Happy New Year to all our fellow Cichlidiots!  I apologize for the length of this note, but we have some exciting things we want to share with everyone.

 

First, our meeting in February has been moved to Friday, February 21^st.  Our normal meeting date happens to fall on Valentine’s Day (you’ve been warned!), and we do not want to be involved in any relational strife!  Our speaker for this meeting is none other than Pam Chin!  If you’re not familiar with her, you should be!  Pam is an Honorary Life Member of the Pacific Coast Cichlid Association (PCCA) and past editor of the PCCA’s award winning publication; Cichlidae Communique. She has been a long time member of the American Cichlid Association.  In the past she has served as Secretary and Chairman for the Board of Trustees and was recently named an ACA fellow, the highest honor the American Cichlid Association gives to members for their support of this national organization.  Pam is an avid writer her cichlid articles and her “Ask Pam” column have been published in the Buntbarsche Bulletin, Cichlid News and aquarium societies from Australia to Sweden. She has received numerous writing awards from the ACA and FAAS, including “Best Continuing Column” and “Author of the Year.”  Pam is a founding member of “Babes In The Cichlid Hobby” where they try to make a difference in cichlid keeping, by raising money (Near $110,000.00 to date) for cichlid research and cichlid conservation.  Pam loves to travel with cichlid friends to fish events across North America. These friendships have led to expeditions and opportunities to visit fascinating places like Lake Malawi, Lake Tanganyika, South America & Mexico to observe cichlids in their natural habitats.

 

Second, we are going to try something new this year.  We are expanding our Bowl Shows to allow for a Virtual Bowl Show.  You can still bring your fish in to the meeting to show off, but we are now allowing members to send in short videos of the fish for that month’s categories.  It was felt that bringing in fish can be exceedingly stressful to the fish, as well as the difficulties many of us have in getting home from work, catching the fish and getting them ready to bring in to the meeting.  We want to see your fish, so this is your opportunity to show off!  Videos can be up to a minute in length, should show both sides of the fish, and must be taken since the last meeting.  No editing is allowed except the length of the video.  Entries will be sent to RockyMountainCichlidAssn@gmail.com by midnight Thursday before the meeting.  This will give us time to put the entries together in a slide show that we will show at the beginning of the meeting, and another slide show with the winners at the end.  All other Bowl Show Rules still apply.

 

Third, we are going to be making every effort to start the meetings on time at 7:00.  Again, we recognize the difficulties in getting off work and getting to the meetings, so the first 30 minutes (approximately) will be used for announcements, showing the Bowl Show video, and another new idea we are rolling out this year that I’ll discuss in a bit.  The speaker will start at 7:30.

 

Dues were increased this year to $20 annually, due in January.  Dues won’t be prorated for the year.  Membership gives you a greater percentage (80%) when you sell at the auctions or mini-auctions, allows you to participate in our growth contests, and allows you to participate in the door prizes at our meetings.

 

Growth Contest – We will be having a growth contest fish available at the February meeting.  It will be a Tanganyikan fish, so you can get your tanks ready!

 

Finally, we’re going to do something else new.  We want to start doing virtual fish room tours!  (Seeing a theme?  We WANT to see your fish!)  We’d like to show your video taking us around your fish room and talking about it.  What’s the coolest thing you have?  Some great fish?  A water system?  Automated controls?  Chameleons that live in your fish room?  This is another opportunity to brag about your hard work!   We’ll show your video at the beginning of the meetings.  Send these videos to the RockyMountainCichlidAssn@gmail.com email address too.   Who’s going to show off their fishroom first?

 

I look forward to seeing you at the meeting!