| This was my first year back in the President’s position after a two-year
break. It has also been the first year that I have been able to concentrate
solely on the President’s duties without other club duties to distract
me. As a result, I have found it to be an enjoyable year. We commenced the year with hopes of a bumper year and I think we went some way towards achieving that. The year got off to a start in April with a slide presentation on my collecting trip to Mexico. In May, we held an aquarium and pond plant auction. It was something that we had never done before. A lot of organisation was required and there was somewhat of a financial risk involved. We did encounter some documentation problems but we were able to get the plants through after a few days delay. The auction proved to be very popular and raised a significant sum for the society. The plant auction was the first meeting that we held in the Police Club Hall and the venue has proven to be quite suitable for large meetings, even though it costs us $50 per event. In June, visiting speaker Judy Daniel gave a presentation on Discus and also donated some very nice fish for the auction. The discus were in great demand and the bidding was phenomenal. One young discus sold for over $200 – a Fry-Angle auction record. During the year, there was some discussion about running a club trip to Peru to explore the Amazon and collect fish. So, the July meeting included a slide presentation by myself on the 1995 Peru trip. Unfortunately, we later shelved plans for the Peru trip. Also in July, a Bermuda Fry-Angle delegation headed to New Jersey for the American Cichlid Association annual convention. In August, my good friend Rusty Wessel returned to give a presentation on the fishes of Mexico. As usual, Rusty also donated a significant number of fish for auction. Many of these fish were new to the hobby, giving members an opportunity to own rare fish. During Rusty’s visit, we had a club cruise on the sailboat “Second Wind”. The evening sail proved to be very popular and there have been requests to make it an annual event. Mark Soberman was scheduled to speak in September on Corydoras catfish and Joe Ferdenzi was to be our visiting judge and speaker for the October show. The horrific events of September 11th resulted in both Mark and Joe deciding not to leave New York and we lost out on having them speak. Both are scheduled to visit during the coming year. We held our annual fish show in October. The SPCA changed the date of their Fair and we decided to go ahead with our usual date. We ran the show in isolation but we still had a great turnout of visitors, thanks to some good advertising and some wonderful signs (made by Carol). Without a visiting judge, we had to turn to local talent. James Tavares and Jeremy Lodge agreed to do the judging and they did an outstanding job. I don’t say that just because they gave my fish the top spot. Because of work commitments, James and Jeremy did the judging on Friday night so we cancelled the usual banquet. They started about 6pm and finished about 1.00 am, taking 7 hours to complete the judging. As a token of thanks for their hard work, we purchased gift certificates for dinner at the Sonesta Beach Hotel. Noah’s Ark came out strongly in support of the club and the show (again) and donated some great products for the raffle draw, door prize and auction. I can’t say enough about the support that we get from Noah’s Ark. Hopefully, our members repay some of that support by shopping at Noah’s Ark. Thanks again! Our October meeting was pushed back slightly, into November, to facilitate a visit to Bobby Doe’s home on Smiths Island. Those who attended got to see his 10,000 gallon aquarium and enjoyed a nice barbeque. The November meeting featured a slide-based fish quiz. All of the questions were multiple choice to give everyone at least a guessing chance. Once again, our quiz champ was Jeffrey Porter who blew away the competition. We held a Christmas party get-together during December at Chris’ home. We had a very nice time and even had a gift exchange. The January meeting was primarily spent de-briefing the annual fish show and discussing potential speakers for the coming year. In February we hosted the “cichlid-god”, Dr. Paul Loiselle. Paul gave a very interesting presentation on cichlid conservation. He had planned to bring fish from the conservation programme of the New York Aquarium but the airline restrictions prevented him from doing so. He is hoping to ship fish to us at a later date. However, Paul did donate some books and some other items were donated by Noah’s Ark, Jeffrey Porter and myself. The auction raised in the region of $700, all of which we will donate to the ACA’s Dr. Paul Loiselle Conservation Fund. So, were it not for the events of September 11th, it would have been a staggering year for the society. As it was, I still believe that it was an outstanding year. Amanda took on a new role for the society – that of Membership Chairperson. She performed the role admirably and the club’s membership is at an all-time high. Amanda also took over the role of Editor for the newsletter. She immediately set about changing the appearance of the publication and did a great job. As the year went on, Amanda realised the work that is involved in putting out the newsletter every month. She discovered that it was too much for her to handle by herself. As a result, we have committed to breaking up the job and creating an editorial team to share the workload. |