Hello fish geeks! This is your new Club President, Jesse Schumacher and I am super psyched to take the helm. With interest rapidly growing in Denver, it is a great time to be in the hobby. There are more fish enthusiasts in Denver than we have seen in a long, long time. As a club, we want to capitalize on this growing interest and invite anyone and everyone to join our fun! To get a feel for what is new and exciting for the Rocky Mountain Cichlid Association, please read on!

1. Our outgoing President Terry Havelka has served as Prez for two years. He has done a lot for the club and I want to thank him for his dedication and service to the club. Thanks
2. A big thanks also goes out to Conway Stevens of Aquatic Support Systems and Aquatic Support Community for his time and energy at our January meeting. Conway’s showed us amazing pics of his New World predators, talked a bit about his companies, the monster fish he keeps and shared some of his vast knowledge of fish health and disease prevention. We will have Conway back in the future. Thanks( https://www.facebook.com/Aquaticsupportsystems/)
3. In an effort to attract new members and grow participation, we have officially moved our meeting time to the second Friday of every month at 7pm. Our next great meeting is February 12^th at Colorado Academy, where Sumer Tiwari will school us on the “ins & outs” of live foods. He will show us how to culture & maintain a multitude of live foods and provide a guideline for their different uses. He will also have many cultures available for purchase. Come join the fun and learn something that will definitely help you be more productive and prodigious in your fish rooms.
4. Our Spring Auction date & new location has been set: March 5, 2016, 10am start time at Colorado Academy, (3800 South Pierce St., Denver, CO 80123) All is setup at mygroupauction.com so get a jump on it and register the fish you plan to sell. Please email us with any questions. We will also discuss the auction details at our February meeting.
5. Our 2016 Speaker Series Calendar is a full line-up of 9 very talented and passionate experts in our hobby. We aim to bring in speakers from around the Country and World to teach us about a variety of current topics in the hobby. We also try to cover all of the genres of cichlids so nobody’s’ interests are left out. To give you a quick teaser for the upcoming year, we will have Ingo Sidell, one of the World’s foremost experts and authors of many types of plecos; Greg Steeves, an expert on Victorians, but will present a brand new topic, exploring his favorite river, the Comal River; Anthony Tu from Fontosa Factory has a new and exciting presentation on Keeping Frontosa; & Eric Bodrock, an expert on Cories and Plecos, but also a World traveler, will take us on a virtual tour of high-tech fish room around the World. These stellar presenters are merely 4 parts of a spectacular line-up of topics. Be on the lookout for our Speaker Series Calendar soon.

We have many more things in store for you this year, including 5 Growth Contests, awesome door prizes, bowl show auction dollars, mini-auction fish not yet seen in Denver, a spawning contest, our new website and much, much more! I look forward to leading this club into new dimensions of fishkeeping. We want you and anyone you know to be a part of our club. We hope to see you all at 7pm on February 12^th at Colorado Academy! Don’t miss the excitement!