northern clivia club 

The Northern Clivia Club – Early Days

The Clivia Club started in 1992 as a newsletter written, printed and distributed by Nick Primich from Johannesburg in South Africa. Nick thought that through newsletters all interested people worldwide could share their knowledge and expertise on Clivia. In the editorial of the first newsletter Nick Primich wrote: "What I do want is for us to better utilize the material which is available and by pollen and seed exchange rapidly build up good stocks of excellent material".

The founding group consisted of 25 members - 16 from South Africa, 5 from Australia, 2 from the USA and 1 each from Hong Kong and Japan.

Soon members in the Pretoria / Johannesburg (Gauteng) region felt that they wanted to see the collections of other growers and arranged the first garden visit, which took place in October 1993 (Clivia Club Newsletter Vol. 2, number 5 page 9). At the end of October 1993 the first habitat visit was organized, to see C. caulescens at Gods Window (Clivia Club Newsletter Vol. 3, number 1 page 6).

The 22nd January 1994 was an auspicious date in the annals of Clivia, when the Clivia Club was formed in Pretoria (Clivia Club Newsletter Vol. 3, number 1 page 14). There were 19 participants present and a committee was elected. Discussions and plans were initiated on a number of activities which still form much of the focus of the later Clivia Society and its constituent Clivia Clubs, namely member meetings, garden visits, conferences, shows, photographic exhibitions and habitat tours.

The first quadrennial Conference and Show was held on 17th September 1994 (Clivia Club Newsletter Vol. 3, number 8 page 1) at the National Botanical Gardens in Pretoria, South Africa. Attendance exceeded all expectations, the conference proceedings made a good contribution to Clivia know-how, the show and plant sales started a long tradition and it was truly international with contributions from Yoshikazu Nakamura (Japan), Keith Hammett (New Zealand) and Pen Henry (Australia).

Club meetings were held regularly in Pretoria and a number of Clivia habitat tours took place. In an editorial in June 1995 (Clivia Club Newsletter Vol. 4, number 3 page 10) it was stated that the committee had taken "the Clivia Club out of an envelope and put it on the show bench".

The Clivia Club encouraged clivia activities in other centres, and Des Anderson reported on the first meeting in Pietermaritzburg on June 3rd 1995 (Clivia Club Newsletter Vol. 4, number 4 page 5) where it was "noted that the Transvaal members had joined the meeting with a view to giving impetus to a new membership drive". The fruits of that meeting in Pietermaritzburg included the formation of the first branch (KwaZulu-Natal Clivia Club) of the Clivia Club.

The Clivia Club was based on a centralized organizational structure with the implication that members joined via the Clivia Club secretariat in Pretoria. From the onset the committee of the Clivia Club played a double role - firstly they managed the affairs of the (international) Clivia Club and secondly they were also responsible to cater for the needs of the large and ever-growing number of Clivia enthusiasts within and around the metropolitan area of Pretoria and Johannesburg. By 1999 this dualism terminated when the Clivia Club became the Clivia Society and the Pretoria-based Northern Clivia Club was established upon adoption of its first constitution.

From that base of a single group of enthusiasts in Pretoria and Johannesburg has grown the Clivia Society. There are approximately 15 clubs and interest groups throughout South Africa, there are active groups in Australia, New Zealand and the United States, and there are substantial numbers of enthusiasts throughout Europe and Canada.

Independently of developments in the English speaking world, there are numerous enthusiasts in China, Japan and Korea, and dramatic strides have been made in the breeding of clivias in those countries.