Editorial Opinions - On Auctions, Virtual Trees & Upcoming Events by Dierk Neugebauer By now our February fundraising auction is far behind us. As usual, it was successful, and, as expected, it didn't raise enough funds to cover the outrageous fees charged by the Toronto Botanical Gardens for the rental of their hall for a Saturday bonsai show, such as we have had twice each year in the past. More on this another time. The current issue of the Journal is devoted to using computer software in the design and styling of one's trees, a great activity to explore at this time of the year when most bonsaists are anxious to get at their trees. The computer as a design tool offers us many opportunities as well as challenges. Perhaps the greatest of the latter is the fact that developing expertese in the use of the computer or a given piece of software requires time, comittment and practice. As they say, if you don't use it, you lose it! So hard won skills can be quickly lost if not given the needed reinforcement required to hone them and keep them. Michael McCallion, Jeff Shortt and Bob Wilcox will be showing us how they use these tools in innovative ways to enhance their styling/designing processes. Read the articles in this issue and watch both Mike and Bob demonstrate at our March meeting. The repotting of trees is an annual "regular" at this time of the year. At our upcoming meeting, Reiner Goebel will be showing us how to pot a nursery-bought boxwood tree into a bonsai container. This is the sort of thing most of us are faced with in the spring when we buy trees from local nurseries with an eye to turning those trees into respectable bonsai. Those of you planning to participate in the burning bush workshop in April will no doubt be quite interested in Reiner's demo. Members interested in this workshop will need to sign up ahead of time with Otmar. The cost per member is $55.00. Since there are only 5 trees available for the workshop, sign up soon so that you don't miss out - remember what happened with the ficus forest workshop where 10 members wanted to participate but only 6 could be accomodated. You will not be able to sign up for the workshop at the April meeting - you must do so ahead of time. In the past it has seemed to me that our situation of one instructor per participant has led to the instructors having all of the fun, as the participants were often relegated to the role of observers. In order to give participants more of a chance to get involved in the actual workshop, we will be trying to have 2 or even 3 participants per instructor. We'll see how that will work out. If you have any views on this situation, talk to me at the meeting, or ahead of time via telephone or email.