For 2019, we have gathered the annual reports on one page to make it easier to browse. We will add more reports as they are submitted.

Southeast Director 2019 Report
In addition to the general duties of serving as a board director some other activities I have been involved in.

  1. Continued work as a member of the Policy and Procedures Committee. The committee is examining interesting and important issue areas and in the upcoming year the committee looks forward to bringing them before the board for discussion.
  2. A discussion arose in the HIPS website forum about a new reiteration of a PBF Study. I agree to take-on the work and formed a focus group to discuss and shape the objectives and framework for the study. The outcome is the PBF Survey project as presented on the HIPS website.  I hope the survey proves productive and an ongoing activity area for HIPS. We really hope to see many reports coming in for 2020. If you haven’t already there is still time to download the forms from the PBF webpage and participant in this year’s data collection.
  3. This one is bit humorous: I sent 300 rhizomes to the Rhizome Sale and got a note of appreciation from sales staff member Nancy McDonald for the quality of my rhizomes, labeling and packing. I always tell her it the convergence of empathy and OCD, which is the truth. I was pleased to have pleased these very hard workers.

Board members are limited to two terms and my second ends this spring. A promising candidate, Allyson Whalley, will be voted on by the general members this spring. I wish to offer my appreciation to the general members who elected me and gave me the opportunity to serve on the board or directors. And a thank you to the board members with whom I had the pleasure to work.
Shaub Dunkley

Commercial Sources 2019 Report
Fielded about a dozen requests for sources of rare varieties.
Annual update completed with some vendors ignoring the request for an update.  One is still pending having stated an update is coming. Latest update is noted in the top row of the sheet.
The list was submitted for publication in Roots spring 2020 edition. Suggestions were also made for the vendor list on the website which is different from the datasheet.  The vendor contact information is also
found at the bottom of the sheet.
When the third year comes with no update the vendor is dropped unless it is known they carry many historic irises and don’t have the time or ability to send in an update OR the website is easy to negotiate to find the changes.  Once a vendor has under 20 or so historic varieties they are dropped unless they are the only vendor of one or more varieties.
These ‘limits’ make the large sheet more manageable.
Eventually I envision a searchable database type of record of vendors and growers with GG varieties noted.  For now this is beyond my outdated experience with the Microsoft database programs, Access and one other.
Dave Prichard

Publication Sales 2019 Report

In overview, the orders that I received for the HIPS shop were fewer than 2018.    We did not need to spend funds to purchase new any items for our storefront.  
In 2019, I received and shipped 10 orders for products from the HIPS storefront.   This reflected a decrease from the total of 28 orders that I received and processed in 2018.     Highlights for this year related to our sales are listed below:
 o   The biggest seller was the Dream Gardener by George H. Edmonds; we have now sold out of this book.  I removed it from the storefront.   I am holding one copy for archives.
 o   There were 3 requests for copies from the Historic Chronicles.   I was able to copy these on my copier.
 o   There were no requests for AIS bulletins this year
 o   There were only 21 back copies of ROOTS requested this year.  2 of those were sent to the archive.
 o    There was one request last year for note cards
 o   There were no flash drives ordered and there remain 8 in stock.
 In review of the 2019 expenses:
o   Shipping: I have requested a total of only $100.00 from the treasure in 2019.   
 o   We used $25.00 as a stipend for a submitted article in the Fall issue of ROOTS.
As today, I have a reserve of $34.95.
I continued to update the Book of Business for the Publication Sales Chair position to reflect any changes that occur.

Susan Flow

HIPS Public Relations (Outreach) 2019
Ellen Rusten joined the HIPS Outreach team in 2019 and is now handling the shipping of informational materials to members. We sent sets of membership materials to a number of commercial gardens, including Schreiner’s, and also to several public gardens around the country.  Special events seem to be a popular venue for reaching out to potential new members.  The Midway Village Museum in Rockford, Illinois planted a historic iris garden and HIPS helped assemble irises for their collection.
We continued to work with HIPS members in England to arrange swaps of irises that have disappeared from their native country. The irises coming to North America are placed in the Guardian Gardens program in hopes they can eventually be dispersed around the continent. HIPS Outreach continues to work with Guardian Gardens and the HIPS Breeder Collections program to help gardeners obtain missing irises.
Our HIPS Facebook page now has 4500 followers and thanks to Mike Unser, photos are posted steadily. This led to the creation of a new Facebook page called HIPS Iris ID Help, which currently has over 200 members. Laetitia Munro, who is part of our ID team, created it as a place where iris lovers could post photos of unknown irises in hopes they might be identified.
Anyone wishing to help with some of our outreach projects, please contact Cathy Egerer at [email protected]. We’d love to have your help!
Cathy Egerer

Slide Preservation 2019 Report
Since the slide preservation project started in 2010, nearly 50,000 slides have been scanned. Over 4,000 photos have been added to the AIS online encyclopedia, to fill entries where there were no photos of the iris. In 2019, HIPS received a donation of several hundred slides from the American Hemerocallis Society, including an extensive collection from Hubert Fischer.  Our thanks to Kenneth Cobb, AHS Librarian, for his help with this. In addition, we were able to obtain over 80 early glass slides with the help of HIPS member Dorothy Stiefel.  This plus the ongoing scanning of other slides made it a busy year!  If you have slides to contribute, please contact Janet Smith at [email protected] and we will make arrangements to obtain them. Slides will be returned on request or placed in the AIS Library after being scanned.
Janet Smith

HIPS Website 2019 Report
There is not much to report this year regarding the website. We would like to upgrade the site’s Membership area to make it easier to use as well as keep it up to date. Many members or would be members would like to be able to pay directly with a credit card.  Currently the only way to pay membership dues online is thru Paypal.  Previously one could pay using a credit card via Paypal without becoming a member  but that was changed recently so that if you want to pay via credit card you have to join Paypal first.
Additionally the ID Committee is no longer taking requests thru the website for help with identification. Last year we fielded 66 requests for help with NOIDS. We were able to identify some of them, give helpful suggestions for others, and of course some we could not identify at all.
We continue to get random requests via email, and our ID committee is willing to respond to a request for help, but we feel that helping folks with ID issues is best done on a forum where everyone can suggest and help out. There are two forums for this: our own HIPS forum for NOID requests, and the new HIPS Iris ID Help page on Facebook where anyone, HIPS member or otherwise, can offer their opinions.
Laetitia Munro