Those of us who attended the western winter study meeting of the North American Rock Garden Society would like to thank the chapter who sponsored this event which was exceptionally well organized and delightful. Many of the members of this list volunteered their time to help make this a success. As always it was so fun to connect names with faces even though it is sometimes a shock when people don't look like you imagined they would. I appreciated the opportunity to get to know some of the people on this list better and to see people I had met in the past again. Jane did an excellent job of selecting entertaining speakers. As one who is trying every year to have fewer instead of more containers I appreciated all those pictures of bulbs interspersed with other things in gardens and Ian Young's comment that you stuck your finger deep in the soil and it you hit a bulb then you moved to the right until you found an empty spot. Another talk I appreciated was one on duplicating nature when you create a garden so that it become more chaotic like nature is. He spoke to organized chaos as a compromise. Having a rather wild garden it was nice to be reassured. And I liked the talk where you were encouraged to find what will be happy in your conditions taking into consideration both climate and predators so you are much more likely to succeed. This encourages finding native plants to use as well as plants that grow in areas that are similar to yours. I like Jane's idea of outings where you observe plants in the wild. That has been one of the features of the two IBSA (Indigenous Bulb Association of South Africa) symposiums I really liked. But I'd also like to encourage regional opportunities to meet. We are too small to have chapters, but in the past there have been informal meetings in Southern California open to all and several in Northern California as well. And Jim Shields has invited people to meet in the Midwest. I'm hoping some of us who live in Northern California can find a way to meet again this year. Mary Sue