WELCOME TO
OSCOV is the primary peak body for orchid societies based in Victoria, Australia.
Victorian Orchids of the Year – 2019
WELCOME TO
OSCOV is the primary peak body for orchid societies based in Victoria, Australia.
Victorian Orchids of the Year – 2018
WELCOME TO
OSCOV is the primary peak body for orchid societies based in Victoria, Australia.
Victorian Orchids of the Year – 2017
WELCOME TO
OSCOV is the primary peak body for orchid societies based in Victoria, Australia.
Victorian Orchids of the Year – 2016
WELCOME TO
OSCOV is the primary peak body for orchid societies based in Victoria, Australia.
Victorian Orchids of the Year – 2015
The 2020 OSCOV AGM was held today. As well as the great OSCOV initiatives discussed – the new Executive was announced. Terry Stiles takes over as President, and the other members are: Michael J. Coker (Immediate Past President), Barry Larkin (Vice President), Elena Stiles (Secretary), Alan Baker (Treasurer), Marita Anderson (Assistant Secretary), Gordon Young (Liaison Officer), Andre Cleghorn (Conservation Officer), and General Committee members Stephen Early, Karin Balogh, Denis Oliver & Murray Harding. Julian Coker is the Patron, and Glenda Coutts is our ex officio Registrar. This is a very strong Executive and will lead OSCOV into the future.
It is with great sadness we have to bring you news of the passing of Ken West.
Westy, as he was always known, was an integral part of Orchid growing in Victoria. As an early member of OSCOV he was a judge and committee member for many years. As a long time member of Ringwood Orchid Society and Yarra Valley Orchid Society he served in many roles including a time as President and was Show Marshall for both societies. Ken was also a formative member of the Cymbidium Orchid Society of Victoria and was highly involved in its activities.
Westy had a large orchid collection, particularly Cymbidiums which he collected for many years. Like all of us his collection out grew space at regular intervals and he gave plants away, many plants, particularly to new growers as encouragement plants.
In his later years he worked for Paradisia Orchids nursery and at their retail outlet Collectors Corner. It was the perfect place for an Orchid nut like Ken. Working with the plants he loved and in close contact with lots of other growers. As he said, it was a kid in the lolly shop during the flowering season.
We will all miss Westy. A great contributor to Victorian Orchid growing.
Vale – John Kenter 1937-2020
John was a long serving member and Committee member of the Gippsland Orchid Club. He joined the club in 1982, two years after the club was formed and was made a Life Member in 2003. He was also a member of the West Gippsland and Cymbidium Orchid Society of Victoria clubs.
John was a highly respected OSCOV judge and a very accomplished and successful grower of a wide range of orchids. He received a number of awards, the first in 1994 for Masdevallia Pinchincha at a combined Gippsland Show, which was the first awarded Masdevallia for a Gippsland Club. He went on to receive at least 13 Quality Awards after that, mainly for Masdevellias. He also received 2 Awards of Quality, the most recent for Cattleya intermedia, which also earned him the OSCOV Quality Award of the Year for 2018. I had the honour of receiving this award on John’s behalf as he was unable to attend the Awards night. He was extremely pleased and proud to receive this award.
For a number of years and up until 2 years ago, together with John McMillan, he would erect a stand at the Cymbidium Orchid Society of Victoria club Show where they enjoyed great success. John McMillan recalls he always looked forward to the shows as he and John would spend the weekend down Melbourne while the show was on and he enjoyed the friendship and companionship during this time.
John’s judging decisions were always well considered and never hurried. He was a very generous person and many of us benefited by getting some great seedlings from him, some of which went on to gain awards. He had a dry sense of humour and was known at times to play pranks, including spray painting a cymbidium blue and presenting it for judging.
John always made the effort to get plants into the show. He believed it wasn’t about winning prizes, that was an additional benefit, it was the participating and putting on a show for the public. His wife Ina, would always come along to the shows and in the early years when we had a section for a floral competition, she would judge this section.
Outside of growing orchids, he enjoyed hunting and fishing and he had a particularly productive vegetable garden. John and our President Chris Pegg, shared the common interests of hunting and fishing, and there were often interesting discussions at our orchid shows where these two swapped stories, “tall tales and true”, of past exploits.
John always had a positive attitude to life and he maintained this even through his illness.
“A good life well lived”.
John is survived by his wife of many years Ina, children, grandchildren and great grandchildren.
RIP.
Robin Bavinton
Gippsland Orchid Club
Dear OSCOV Community,
The OSCOV Executive has considered in great detail the issues and complications that would be involved in staging the OSCOV Melbourne Orchid Spectacular in 2020.
Unfortunately, all things considered, we have decided that we will not be able to hold the Spectacular this year. The key reasons for this are:
1 we understand that KCC Park will probably not be available as our venue during the scheduled dates for 2020;
2 social distancing and crowd limitation requirements would most likely be very difficult to comply with, and would significantly impact public participation in the Spectacular;
3 the unavailability of insurance, the potential for financial penalties for social distancing breaches that OSCOV cannot control, and the potential for significantly reduced attendance fees, vendor contributions and sponsorships create an unacceptable financial risk; and
4 the uncertainty of the COVID-19 impact on our society, and the probability that external regulations will continue to change without notice, mean that the certainty that we need to provide to our Vendors, Society exhibitors, the general public, and other stakeholders, cannot be provided in any other way.
We very much regret having to make this decision, but for all concerned, we feel it is the only decision we can make.
The annual OSCOV dinner (including the presentation of the 2019 Victorian Orchids of the Year), which is usually held in conjunction with the Spectacular, will also not be held in August. However – if we are able to host the dinner later in the year, we hope to do so.
We will continue to support our Member Societies and the orchid community in general as much as we can in these difficult times – and we very much look forward to life returning to normal in 2021, including holding the Spectacular again during the last full week in August 2021, and the resumption of our Member Societies’ extensive schedule of orchid Shows and monthly meetings.
If you have any queries in relation to this announcement – please contact me on 0417 334 232 or mcoker@piperalderman.com.au, or OSCOV’s Secretary, Marita Anderson on 0457 721 034 or maritaanderson86@bigpond.com.
Hello to the OSCOV Community,
We hope you are safe & healthy, and coping as well as possible in the unusual environment in which we all live.
Even though so much of life has been disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic – OSCOV continues to thrive and adapt.
An important development has been the implementation by our Judging Panel of new processes facilitating:
(a) the consideration of orchids for any OSCOV award; and
(b) the submission of entries into the 2020 Victorian Orchids of the Year (VOOTY) (which will be judged in February 2021).
The new award consideration process starts with the submission of specified photographs of the exhibit, and, where possible, a number of OSCOV Judges seeing the exhibit in person. If you would like to submit an orchid for award consideration – please contact Glenda Coutts (0448 913 155 or glenda.coutts@bigpond.com), Bob Mason (0427 437 612 or pemro@bigpond.net.au) or Alan Baker (0413 599 368 or bakerco@live.com.au) and the process can be activated for you. Specific details on the process are included in paragraph 16 in Annexure A of the OSCOV Judging Handbook which can be found here: OSCOV – JudgingHandbook@10.5.20(final). We expect to revert to traditional judging processes as soon as COVID-19 restrictions allow.
The new VOOTY submission process also involves the submission of specified photographs of the exhibit with a completed Application Form. Specific details on the process are included in paragraph (i) on page 11 of the OSCOV Judging Handbook which can be found here: OSCOV – JudgingHandbook@10.5.20(final). The VOOTY Application Form, which includes details of where the Form & photographs need to be sent, can be found here: OSCOV – VOOTYApplicationForm@10.5.20. We expect to revert to the traditional VOOTY submission process as soon as COVID-19 restrictions allow.
Please keep your passion for orchids strong – OSCOV hopes that the initiatives described above will help you get the credit you deserve despite current difficulties!
We are still hopeful that we will be able to hold the Melbourne Orchid Spectacular as planned in late August 2020. Of course, whether or not we can do so will depend on the availability of KCC Park and current social distancing/public gathering restrictions being sufficiently relaxed. The OSCOV Executive will make a decision by no later than 30 June 2020 on whether or not this year’s Show will need to be cancelled. Our decision will be posted here on the OSCOV website, and the Melbourne Orchid Spectacular Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/Melbourne-Orchid-Spectacular-164357086923002/). We thank you for your patience in these difficult and uncertain times, and we hope that all in the OSCOV community are keeping safe and well.
The full PowerPoint presentation of the OSCOV Victorian Orchids of the Year 2019 is now available: VOOTY-2019-PowerPointFinal2.
There were some exemplary orchids shown in Victoria in 2019 and many of them were in the running for the OSCOV VOOTY awards! Congratulations to all of the winners.
OSCOV has been fielding questions regarding plans for the OSCOV Show in August 2020 – bearing in mind the current COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic. At this stage we confirm that we continue planning for the Spectacular to be held over 28-30 August and we hope the Show will not be affected by the COVID-19 issue. However – it may be that closer to the scheduled time, circumstances change and we may need to revise our plans. In that case – we will endeavour to give all our stakeholders as much notice as possible.
The OSCOV Judging Panel chose the Victorian Orchids of the Year yesterday – congratulations to all of the winners!
Here is a link to the full gallery.
OSCOV has set up a TryBooking page so you can pre-book your tickets to this year’s OSCOV Melbourne Orchid Spectacular! Click here to book.
The 2019 Show Schedule is now available (sponsor details yet to be included):
The PowerPoint presentation of the OSCOV VOOTY awards for 2018 is now available!
The OSCOV Judging Panel decided the 2018 Victorian Orchids of the Year earlier today. The Orchid of the Year was Paphiopedilum Golden Goblet ‘Brian’ grown by Michael Coker. For all of the winners – click here!
The dates for the OSCOV Melbourne Orchid Spectacular in 2019 have been set! The Spectacular will be open to the public on Friday 23, Saturday 24 and Sunday 25 August 2019 from 9:00am to 4:00pm on each of those days! Make sure you put those dates in your calendar.
