It was the feel-good meeting of the year yesterday at the Fenway Garden Society. 

Coffee and donuts were the first item, and elections were, of course, last on the agenda, with some thrills and chills along the way. 

Most chillingly: the revelation of the loss of the minutes from last year's annual meeting followed by a painstaking reconstruction by the VP of Administration. 

Most thrillingly: a ten-minute powerpoint presentation by our communications guy — an absolute first in the annals of the organization (although there were no animated gifs — something to aspire to next year).

There was also a strange interlude of Greek Opera — don't ask — before the main event. 

And then The Moment of Truth was upon us.

You could've cut the air with a knife.

But just as the ballots were being handed out the VP of the Park stood up and announced he was withdrawing his name from consideration.

"I'm too mean to be your president," he said (and that's an actual quote).

He then offered a public apology to his fellow members and to me personally for his behavior over the past few weeks, and formally withdrew.  

Although a noble gesture appreciated by all (and I spoke to him at length afterward to express my own appreciation to him), there were no gasps from the assembly.  I have been to longer meetings, to be sure, but by the two-hour mark there's really nothing anybody could say that would shock anyone, and the fact that this would make the counting of the ballots that much quicker was welcome news to all.

We're actually a pretty hardened lot.  I've gotten feedback from cynics who have accused me of being airy-fairy, with all this nonsense talk of community.  In fact, the main thing has always been the organizational challenge of keeping our community growing and assuring all that the processes in place are fair, impartial and transparent.  That's a real practical blood and guts organizational challenge.  And that's what we have a board for.

People who look at gardens might be sentimental, but people who actually garden, gardeners as a species? Not so much.  They're digging for a deeper truth.  The beauty of botany is as brutal as anything in nature.  As Sam Llewelyn has said (and I have quoted him before): "In gardens, beauty is a by-product. The main business is sex and death."

I won't get into that here.  (In fact, many of you will be happy to know that I won't be blogging here about the organizational aspect of the Victory Gardens from here on out.  For official news you can check out our tumblr: fenwayvictorygardens.tumblr.com — we were gonna go for fuckyeahfenwayvictorygardens but while perfectly appropriate in the tumblrverse, it might seem too, er, something for the uninitiated.)

At any rate a full slate of capable folks were sworn in, and many, many more pledged their support after the meeting, including the former VP of the Park, with whom, as I said, I had a nice, long conversation.  The transition takes place over the course of a month, and our first big order of business will be to bust a move to get the renewals out by February, with a March 1st return deadline. 

March 1st will also be the deadline for applications for new gardens for the Spring.  If you know of anyone on the legendary "wait list", let 'em know they'll be required to re-apply by March 1st for a 2011 plot!  After vetting applications, we will then distribute plots by lottery by April 1st.  New gardeners will be required to attend an orientation in the Spring.  Those who do not get a plot will be placed on a wait list for the 2011 season, but will be required to re-apply for the following season if nothing opens up by the end of this one.

But you'll be able to read all about this on our website and tumblr blog.

For now suffice it to say that all's well that ends well, and, as we gardeners know, the end is the new beginning.