Orchid Societies Council of Victoria Inc

Melbourne Orchid Spectacular - Speakers Day
Saturday 24th August 2013

I am delighted to announce that the 4th speaker for the Speakers Day in August will be Alan Merriman. Alan will speak on the use of chemicals on orchids - a practical session on insecticides, fungicides, miticides etc., what specific brands are good for, or not for, using them together, and other useful information. Alan is an Australian expert on such matters, and his talk is one not to be missed!

Michael Coker

Menu Changes

You may have noticed changes that have occurred to our menus. This has been a result of changes to IE10 which would no longer run our pop out menus. Also the site is now more friendly for phones and tablets. I hope people dont find these changes to hard to use.

Melbourne Orchid Spectacular - Forum
Saturday 24th August 2013

Plans for the OSCOV 2013 Melbourne Orchid Spectacular (to be held on 23-25 August) are progressing extremely well. In addition to the display area and the sales area, this year we will also be having a Speakers Day on Saturday 24 August. The line-up of eminent speakers includes Fred Clarke from Sunset Valley Orchids in the USA (speaking on Today’s Mini and Compact Cattleyas), Sam Tsui from Orchid Inn in the USA (speaking on Paphiopedilum Brachypetalum Section – the latest Breeding and Culture), Bruce Gray (speaking on North Queensland Native Orchids) and a 4th speaker soon to be advised. More details on the Speakers Day (including pricing and timing) will follow once they are fully settled – but please make sure you put this event in your diaries, because it promises to be one of the highlights of the orchid year in Melbourne.

Melbourne Orchid Spectacular
& Victorian International Orchid Fair
Friday 23rd August - Sunday 25th August 2013

Plans are well underway for the how this year. A draft schedule can be found on the OSCOV Show page. Many other things are close to being finalised, such as the dinner and the Forum. More details will be released shortly when we have everthing finalised.

Victorian Orchids of the Year - 2012

The judging for this competition has now been completed with the most entries ever. Congratulations to all winners and in Particular to Dieter Weise for winning Victorian Orchid of the Year - 2012 with Paphiopedilum venustum 'Astrid', the same plant he won the Melbourne Orchid Spectacular with. Special congratulations must also go to Marita Anderson and Chris Waterman for winning the Memoria Gunter Haar award for best cultured Orchid with Masdevalia Impact 'Fire Brand'. Full results can be found on the Orchids of the Year web pages or by following this Link.

Melbourne Orchid Spectacular
& Victorian International Orchid Fair
Friday 23rd August - Sunday 25th August 2013

Now that Christmas has passed the OSCOV executive is hard at work preparing for this years show. Following the success of the Photographic Competition last year it is planned to hold it again this year. We are also planning to hold a seminar with overseas speakers and more information will be announced when it is available. We aim to keep this show as the Premier show in Australia and will continue to look for ways we can make it better. I may be biased but this is a show that you should not miss - just ask anyone that has been in past years.

Melbourne Orchid Spectacular
& Victorian International Orchid Fair

The show is over for another year and was I believe much better than last year. Congratulations must go to Dieter and Astrid Weise for winning with Paphiopedilum venustum and Andy Tran for winning the Reserve Champion with Cymbidium Drouin Masterpiece 'Renae'. Yarra Valley won Champion Display. David Piko won the Photographic Competion which was a new feature of the show and a great success. Championship results can be obtained from this link and all class winners can be obtained from this link. Further information can be obtained from our web page on the show.

Victorian Country Clubs Challenge
Saturday 7th July - Sunday 8th July
Brauer College, Caramut Road, Warrnambool

The Country Clubs Challenge is over for another year and again was a great success. Next year it will be held at Mildura. Results can be found on the CCC web page.

Orchids of the Year - 2011

The Orchids of the Year for 2011 was judged on Sunday 19th February 2012. Congratulations must go to Marita Anderson and Chris Waterman for winning the Victorian Orchid of the Year with Masdevallia Impact ‘Fire Brand’ AM/OSCOV. Congratulations must also go to Christina Welk for winning The Memoria Gunter Haar trophy for best cultured orchid with Dendrobium linguiforme. The results cab be found on this link.

Orchid Wiz

When the new version of Orchid Wiz is released in June it will contain OSCOV awards and photographs. I know of only 9 other organizations around the world that have this privilege and it is a great privilege to gain such International recognition.

New Judging Registrar

At the judges meeting on the 6th November Ern Kettle stepped down as the Judges Registrar, a job he has done for 20 years. Glenda Coutts was elected to replace him and Ern has agreed to be one of the assistant registrars so he is not going away too far. This will necessitate a couple of minor changes to the OSCOV executive but most will see little change and these changes will be ratified at the next OSCOV executive meeting.

What is Available

- A Discussion Forum to enable people to obtain specific information and to post messages about what is happening and more.

- Each Society has been granted space (free of charge) on this site for their own web page. These are now posted and will be updated as more information is made available. Eventually It is hoped that members of many of these Societies will look after their own sites and be able to update them more often than is possible for one or two volunteers. As for now you can simply find a society on the map of Victoria or Melbourne and click to go to that Society's web site.

- Under Articles you will find a collection of 87 articles from Orchids in Victoria and More Orchids in Victoria on a wide range of topics. More will come later.

- Under the Photo Gallery you will find over 1000 pictures of awarded orchids and other orchids. Each is thumb-nailed with a larger picture available. More will be added later.

- Under Awards there is a complete list of all awarded orchids. This will be updated as more awards are added and be linked to relevant pictures in the future.

- Under Conservation find a list of many of the conservation activities in Australia.

- Under Links there is a list of many valuable links. This will be expanded in the future and has already been updated once.

- Under Executive there is a list of all Executive Members and their phone numbers.

- Under About Us find a description of what OSCOV is and what it does for its clubs.

- Details on how to join the Free Online Orchid Group and keep up to date on orchid events in Victoria.

- The last seven Victorian Orchids of the Year winners, together with articles by Brian Milligan about the winners for each of the last three year's winners.

- Information about all exclusive Publications and badges available from OSCOV and where to get them. This includes the Orchids in Victoria series of books. Please note that while the first Volume is sold out the articles from this can be found under the articles section of this web site. Copies of Volume 3, 4 and 5 are still available. These books will not be reprinted.

- A list of all upcoming Shows as soon as OSCOV is informed of these details. Some shows are already listed.