Introduction
Fleuroselect's 50th Annual Convention will take place from 2nd to 4th July 2019 in beautiful Kassel.
Invitation
Dear member,
On behalf of the Benary company and Fleuroselect, it is our pleasure to invite you to the 50th Fleuroselect Convention which will be held in Kassel, Germany from 2nd to 4th July 2019.
This year’s Convention is certainly a cause for celebration. At Benary the convention marks the end of a year of celebrating our 175th anniversary. While Fleuroselect will celebrate its official 50th anniversary in 2020, it was in Frankfurt that the inaugural first convention took place in 1970. It is therefore fitting that the 50th convention comes back to Germany, especially as Friedrich Benary, grandfather of our current owner Klaudia Benary-Redlefsen was at that founding meeting alongside the great seedsmen of his day.
Kassel in central Germany is home to many palaces and parks. It is surrounded by woods and picturesque villages with the typical German timber framed houses and is the location where the Brothers Grimm collected and published their world-famous fairy tales. More recently Kassel is known for its modern art festival and artefacts can be spotted throughout the city. Our event hotel is situated in the Bergpark Wilhelmshöhe, a Unesco world heritage site offering an amazing view over the city. The hotel offers luxurious wellness facilities as well as excellent rooms and conference facilities.
We kick-off the convention with the welcome get-together dinner in the Hotel and the next morning get straight down to business with an introduction to both the Benary company and floriculture in Germany, the largest market in Europe. We follow this with the annual meeting where members have the opportunity to tackle the Board on all matters relating to the organisation. We then take the bus for lunch at the restaurant under heroic Hercules. This statue standing high on a pyramid at the top of the park heads a set of artificial water cascades which after lunch we will follow during a one-hour walk through the park down to the magnificent Wilhelmshöhe Palace.
We finish the afternoon´s sightseeing with a trip around Kassel ending up in the new Grimm World experience where we will have dinner and entertainment while learning more about the brothers behind Cinderella and Snow White.
A ladies programme has been put together for the business morning with a tour of the Wilhelmshöhe Palace and its surprisingly complete collection of old masters including one of the worlds largest collections of Rembrandts.
The second day of our Convention is spent at Benary. In addition to comprehensive variety trials of our genetics including our famous Begonia breeding, we will be planting a full Fleuroselect trial of both entries and winners and have heirloom varieties in a special show garden area. To accompany the visit, we have invited Hamish Taylor, an energetic, thought provoking and humorous keynote speaker. He will help us understand how we can put the consumer at the heart of our all our activities.
After two days of business and networking the convention culminates with the annual dinner and awards ceremony in the Alte Brüderkirche in Kassel, a historical location to celebrate our Gold Medal winners in style.
Benary is an independent Global company with German roots and it is in this spirit that we welcome our partners from around the world to join us in Kassel!
Best regards,
Matthias Redlefsen
Klaudia Benary-Redlefsen
Benary
Sally van der Horst
Fleuroselect
Hotel
Schlosshotel Bad Wilhelmsöhe: The Hotel Rate starts at EUR 119,00 per night for a single room. Our run of house block covers both Comfort and Superior rooms, the Superior rooms being allocated on a first-come first served basis. Upgrades for Superior Deluxe rooms and Suites are available. Prices include breakfast and VAT. For details on the rooms please see https://www.schlosshotel-kassel.de/en/rooms-and-prices/. Please complete the Room Reservation Form and return it to THE HOTEL DIRECTLY.
Preliminary Programme