ANOTHER Kent Whealy SSE letter

[PVP]

I guess we need to separate the issues:

1) Kent Whealy's letter. A waste of paper and reading time.

2) SSE Yearbook. Still a valuable resource.


Bill

[carolyn137]

Oct 9, 2010 19:01:09 GMT -5 rintintin said:

*** I would hope that somewhere there's a list of what was sent and also some indication if this is going to continue. ***

What I gathered from the letter, is that the deposit is limited to the +/- 9,000 varieties that are "unique" to the SSE collection. I also gathered that the SSE grow-outs are now based upon fulfilling that agenda.

My 'Senior' membership is $25, and I feel that it is well worth it for access to the world's greatest collection of heritage seeds. The suggestion of starting a back-up collection elsewhere appeals to me. I think that the lack-of-confidence arising from this issue has opened the doors for several such collections. If we can grow our own food year after year, we can do anything!

Yes, I did read the part about unique varieties. I guess my problem, or one of them, is wondering how one determines what is unique to the SSE Collection. Were other seed banks scanned, were commercial seed sites looked at, etc. What does unique mean as compared against what?

About back up collections elsewhere.

When I was in Decorah a few years back I went through the seed storage area which is in a new building. As I recall there is the main collection in freezers in that building and I thought I remembered or read in the letter that there was a backup kind of storage area inground at SSE as well. The had backup generators in case of power loss and since in my former life of teaching and research I too had to be concerned with long term storage of biological material I felt comfortable with what I saw there.

If that weren't enough, the ultimate backup seed storage for SSE varieties is in Fort Collins, CO which is where the USDA main backup storage is for ALL of the accessions that the USDA maintains. That's pretty secure storage as I see it.

When it was still possible for some of us to get some USDA tomatoes from the Geneva USDA Station, they maintain storage there but all that they keep there is also sent to Fort Collins as well. And it's the same with the other several USDA stations in THE US, as in storage at that station and backup in CO. So sometimes the seeds would come from Geneva, NY, and sometimes from the NSSL at Fort Collins.

About growout plans. Yes, I saw that comment that Kent made about growouts being slanted or entirely devoted to those unique varieties to be sent to Svalbard, but Kent no longer speaks for SSE and I don't know what SSE's plans are and I doubt that that kind of information is going to be forthcoming from Decorah.

Carolyn, who is glad that you did mention the Senior reduced membership rate of $25 and there were several other special rates noted at the main SSE website.

[rintintin]

Yes. I believe 'students' also get the $25 membership. They never did ask me to verify my age when I applied...they must have just taken the info from when I reg'd at their forum...or maybe they just assumed $25 was better than nothing. A small price to help maintain the greatest single source of seed available to us, the consumer.

The mission remains the same.

[rintintin]

To me, it is an example of how success leads to failure. Any organization which succedes beyond a certain point will attract the vultures. I worked with a union which, through smart and proper management, had built their pension fund to the point that it more than fulfilled the needs of their membership. The US government wanted to take it over and manage (control) it for them. When you get too big, you begin attracting attention, and the leaches will appear, ready to suck the excess blood from your system. If you are struggling to survive, nobody cares about you...when you prosper, everybody wants a piece of the pie. just MHO

[jcm05]

This is a link to a letter from Glenn Drowns at Sandhill Preservation regarding the whole Kent Whealy crap at SSE.

www.seedsavers.org/pdf/glenn_drowns.pdf

[bammer]

Oct 16, 2010 17:28:28 GMT -5 jcm05 said:

This is a link to a letter from Glenn Drowns at Sandhill Preservation regarding the whole Kent Whealy crap at SSE.

www.seedsavers.org/pdf/glenn_drowns.pdf

jtcm05, Thanks for posting this, I have been teetering on the brink of letting my SSE membership expire, I think I shall re-up for at least one more year and again offer seeds.

[carolyn137]

Oct 16, 2010 20:01:38 GMT -5 bammer said:

Oct 16, 2010 17:28:28 GMT -5 jcm05 said:

This is a link to a letter from Glenn Drowns at Sandhill Preservation regarding the whole Kent Whealy crap at SSE.

www.seedsavers.org/pdf/glenn_drowns.pdf

jtcm05, Thanks for posting this, I have been teetering on the brink of letting my SSE membership expire, I think I shall re-up for at least one more year and again offer seeds.

I just heard last night from a person who has also decided to reup for one more year as well.

Since I'm a life time member that's that, but I know my listings will be way down, but that's b'c it was an ultra lousy year on the seed production front for those folks in NC who were doing most of that as well as my feeble attempts here at home. Maybe enough to offer some in my free seed offer elsewhere that I do each year, but not enough to list in the Yearbook and NO seeds for many of my new to all varieties.

And I've also staryed out of the thread at idig on SSE b'c as always, it just goes on and on and on and there are no good answers to be had.

I find it sad, though, that Kent is the main one right now who is doing the most damage to SSE , an organization that he and his wife Diane co-founded.

And Glenn spoke to that in his article at the SSE site. There are other response articles there as well which anyone can read by going to seedsavers.org

Carolyn

[PVP]

Here is SSE's long awaited retort to Kent Whealy's allegations:

www.seedsavers.org/board_statement.htm


pv

[spudleafwillie]

ive been a member of SSE for 25+years.....No more..... with all the infighting.....wonder
how much did SSE spend to send their rebuttal letter ....curious minds want to know.....betcha it was our dues money in part !!

[blah]

Yeah I trust Gates and Rockefeller to store seeds in a seed bank in the Arctic Circle .

Sure I'm gonna pay a company $25 a year to get access to "Unique Germplasms"

It's all corrupt now, they will tell you what ever they can to get that yearly membership from you. OOps I'm outta line sorry!

[carolyn137]

Nov 16, 2010 12:44:16 GMT -5 spudleafwillie said:

ive been a member of SSE for 25+years.....No more..... with all the infighting.....wonder
how much did SSE spend to send their rebuttal letter ....curious minds want to know.....betcha it was our dues money in part !!

Bill, I'm sure they sent it to all members since many SSE members don't have computers for one reason or another. And I have no idea which pocket they accessed to pay the postage.

And in addition to the links that some folks have given here, if you go to the main SSE site at seedsavers.org there are other articles written by others who probably were asked to do so. Just look for the title Our Side of the Story, to read them.

I think some of them are quite revealing but again, as Carol has said, there are always two sides to every issue and in this particular situation I don't think that all that could be said has been said and no doubt could be said in public.

I agree with PV and some others here that the YEarbook listings should be looked at separately from SSE itself.

However I still maintain that SSE is but a shell organization without the membership who contribute money thru their membership monies as well as those members who are listed members who offer seeds in the YEarbook.

For me and many others SSE is the YEarbook that was set up in 1975 to be the mechanism by which seeds for OP varieties could be preserved is THE core of SSE. Bill can tell you as can I and some of the "older" SSE members that up through maybe the mid-90's there were lots of relistings of varieties, which was the goal, but no more, with few exceptions. Craig LeHoulier and I did some math as to relistings and for many varieties it got down to less than 5%.

So what's the incentive to list if a person sends out 20 packs of variety X and statistically maybe only one person relists. In my opinion the YEarbook in many ways has become just a seed catalog since the late 90's.

I've been giving some thought to e-mailing the current new President and permanent Executive Director as well as the Chairperson of the Board and suggesting that some so called "run of the mill" SSE members should be included in Board meetings as well as appointing same to the Advisor's group, which until recently have not been asked their advice about much of anything.

If the Board wants to discuss personnel matters they can go into executive session about that, but general board discussions on what they want to do now and in the future I think should have opinions also expressed by especially listed members. And as I recall it was Will Bonsall in his article at the main SSE site who spoke to the futility of Advisors in the past.

I'll think about that e-mail and whether or not it's worthwhile to do it.

Carolyn

[flowerpower]

Nov 17, 2010 11:56:30 GMT -5 carolyn137 said:

I've been giving some thought to e-mailing the current new President and permanent Executive Director as well as the Chairperson of the Board and suggesting that some so called "run of the mill" SSE members should be included in Board meetings as well as appointing same to the Advisor's group, which until recently have not been asked their advice about much of anything.


Carolyn

Carolyn, I think it's worth suggesting to the Board. Maybe they will listen to you. If they have no secrets now, they should have no problem with it. The dues paying members should have some representation at open meetings. They contribute alot of cash each year. They have a right to know how it's spent.