CACSS Central Arizona Cactus and Succulent Society

The indexing project began with a comment (or shall we say sly suggestion) from Gard Roper. I was helping him put together publicity for our annual show and sale during one of the years when he was chair. We needed pictures of plants, and didn’t have ready access to any. Gard said, “You know Sue, we really need an index of photos that have been in the newsletter so we can pull from them for our publicity needs.” I readily agreed with him.

You may know that Gard is a psychologist. He knows me well enough to know that I’m motivated by anything that somehow relates to education. “When you go through the newsletters to do this, wouldn’t it be great to make an index of the articles too?” he suggested. The idea was born and the seed was planted. I began the indexing journey.

To develop a format, the Cactus and Succulent Society of America’s indexes were examined as were indexes of other organizations. I knew that I would need someone very dedicated to help with proofreading such detailed documents. I asked participants at a PEG meeting if anyone had any interest in taking on the job. Lauren Marks, then a new member, shot her hand up and said, “I’d be happy to help.” Oh if she only knew what she was getting into. She stayed with me all the way through. Thank you Lauren.

One thing I learned as I matured in my career, is that the more input the better the outcome for an immense project such as this. I formed a group to discuss the issues with Mike Gallagher, Lauren Marks, Beth Kirkpatrick and Lee Brownson. We discussed style, topics and organization. Then, members were asked for input, and many great ideas were submitted. Literally every suggestion has been incorporated. After looking at many different indexes, we decided to use the index system that the Cactus and Succulent Society of America uses.

After a year of slowly and carefully going through every newsletter since 1975 that could be found, the project is complete. Whew! I’m volunteering to keep adding to the indexes since it now only takes about 20 minutes a month.

I’ve already found the indexes to be a tremendous source of information, and know that you will too. These undoubtedly are not perfect documents, as careful as we were. If you find something that isn’t right—whatever it is—let me know and I’ll correct it. Email me. The more eyes the better to make this the best resource ever.

The indexes are on the website for universal access.

Enjoy!