|
Andy Easton is reputed to have written (I did not see the original posting
but saw Leo's posting from which the quote is taken) :
> Andy Easton aeaston at kb-inc.com wrote:
> Tue Mar 15 20:14:48 CET 2005 > Are you ready for this? > At Dijon last Saturday, March 12th the WOC Site Selection Committee >met and heard proposals from three potential host countries for the 2011 >WOC. The countries were Taiwan, South Africa (Cape Town) and >Singapore. At the conclusion of the presentations they voted 11-5 to >award the Conference to South Africa. A hastily convened meeting of the >WOC Trustees then, in secret session, and in spite of the assurances of >the Executive Director of the AOS that they have no vote on selecting a >site, gave the 2011 WOC to Singapore. Talk in the market place in January already was that Cape Town would not be
granted the right to stage the 2011 WOC and the reason being was that the
"Americans" (whoever they may be i.e. individuals not the nation) would veto it
because South Africa was not commercial enough and it did not pay for the
commercial growers to bring plants for sale.
If these whispers from the market place are true it is sad for two reasons
IMHO :
1) I was under the impression that the purpose of holding a WOC was to
further the culture of orchids and by rotating the site would give orchid
growers a chance to visit countries where orchids grow and to see orchids in
their natural environment and NOT to enrich commercial
enterprises.
2) In my humble opinion the only country on the African continent that can
host a WOC at present is South Africa and further I believe that the enthusiasm
to host a WOC in South Africa is fast declining and therefore I believe that
there will never be another opportunity to host a WOC in Africa. Hopefully I am
wrong.
Perhaps Peter Furniss would like to comment on the "commercial" aspect for
the decision?
Keep well and kind regards
Mike
|
_______________________________________________ the OrchidGuide Digest (OGD) orchids@orchidguide.com http://orchidguide.com/mailman/listinfo/orchids_orchidguide.com
