Volunteer Opportunities for NIHS Members
No matter what your age or interests, your skills or schedule, you can help the NIHS in its valuable work. Volunteering for the NIHS is a great way to expand your knowledge of plants, give back to your community, meet new people, and share your love of Hostas and companion shade plants with other like minded people. Within the NIHS there are many activities for which volunteers can help and continue to build the success of our society. Please consider offering your volunteer assistance in one of the following:
Garden Walk Table Greeters
Please volunteer as a docent at one of our summer garden walks for a couple of hours. You will greet visitors at our NIHS table and have them sign the Sign-in sheet for that particular garden and encourage them to fill out a sticker name tag if they forgot their NIHS name tag. Don't forget to wear your NIHS name tag. P.S. Do you have a garden or know of a private garden that you think members would be interested in visiting? Please let our Director at Large-Garden Walks know at one of our Symposiums or reach out to him/her through our Contact Us page on our website if you have a recommendation. |
Annual Bus Trip
Do you have gardens, nurseries, botanical gardens, public gardens you would like us to consider for our annual day trips, send your suggestions to our Vice President through our Contact Us page on our Navigation bar for consideration. Don't forget to wear your NIHS name tag to these events. |
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Chicago Botanical Garden-Leaf Show
May 30, 2025 (set up) and May 31 and June 1, 2025 (Leaf Show and tear down) Please consider lending a hand during the days and times that NIHS will be at the show. Volunteers are needed to man the booth tallying Favorite Leaf votes, pass out Favorite Leaf Voting forms, and mingle with the visitors (approximately 2-3 hour shifts) during the show and to answer visitors' questions about hostas. We will provide a NIHS Membership Table to recruit new members for our organization. It will be manned by two people. A QR code will be available for new members to scan the QR code and join our organization and pay their dues using Square. We have a prepared slide show presentation that will be on display sharing the joys of NIHS membership on a loop. We also have a member speaker that talks around 11:00 a.m. with a slide show presentation. In addition to the slide show presentation, we will provide some informative handouts, provide some demonstrations and provide time for asking and answering questions on Saturday and Sunday. Our first shifts begin on Friday morning for accepting display leaves and continues with set up. On Saturday our shifts begin in the morning at 10:00 a.m. however, we are asking our volunteers to get the CBG by 9:00 a.m. and end at 4:00 p.m.. Then on Sunday, our shifts begin in the morning and continue- until clean up. Here are the specific work shifts we need covered: May 30-8:30 a.m. until 12 noon (set up) May 31-9:00 a.m Arrive for your shift and public arrives at 10:00 a.m. --1:00 p.m./1:00-4:00 p.m. June 1-9:30 a.m. -1 p.m./1:00 -5:00 p.m. includes tear down If you are interested in volunteering, please contact our CBG Leaf Show Chair using our Contact Us on our website navigation bar or sign up at our Winter and Spring Symposium Volunteers Needed table. We will need a couple of volunteers to man the Membership Table to answer questions and take Membership applications or have potential membership to use the QR code to signup on line and pay for their membership. Don't forget to wear your NIHS name tag to the symposium. Volunteer Charts will be placed on the wall for you to sign-up for a time slot. |
Cantigny Volunteer Work Days
Volunteers return to Cantigny in the spring and continue through October. NIHS has shared responsibility with Cantigny Golf & Park to maintain our beautiful American Hosta Society (AHS) garden. Currently, there are only 26 AHS gardens in the United States. No matter what your age or interests, your skills or schedule, you can help the NIHS in its valuable work. Volunteering for the NIHS is a great way to expand your knowledge of plants, give back to your community, meet new people, and share your love of hostas and companion shade plants with others. The work sessions include general garden clean-up, weeding and requires about a two-three hour commitment of time Wednesday morning (usually 9:00-12 noon.) twice a month. If you are interested in volunteering your time, please contact Stevie Meginness, President on our NIHS navigation bar for further information and consideration. Don't forget to wear your NIHS name tag. |
NIHS Annual Bus Trip
June 29, 2025 Fox Valley River, Wisconsin We usually devote a full day to touring gardens, private and public and provide opportunities to shop for hostas and companion plants. All registrants for the Bus tour will be provided an agenda via email. We will go on our bus trip regardless of the weather, so we encourage our members to bring rain gear if the weather looks unfavorable. Don't forget to wear your NIHS name tag. You will be able to register and pay for your day trip using our secure online server which will open on March 17, 2025 at 8 a.m. sharp. The agenda will be posted in our Award winning NIHS newsletter that our members will receive via email in March. You will also be able to find the agenda under our Member's Only password protected section on our website. NIHS Members, for further information, please check out the March 2025 NIHS newsletter edition that will be sent to your NIHS member email on March 10th. |
Annual Auction
Save the Date: TBD This is our only fundraiser for the year. We will be looking for volunteers to assist us with the auction and clean up. Volunteers are needed to:
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