The older Bonsai club in the world

Hi

Do You know where is the older bonsai club in the world ? and, the first one club.

In south America, for example, the Sociedad Venezolana de Bonsai has 40 years old.

Best regards and thanks Alejandro

Interesting questions. A quick Google search for "oldest bonsai club" bring up some 4,000 responses. Many are in the 60 and 70+ year old category. A chart of the oldest would give bragging rights to many. Good advertising and a source for news articles. So who is up to the task?

Our club is about 30 years old, and I've been a member for some 15 years.

This doesn't mean that it's better than clubs that are 20 or 10, or 2 years old.

Makes me think of the kind of questions you have when you display trees : "How old is it?"

Who really cares as long as the trees are good ?

this year will mark the 47th annual exhibit by the Milwaukee Bonsai Society...
i am not positive, but i would imagine they existed prior to having their 1st annual exhibit.

also the American Bonsai Society is 50 this year i believe...

BUT i have heard rumors of a secret society in china that is millennia old...
but being a secret means it is not talked about
and when irreverent westerners mention it by name, they have been "disappeared"

Hello Alejandro - as Doug has said this is an interesting question, but to answer it requires more clearly defining the query. How are you defining "club"? A group of interested people, or something organized more officially either in law or culture? Since bonsai has been around since about 700 BC, certainly there have been many groups of aficionados which have come and gone. Or do you mean to inquire about bonsai clubs outside of Asia? There are several which claim a heritage of 80 or so years. Robert J. Baran used to post here with some frequency on the history of bonsai. Here is a link to what I think is his most current website: http://www.magiminiland.org/. This seems to be a question right up his alley.

Yours,
David B.

abedini wrote:Hi

Do You know where is the older bonsai club in the world ? and, the first one club.

In south America, for example,  the  Sociedad Venezolana de Bonsai has 40 years old.

Best regards and thanks Alejandro

Four Seasons Bonsai Club of Michigan is 45, so I think the club you mention is not quite as old as ours. The Marin Bonsai Club in Califorinia is over fifty years old and those are only two of the clubs I have been associated with. The Marin Club goes back to the early 1960's or even earlier. I am pretty sure there is a club in S. California that precedes that one by perhaps twenty years.

Per http://www.magiminiland.org/JYN.html, the California Bonsai Society, Inc. came into existence November 1950 as the Southern California Bonsai Club. This may have been the first English/Japanese-speaking club in the U.S.

Per March 18 listing in our Bonsai Book of Days project, http://www.magiminiland.org/Days/DaysMarb.html, "In 1945, [Takita 'George' Fukuma] and seven others (from Colorado internment camps: Shiichi Fukuhara, Ben Yamakishi, Sam Naka, George Inai, Kai Kawahara, Mitsutaro Tawara, and one other gentleman) would form the 'Denver Bonsai Club'... The meetings were unique in that only Japanese was spoken and lectures on the topics were formally led by a sensei (master artist)."

Per April 1 listing http://www.magiminiland.org/Days/DaysApr.html, "Kenneth Iwatoki Sugimoto... would establish in 1939 the West Los Angeles Bonsai Club."  I believe the source of that claim was Dillon, J.A. "Sokumenzu - Profile," Bonsai Magazine, BCI, Vol. XI, No. 4, May 1972, pg. 20, but I have yet to find any other reference to that one.

Please also see the pages beginning with http://www.magiminiland.org/BigPicture/Nations.html for the oldest known dates to us of clubs in the various countries, in bold black print.

Cordially,

Robert J. Baran
Bonsai Researcher and Historian,
on IBC from 1995-1996, 1999-present (including when the website had to be restarted in 2009),
who has been more of an IBC lurker the past several months

Vance Wood wrote:

abedini wrote:Hi

Do You know where is the older bonsai club in the world ? and, the first one club.

In south America, for example,  the  Sociedad Venezolana de Bonsai has 40 years old.

Best regards and thanks Alejandro

Four Seasons Bonsai Club of Michigan is 45, so I think the club you mention is not quite as old as ours.  The Marin Bonsai Club in Califorinia is over fifty years old and those are only two of the clubs I have been associated with.  The Marin Club goes back to the early 1960's or even earlier.  I am pretty sure there is a club in S. California that precedes that one by perhaps twenty years.  

I wondered how the club was Vance. I didn't know it was that old.

kevin stoeveken wrote:this year will mark the 47th annual exhibit by the Milwaukee Bonsai Society...
i am not positive, but i would imagine they existed prior to having their 1st annual exhibit.

also the American Bonsai Society is 50 this year i believe...

BUT i have heard rumors of a secret society in china that is millennia old...
but being a secret means it is not talked about
and when irreverent westerners mention it by name, they have been "disappeared"

First rule of Bonsai Club. Don't talk about Bonsai Club.
Second rule of Bonsai Club. Don't talk about Bonsai Club.

what club ?

kevin stoeveken wrote:what club ?

That's right.

Thanks to all
best regards Alejandro

Please see http://www.magiminiland.org/BigPicture/Oldest%20Clubs.pdf .  I am also working on an Approximate list for the hundreds of clubs I have if my old notes with "established by dates," but no definite start date.  Many of these have no current Google listing at all, so their lives ended pre-internet, apparently.

Thank you Robert for your important work!

You are very welcome, David.

Updated URL : http://www.magiminiland.org/BigPicture/OldestClubs.pdf

And I just published the first edition of the approximate list: http://www.magiminiland.org/BigPicture/OldestClubsApprox.pdf  

I still have a lot of clubs to add, especially to the second list and particularly from outside the U.S.

Any and all updates and corrections are appreciated -- for the sake of future enthusiasts, if nothing else.

Great job Robert,

I saw no mention of the FFB, "Fédération Française de Bonsaï" (our national federation of bonsai clubs/associations) so I've sent the vice-president a mail, and I'll put the questions on French forums too.

I'll let you know when I get an answer.

The first reply I got:

AFAB: Association Française des Amateurs de Bonsaï, 1980 (Paris region, http://www.afab-bonsai.com/ )
Amis du Bonsaï Plaisir: 1987 (North of France, http://ladbp.blogspot.fr/ )

And the FFB (Fédération Française de Bonsaï - http://www.ffbonsai.com/ ) that federates clubs in France was founded in September 1987, which means there must have been clubs before 1987.

Alain,

Thank-you. I do have a page and a half of French clubs (over 60) on my notes pages which I haven't got to yet. They are mostly dated from a 1995 BCI listing I had. Let me know if I can send a scan of them to you PM.

Thanks Robert.

Your list probably doesn't include our club because it was founded in 1997

It's called "Le Renouveau du Bonsaï" (Bonsai Renewal) and I'm the webmaster of the site, which, I must confess is not very regularly updated :

http://www.rdb45.fr/

FYI, clubs that are affiliated to the FFB pay back part of the annual members' fees to the national structure, which, in return, organizes training sessions for local club members. It also organizes "exams" to become "N1, N2, or N3" that enables one to animate training sessions. For instance, there will be a week-end of training by https://www.facebook.com/ruud.halink at our club in January, free of charge of course. I'm looking forward to this event!

I bet whenever the oldest club was formed Its a safe bet it was in China many years ago.

jungle Jas wrote:I bet whenever  the oldest club was formed Its a safe bet it was in China many years ago.  

I wouldn't say so: if it's true that bonsai originated a long time ago in China, it was a form of "art" reserved to an elite.

The question here is, when did this form of art became popular with (a) group(s) of people, regardless of their social status in a different environment than that of a feudal society?

Might have been the club of Ling Nan [ Grow and Clip ']
Alain.

Possibly late 1800's.
Laters,
Khaimraj

Khaimraj Seepersad wrote:Might have been the club of Ling Nan [ Grow and Clip ']
Alain.

Possibly late 1800's.
Laters,
Khaimraj

I love Lingnan penjings.

But to me, it's a school of penjings, Chinese bonsai.

I didn't know there was a club or association there, I've always tought it was a way to grow "trees in a pot", a practise which was different from other regions of China, a big country with different climates, species, and cultures. To me it referred to individuals, not a group of people that decided to join their knowledge and efforts like people in a club or an association.

Do you have more info about that?

AK

Read up on Man Lung Potted plants , Wu Yee Sun, his grandfather and father and I believe a monk.

You will see some of this in Mr. Baran's book of days.

http://www.magiminiland.org/Days/DaysMayb.html

What happens when it is realized that the Chinese had clubs / societies way back when .....................
Laters.
Khaimraj

kevin stoeveken wrote:this year will mark the 47th annual exhibit by the Milwaukee Bonsai Society...
i am not positive, but i would imagine they existed prior to having their 1st annual exhibit.

also the American Bonsai Society is 50 this year i believe...

BUT i have heard rumors of a secret society in china that is millennia old...
but being a secret means it is not talked about
and when irreverent westerners mention it by name, they have been "disappeared"

Bonsai or Penjing almost did not survive the cultural revolution under Mao se Dong. We ought to celebrate those who hid their trees and dared the squads of Communist revolutionary thugs.