April 2010 - Kitchener Waterloo Aquarium Society

A P R I L 2 0 1 0From the President’s DeskHello again everyone,So March did come in like a lamb after all. Now the onlyquestion remaining is will it go out like a Lion? All the snow isgone from around here and I think we can truly say good bye toold man winter until next November! I hope all of you took achance to visit Mary Lynne at the membership table at our lastmeeting and renewed your club membership. If you haven’tMarch was the last month for you to receive the club newsletter.Last month’s guest speaker Veronique LePage from theUniversity of Guelph was great. Sea Horses are trulyfascinating. I believe club member Zena is currently raisingthem and I’m not sure but there may be others as well. Nextmonth we have our good friend Jerry Draper from The TropicalFishroom in Brantford coming in to talk to us about ‘BreedingTechniques’. Jerry is a life long hobbyist who turned his passionin fish keeping into a business many years ago and has notlooked back since. It will be great to see Jerry again and I’msure all our BAP aficionados will be out in force to hear hispresentation.I’m writing this installment early as our Editor has imposed ahard deadline of the 15th of each month for any submissions. Ihope by the time he gets this his mailbox contains one or twomember articles. This month we will be reviewing someimportant revisions to our Constitution and Bylaws before wevote on them. I urge all of you to take a moment to reviewthem. They can be found on page 10. As spring approaches thearea clubs are once again beginning to hold events. Thisweekend, HDAS held their spring auction and from what I readon our forum it looks like it was a good day for those inattendance.Durham gets rolling with their spring auction on April 11thfollowed the next weekend April 17th by Sarnia. For thosemembers who are into livebearers, the ALA (AmericanLivebearers Association) holds their annual convention April 22thru 25 in Springfield, Michigan. Saturday May 1 sees ourneighbours, the Cambridge & District Aquarium Society, holdtheir first spring auction. Cambridge has been struggling a bitlately, lets all see if we can make an effort to get out andsupport their event. May 2nd sees our friends in London getunderway. The big event that follows in May is the CAOACconvention held May 21 thru 23 at Sheridan College inOakville.The convention website is now complete and they are takingorders online for tickets and official embroidered golf shirtswww.caoac.ca/convention.html See the convention flyer in thismonths issue for a complete list of the great speakers. It’sshaping up to be yet another successful event. While I’m on thetopic of CAOAC, their President Bob Wright has crafted a verycomplete response to the folks at CFIA regarding the proposedchanges to the importation of ‘Ornamental Fishes’. You candownload a copy of the letter from the CAOAC website herewww.caoac.ca/news.htmlApril’s Jar Show competition is Catfish and AOV. Catfish is avery popular fish with our club so let’s all try and fill Dave’stables up! I’m sure Zenin and Jonathan will have a few treatsfor us to see. Katie did a great job with the raffle table lastmonth but she could use a volunteer to roam amongst thegroup and sell more tickets. In March I was invited to visit theHamilton club (another great club) and present myphotography program for them. I’ve taken what Matt and I puttogether last year and tweaked it to show actual images of fishas they relate to a particular camera setting. Perhaps I’ll givethis revised talk our club again this year. Lastly, a quickreminder that our annual club elections are coming up nextmonth. KWAS is a solid club built on a core set of values thathas seen us grow over the past 50 years. There is always roomfor improvement and we’re always looking for the nextmember to step up and contribute at this level. Whether you arenew or a long term member, fresh thinking and ideas are one ofthe best ways to keep the club moving forward. That beingsaid, if you have any questions about stepping up and joiningthe team, please come to the head table and discuss them withus.See you at the meeting!Hello All.Phil MaznykInterim President (former VP), KWASFrom The Editors’ DeskWell, we did it. Cam imposed a strict deadline on all ourcontributors at the last BOD meting and with one tinyexception they all got their stuff in on time. That means thisissue can be in member’s hands a little earlier than normal.Hopefully this is the new normal.In relation to the stellar content we get here we wantedeveryone to know that it’s getting noticed around the world.We regularly get mentioned in the “exchange” write ups ofother clubs. Congratulations to everyone who writes, even ifyour articles don’t get mentioned by name every time.As an aside, mentions can sometimes even come with wordslike “hey, if they can do it so can we!” which makes us feel likerich-beggars when we ask for content. That said, we’ll still beg!Please write something, or even summarize your favouriteforum thread to share with the world! (see page 15).See you at the meeting,Cam Turner & Tanya MoroseNewsletter Editors, KWAS4