Jennah, over at Jennah’s garden is one of my fellow Saturday6 members and she posted her thoughts about attending our kick-off event this week. I came across it as I took a break from my own packing and it got me to thinking about my own thoughts about the project and my upcoming trip.
First, this will be an “old home” trip for me. I grew up in New London, a small town of about 2000 people in north central Ohio. Most of my family still lives in the area, so not only will I be doing blogging business, I am fitting in 2 days of family time, too. I lived in Cleveland for about 9 months before my marriage 25 years ago, so there are also a few people to meet for lunch and dinner around the Troy-Bilt events.
I have written for the Troy-Bilt newsletter a few times over the last 2 years and was lucky enough to receive several pieces of their equipment to use in my own garden. I have found their products to be top quality and very useful, but I also enjoyed the freedom to say when I didn’t like something. Troy-Bilt knows how to interact with bloggers for the benefit of both.
Even with our previous relationship, I was somewhat surprised when Troy-Bilt asked me to be part of the Saturday6. In my new media consulting work, I often preach the need for people to “show people what they do and how well they do it” and how important it is to the continued success of their endeavors. I have lived this ideal for such a long time, I sometimes forget that great things can and do happen if you work at it enough. My inclusion in the Saturday6 is a direct, personal, reinforcement of my new media philosophy. As with much of my life, one area of interest intersects with another and in this case gardening meets new media in a big way.
Looking at the schedule for this week’s event, it looks like we are going to have a great time. We are going to get to see a lot of current Troy-Bilt products as well as a some new, unreleased items. It is always great to get a behind-the-scenes peek at anything, so I am sure this will be really cool. Beyond that, though, I am really looking forward to meeting my fellow bloggers. I have followed most of their blogs for a while, but meeting someone in person is always interesting. Despite the fact that I LIVE in the Internet, I still regularly attend and organize meetups and events so that people can shake hands and have great conversations while looking into each other’s eyes.
Given my history in Ohio, it only seems fitting that we will end our 2 days together within a stone’s throw of my family. They are even planning on picking me up at the end of the event to start our family time. As a group, the Saturday6 will be visiting the Culinary Vegetable Institute in Milan, Ohio. (Milan was the birthplace of famous inventor, Thomas Alva Edison, by the way) The CVI hosts a program for kids called Veggie U, which teaches them how to grow vegetables as this has been shown to increase their desire to actually eat them. I am very interested to hear more about their program, being a rather fussy, non-vegetable eater myself. (SMILE)
You’ll see more about and from the Saturday6 here on A Gardener’s Notbeook. Please check my fellow bloggers. If you don’t know about them already. Get to know them all here.
Disclosure: This post is in conjunction with my paid partnership as one of the Saturday6 from Troy-Bilt. All thoughts are my own.
See you SOON! This will be a great event!