Wouldn't it be great ...

Have you ever wondered what your fellow forumers looked like
Some of us have already been game and posted snaps of ourselves in various posts on here - and how nice was it to be able to put a face to handle name

Years ago, when I was a regular poster on GW's Antique Rose Forum, people would, from time to time introduce themselves to everyone through posts such as this to help them to remember who was who. This seemed to created a nicer atmosphere and heighten peoples sense of forum community, belonging and mutual respect. I think it would also add to making this forum an even friendlier place than it already is.
So, how about it? Will you join me in saying and post a of yourself and perhaps even tell us a little about your life, loves, your handle name and your real first name?

(This suggestion is strictly on a volunteer basis - please do not feel compelled to join in if you do not feel comfortable with this idea.)

Ok, so let me put my money where my mouth is

Hi everyone, my name is Rita so that explains why I use the RitaG handle. I first began posting on the internet in the early 90s and have always used this name. My first post was on the GW's Antique Rose Forum.

Since joining the various rose forums, I have personally met with some lovely, gracious and generous people. I continue to keep in touch with and sometimes we have occasion to meet up again.

It is no surprise to anyone that I am a David Austin Rose fan, but I love all types of other roses

I have recently become 'mum' to a 9mth old pedigree German Shepherd who I've name Shiloh. Shiloh has already become my shadow. Thankfully Shiloh has learned to keep out of the garden beds. She is a delight and I am so thankful to be entrusted with her care

Work wise: my position is responsible for the development and implementation of a Sustainable Waste Management Program for two local health districts in NSW Health. This includes the identification of cost saving opportunities, initiatives to reduce waste to landfill, ensuring compliance to relevant legislation and to identify and implement waste management best practice and provide staff education to some 17,000 employees thoughout the LHDs.

OK, Rita
I am newforold because my last name is New and I like old things. This is my ebay name as well. I love antiques and vintage clothing and jewellery. I dress in vintage on a daily basis. My garden is very nostalgic, full of heritage roses, climbers, brick paths, old garden edging tiles and various other old bits and pieces. I am 42, married with two kids aged 13 and 11. I work full time as a primary school teacher. When i'm not at work, in the garden or at an auction, I am doing something with kids' sport. Here is a shot of my daughter and I after her team had won the intertown u13s grand final. Maree
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Hi Maree, its lovely to see a photo of you with your jubilant daughter, thank you for sharing
I see some nets in the background but not sure if they are for basket or netball
Its been many years since I played both sports.
I look forward to others shedding their shyness and introducing themselves in due time.

Hi Guys, my Name is Tamara. Tambralyngar is a mixture of my family...Tamara, Brayden (my eldest son), Lyndon (my youngest) and Gary my husband.
I started a new job in a new industry in July last year. I work for a local printer in town, previously I was manager at a fast food store in the local shopping centre. I have been working in the food industry for a long time, my mother has run takeaways, restaraunts etc. since I was a young girl.
My grandmother has always been into gardening etc. & I have wanted to grow roses for a while, but never really found the time until last year when I bought 4 roses and now it has grown to about 30.
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As a family we really enjoy cruising on the big cruise ships, here we are in Dec 2010 in NZ.
Thats it from me now will update later.
Cheers Tamara

Hi,
I'm retired and my hobbies are gardening, training dogs and painting in oils.
I have maybe two hundred roses - had more a while ago but the drought hurt them. My favourites are singles and lately the tea roses.
I have four shelties and a German Shepherd puppy. I do obedience and tracking with them.
I'm a realist painter, and like doing portraits and buildings and my garden.
Naturally I paint the dogs too.
Barbara B
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I am the photograph taker in the family, not the subject, so it was hard to find a self-portrait. At youngest grandson's second birthday party, Sue, my partner of 37 years is on the left, attempting to repair a toy robot, I'm next in green, and then comes younger daughter with three of the grandsons.

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I'm a retired journalist, who's gone a couple of rounds with cancer and acquired a passion for roses in the process. There is no better way to keep your mind off it.

I have miniature poodles (I've just lost one and am sad) and two gardens, a warm-temperate one in Sydney where I live and a cool climate one in Katoomba in the Blue Mountains where I operate a holiday cottage that belonged to my parents as a holiday letting to pay for itself.

Both gardens are just suburban-size but I adore being able to grow such a range of plants. Sadly neither climate is ideal for roses but I persevere.

I take the pics , not appear in them so this is a very rare pic snapped of me by the other half about a week ago with his chrissie present camera .
We were in the middle of taking the camper trailer [home built by my dearly beloved] on it's maiden journey .[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

Was married previously in another life and am mum to
Lily 6.1.97 - 6.1.97
Margaret 6.1.97 - 17.1.97
Caroline 6.1.97 -7.1.97
Forever known as The Little Girls and their memory lives on in my avatar which was one of my first roses that I bred , and is now known as The Little Girls Rose.

For the last twelve years I have been very happily partnered with Kevin[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
my welder , builder , partner in crime extrordinaire [ but sadly not a gardener lol ] with whom I am lucky enough to have 3 beautiful children
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our sweet Juliet [10] lil Hannah Rose [8] and Mr Matthew [6] [also known as the Toads of Nobsill]

We like to go camping , fishing , 4WDing and boating together and when I am at home I like to spend my time gardening and cooking. More time however is spent on doing plain boring housework.

cheers. Rosalie

How nice is it to put faces to all these well known names! Thank you all for sharing photos of yourselves and families, including your fur covered ones (I've added my new baby to my post).

Looks and sounds like we have some very busy multi-talented, multi-skilled posters, so thank you again for taking time to share and also for giving us an insight into your lives .

Don't know about you, but so far, only the ladies have been brave enough, what about the menfolk dropping in and saying 'hi'?

You can't stay forever

Ok I'm game. This is me taken on my 62nd birthday two days ago.

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I owned a cake shop for almost 30 years. I wa, in the new language, a chef pâtissière, or more commonly, a pastrycook.

Unmarried and unattached - or should I say attached and then summarily detached by several members of the fairer sex.

Currently doing a Bachelor of Arts at Macquarie Uni via Open University.

Started growing roses twenty years ago in order to show off to my then inamorata who loved roses and then became fascinated by them - roses I mean not imamoratas who have always enthralled me.

Have alternately loved and hated the buggers (roses) ever since. Currently roses and I share a platonic indifference verging on mutual distaste but I’m sure our passion will revive come the glories of Autumn.

Larry

Not one to let another male take it on his own I thought that I would add our story.

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Lee and I have been married for 31 years. We have a 21 yr old daughter who has just finished a sports science degree and is now going to study nursing and a 19 year old son who has been accepted to study civil engineering but currently works with a landscaper. We have 3 border collies, a cat and a horse who is basically employed to keep the paddocks down.

I am a surveyor and Lee works in a patchwork shop and does a lot of crafty type stuff. We live in the hinterland of the Sunshine Coast (but not up on hills) on a rural residential lot that is about 7 acres.

Our garden takes up about 2 or so acres and is a contradiction of what everyone says should be grown on the Sunshine Coast. No palm trees (except the native ones down in the rainforest gully) but have lots of Teas, Noisettes, Chinas and Hybrid Musks. There is the odd older type Hybrid Tea and still a couple of DAs left in the garden but most did not like our garden.

We have been building up our stock of perennials etc to fill in the garden and have lots of structures etc to balance it all out. We have threatened to do an open garden but never seem to be ready.

Good on you fellas for taking the challenge! Great to see both Larry (who hasn't changed an iota) and Gary with Lee. Happy belated birthday Larry.

Looking forward to seeing more faces soon

Yes I agree Rita ; it's always nice to be able to put a face to a name.

Hi, this has been great reading about you all and seeing your photos, great idea, Rita ! You do a very important job.
I am 48 and have three daughters, Kathleen, nearly 15, Rhiannon 12, and Corrinne who is 4 and three quarters and is off to School this year.
For the last year I have been distracted from comming full time to this rose forum and Garden Web and keeping in contact with my rose friends because I have been following real estate and looking into what coal mines do to us. There dosen't seem enough computer time to do both very often. I can't wait till after I get bought out and I can forget it and get back to just getting on the rose forums regularly.
My camera is on the way out, it will still take photos but isn't downloading onto my computer. I wanted to tell you all what is going on here, now I have gone public about it, and there is a recent photo of haggard me in it, so could you all go to this link to a recent newspaper and have a read/look. Also read the comments posted undernealth there.
I should have had the photo taken further back I was worried about some weeds and long grass that would have been in the photo but latter I reckoned it would have been to have taken from a distance to show the house, garden and horison. Not to worry, too late now.
While in the Guardian paper you could also do a search on Bruce Marshall, Wollar, and also Lue, Silver mine to see what the mines are doing here if you want to. Bruce's atricle was in the paper the week before mine, which spured me into ringing the paper. I have spoken with his wife on the phone. The Lue article was in Friday's paper, just after me on Wednesday.
Luckily the mine consortium seem to be approaching us out here alot earlier for some reason and hopefully it will keep going on quicker even though they said "one offer only" and "out of the kindness of their hearts".
I hope I haven't put a downer on these happy postings. I am happy they have started to approach us, although if they said tommorrow the mine was no longer going ahead here I would be over the moon about it. Thats not going to happen though.
Ozrose has emailed me with what is happening over where she is, so terrible as the mine is so close to them. It is so not right for goverments to make people live near these mines. Only now do I know and feel about it because it is effecting me.
Simon or David, could you please move my post to a new one, so we can leave this one a happy one, please ?

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Good on you Karen, go for it.
It's all about money, the governments are broke and need money to stay in office. When mining leases are issued then the government gets
a big pile of money. Unfortunatly they are killing the country.

Have a good look at USA's problems and see how this type of mining, gas, has actually killed forrests. That's what the Queensland Government is allowing in Queensland.

We only own 6' down and mining leases have been taken out on so much of our country. In NSW one of the most expensive prime rural land is in the Southern Highlands. There are a lot of properties up for sale due to the mining problem. The residents feel it's time to get out and get a good price for their property while they can.

Good luck Karen.

You have my permission to pull this post should you deem it liable.
Is there still "Freedom of Speech" in the greatest country in the world.

You have my permission to pull this post should you deem it liable.

I just might if the pot-shots keep happening after I specifically asked them to stop.

Please find my blog called on Internet Explorer.
bonitasjoyfuljourney.blogspot.com/.../may-and-june-2010-in-canada...

couldn't get a match.....

I clicked on it and nothing .

This link may work a little better

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Thank you Wendy, it worked a treat.
I can see you had a lovely holiday Bonita very interesting.
Well done with the blog

Thank you Wendy for fixing up my blog. I am not entirely a computer genius! I never seem to be able to get servimg working for me. I have used flickr and someone fixed that for me. I hope I am not causing too much trouble. I have hundreds upon hundreds of rose pictures from places like Sangerhausen, Mongolia, China, Canada, Australia etc so perhaps it is best I don't learn how to post them efficiently! I do plan to do another blog soon.
Carole I am so glad you enjoyed my first attempt at a blog. We bought a motorhome in Canada in Alberta in May 2009 and used it for over nine months there and sold it in September 2010 in Nova Scotia.

Bonita, what a wonderful way to see Canada stop and go as you please. Now did you sell it for more than you paid for it ? if you did that would be fantastic.

Thank you for sharing your Canadian trip with us Bonita. It makes me wonder if I will ever get to visit with my cousins in Ontario. If I ever get there, I would also love to go back west to tour the Butchart Gardens in Vict. Can we 'enbed' one of your photos in this post please?
So Carole and Wendy - when do we get to 'meet' you and other posters on here get those cameras clicking please

If we can get more people to share their image and story with us on here, then we may be able to rename this post "Introducing RTA Forumers ... with images".
I'm sure it would certainly make a good historical record for this forum.

Yes you can enbed any pictures for me Rita. Thanks.
Butchart Gardens would be great any season. When I visited there in May 2010 the delphiniums were the real stars as they towered at about 1 metre high well above the roses. Minter Gardens in BC I found even more enjoyable than Butchart.
Ontario has wonderful rose gardens too as does the nearby northern US states - Olbricht Garden in Madison Wisconsin. R. Glauca is a picture but a little mundane when it grows on roundabouts and outside KFC! Montreal Jardin du Botanique has a tremendouse rose garden and also there is a fascinating historic, french canadian rose garden in Annapolis Royal in New Br
[url=historicgardens.com]historicgardens.com[/url]