent collection of Baosheng Garden. I our next convention. Please visit our website at www.gold-
am happy to recognize the contribution of Mr. Xin Changbao coast2014.bonsai-bci.com to learn more about this exciting
of Changzhou who planned and built Baosheng Garden. event. Australia is a great country to visit and this will be a
In my past message to you, I commented about our new 50th good opportunity to interact with bonsai and stone colleagues
anniversary book Best of BCI: 50 Stones, 50 Trees, 50 Years. in Australia and from Southeastern Asia.
Since the publication of the book, sales have been brisk and BCI remains fully committed to being a leading international
have exceeded our best expectations. In just a few months, we organization devoted to promoting bonsai, penjing and stone
have sold over 80% of our total print run. I urge you to buy appreciation throughout the world. Come and grow with us.
your copy now because it may soon be out of print. Please see
the back cover of this magazine to learn how to order your
copy. Tom Elias, President
In the coming weeks, you will be receiving an online survey Bonsai Clubs International
form from us. We need your help in evaluating the BCI web-
site, www.bonsai-bci.com. One of our major objectives is to
substantially improve the website and make it more useful to
our many members. We can only accomplish this with your
help. We need to hear from you what you like about our site grow with us
and what information you would like to see on our site. Once
we have that information, we will work hard to develop the YEARS
needed material. This is a good opportunity for our members
to interact with the board of directors.

October/November/December 2013 | BCI | 1