My First Flower Demo

August flower club was a members evening, which means rather than having a demonstrator members of the club do the demonstrations and I was lucky (or maybe unlucky) enough to be asked to do one of the demonstrations.  It really seemed like a great opportunity for me to have a go and to "show-off" some of my skills and design ideas.  Of course being asked to do it in abstract some 2 months ahead of the date makes it look very appealing - an appeal which becomes a little less so in the 24 hours ahead of the event.

Modern hedge arrangement

Actually as it turned out I wasn't too nervous and as they say a little adrenaline can help the performance along!!

A more traditional style

There were 3 other members of the club who were also demonstrating and they did a brilliant job and I particularly liked the modern hedge style of the first demonstration.  I was third on the bill!!

M's arrangement - one of the the most talented members in the club

I knew what I was planning on doing and so headed off to the wholesaler on my birthday to get the flowers I needed, I also (as mentioned in a previous blog) treated myself as a birthday pressie to another two martini glasses to match my large one, a medium and small one!!  So with the flowers I needed purchased, the following day I  and started creating two additional arrangements in the smaller glasses to be produced after I had finished the one I planned for the demonstration.

My small arrangement - my theme was celebration .....

I prepped the materials I was using for the demo and got myself all packed up - I needed Mike and Jamie to come with to help me unload everything at Stony and hold the other two arrangements in the car - to prevent them from being damaged.  Once safely unloaded and set up, I took them home and picked up J.

 ........so the glasses worked well (the tallest glass is about 90 cms tall)

As I was third on I had some time to get a little nervous, but not too nervous.  There must have been about 30 - 40 people in the room and I haven't spoken publicly to that many people since I was in Brownies and did the reading at Church some many many years ago.  I had planned what I was going to say and had a couple of amusing stories up my sleeve (one from the day itself).  (When I had returned home with my new glasses I said to Mike - don't be cross, and his first response was "You haven't got another dog" - which of course had me rolling around the floor - now of course I know how to get away with every flower or scrapping purchase - "Well pet it could be worse - it could be another dog!!!!!") 

All 3 arrangements - celebrating the wonderful hobby the club shares

Of course once you get up there things do go out of your head, but I think I didn't do too badly for my very first demonstration.  The arrangement looked great (maybe not technically perfect in floristry terms but this arrangement was a celebratory piece so some rules could be broken) and there was the wow factor when I produced the other two arrangements.  I managed to talk about some of the techniques, name the flowers with in most cases botanical and common names, tell a few funny stories and not come across as being nervous.  I got some very positive feedback from the club afterwards.

I was most nervous about doing a demonstration in front of my flower arranging tutor Sylvia - I was more concerned on getting something she had shown me wrong and so I got some very useful feedback from her afterwards of  areas to look at improving next time.  But most of all she was very proud of me and that is wonderful as she has given me such a passion for this hobby that I wanted to make her proud of me.  She did say she heard me say some things she herself says when teaching or demonstrating - well she is my mentor!!!

I feel overall very happy that the whole evening went well and I certainly would like to do some more demonstrating.  The club always raffles the arrangements and those who won mine seemed very happy and I won one too - I took M's smaller one which was very pretty.

Ciao

Sue
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Reading challenge 13/16 - currently reading If I Was by Midge Ure