Today, The Garden Club of the Back Bay is fortunate to have a comfortable financial cushion to support our ongoing Boston-based horticultural, environmental, and educational projects, but this wasn’t always the case.  In September 1971, our original Treasurer Irene Pitz, who served in that capacity for over 25 years, wrote a plaintive letter to the then President of The Neighborhood Association of the Back Bay concerning a verbal undertaking by NABB to help fund the budget in recompense for our forfeiture of Garden Club receipts from that year’s House and Garden Tour.  At the time, our dues were $5 per year, $.90 of which was remitted to the Garden Club Federation of Massachusetts.  The balance was insufficient to cover general expenses, since we had only 60 members at the time.  Irene pointed out that our club’s activities were a substantial asset to the neighborhood and that raising the dues to $10 per year would restrict our membership, especially among younger residents.  The following January NABB voted to remit $350 to The Garden Club, which helped balance our budget that year.  Our expenses included such line items as chair rentals for six meetings at $.25 per chair, donations of floral arrangements to neighborhood functions ($45), and fees for speakers, along with the costs for Project HUB Box, which taught children in the Boston Public Schools how to grow plants.