[Killietalk] Top 10 things I learned from my 1st AKA convention: was The AKA Convention Fish Show

["Richard Pierce" <Dr_Plankton at att_net>]

1.  The Germans and other Europeans are better than us because they have
bigger shows.

2.  Even though the host clubs had trouble dealing with, judging and
auctioning <300 show entries, we are all a bunch of stingy bastards for not
entering twice as many fish.

3.  Enter your best fish into the show, but don't be surprised if the judges
give them a cursory glance and award them 75 points.  No feedback on why
your fish didn't score well, as the judging criteria and point assignments
are explained in excrucuating detail in the Beginner's Guide and on the AKA
web site!

4.  If you are lucky, there will be a sales room, but don't try to get even
half of what they will sell for at auction you greedy bastard!  The
individuals who raise the fish aren't supposed to profit, only the AKA and
host Club can profit.

5.  Its fair for a pair of fish to sell for $100 at auction but at $25 in
the sale room you are price gouging!

6.  It is against the AKA Code of Ethics to sell your fish on Aquabid or to
your LFS.  The only approved venues are donations to the show & auction and
the Fish & Egg listing in the BNL.  Any other means might put killifish in
the hands of non AKA members.

7.  The show results and fish auction list will be made available just
before the auction starts.  You wouldn't want to have it while the show room
is still open.

8.  The above mentioned list doesn't really matter as the fish will be
auctioned in random order.  Trying to figure out if the fish up for auction
is one on your list is part of the fun!

9.  The auction format is Dutch style, unless the fish aren't getting a high
enough price, then anyone is urged to jump in late.  After all, the AKA's
profits are at stake.

10.  There are a lot of damn fine people in the AKA, even if we are all
pikers, and I think I had dinner with many of them on Sunday Night.


Sarcasm aside,  I find the attitude that you shouldn't profit from killies
to be troubling.  The money I spent at the sale came from fish I sold at the
sale with a little left over for the auction.  I had 3 people approach me,
thanking me for fish I put in the sale.  It was very gratifying to meet with
and talk to these people.  I felt like I had contributed someting to the
hobby by getting fish into the hands of people who appreciated them.  The
money I spent at the auction came from money I made selling fish on Aquabid
and to a LFS, as well as our club auction.  This is a hobby to most of us
and may of us have limited budgets to spend on hobbies.  Money I make
selling fish lets me be much more free when buying fish.  Hell, I can even
afford to buy wild fish some times!

Regarding the show:  It was a difficult decision for me to give up some of
the fish I entered into the show.  These are not just any fish, but what I
judged to be the best fish I had.  A few were still young, but I had been
told that future breeding potential also counted.  Several pairs were at
their prime breeding age and condition.  They would have given me many more
pairs of offspring (which I could have sold on Aquabid ;-}).  Many of these
fish were given 75 points by the judges, which I take as a dismissal as
"adequate" and not worth even pointing.  This may be reality but came as a
slap in the face.  My best fish weren't even worth judging!  Of course there
is no feedback as to why.  How am I supposed to chose fish for future shows?
As best as I can tell it is a crap shoot!  Of course I was very happy to win
one 3rd place.  And I do prefer art to cash.  The art will hang on my wall
for years and will remind me of the great time I had in Rockville.

Best wishes,
Rich Pierce




-----Original Message-----
From: killietalk-bounces+dr_plankton=att_net at aka.org
[mailto:killietalk-bounces+dr_plankton=att_net at aka.org]On Behalf Of
Koran, David HQ02
Sent: Monday, June 06, 2005 10:23 AM
To: killietalk at aka_org
Subject: [Killietalk] RE: The AKA Convention Fish Show


Houston (Tampa, San Francisco, Milwaukee, Chicago, etc.) we have a problem,
a
big problem.  The problem is basically greed and avarice, nothing else.  You
pikers haven't a clue what shows are for anymore.  In the past 4 years I
have
attended 4 AKA Conventions, 3 DKG Conventions, 1 AKFB Convention, 2 West
Coast Weekends, 1 Northeast Weekend and 2 Killlie Revues and here are my
observations.  In the shows were fish are exhibited and given up for auction
without anything (repeat anything) going to the exhibitor European shows are
well supported and the oldest killifish organization, the AKA, sees
continually diminishing numbers.  In the last two years despite the killer
heat wave of 2003 (few homes in northern Europe have air conditioning) and
losses of breeding stock was high, instead of a decrease in the number of
entries in the shows (2004 AKFB & 2004 DKG), the numbers remained the same
or
actually increased.  There were 421 entries in the AKFB show and 650+ in the
DKG show.  The membership of the DKG is about the same as that of the AKA
but
the membership in the AKFB is less than 100 members.  Obviously support for
the AKFB comes from other European associations but part of that is
reciprocation from AKFB members participating in the shows of those
organizations.  This year the 2005 DKG show had over 560 entries.  The
numbers for the 2002 and 2003 shows were in the 400-500+ range as well.
Contrast those numbers with that which we experienced in the last two AKA
shows, less than 300 in both cases!

What is even more troubling is to look at the balance sheet.  Not all fish
are entered for "competition" in the AKA's show.  There are long time
members
who see contributing one or several pairs to the show as giving something
back to the AKA realizing the fish they give up most probably are not going
to win any awards.  Then there is the other portion which is contested.  I
would also think that these numbers might be down if it were not for KEY
competition but that is a tough number to evaluate.  I believe when we
finish
the final accounting I think we should have a "take" for the auction of
slightly less than $10,000.  However, if we break this down I fear that the
"show fish" income will be less than half of this total.  Now consider that
the price tag for judging and awarding prizes for those show fish was about
$4000 (it could have been this bad except the club sponsors of the
Convention
still covered the cost of 2nd and 3rd places).  That disturbing number says
that the AKA made virtually nothing on its annual show and only a couple of
thousand on the N&RSC fish.

The picture doesn't get much rosier if you look at the participation in
"regional events/mini-conventions".  Most of these shows have participation
of about 100 or so entries outside of "acquired fish", i.e., fish brought in
by the speaker or a special shipment or purchase by the host club.  Add to
this that there is sometimes grousing that the fish put up for auction are
not returning enough of the "split" to the seller even though there is
usually a large crowd for the auctions so higher prices are generated.  In
some cases where the foolish club allows box sales the day before their
auction, sellers try to "gouge" attendees with their stock at inflated
prices
and not return anything to the club hosting the event.

So I guess my question is whether or not this is still a hobby or a
business,
especially to those non-exhibitors out there with those fish for Aqua-Bid.
Thankfully I met with many of the hobbyists we still have left in Rockville
last weekend, a lot of "old-timers" who are getting fewer and fewer.  I hope
this disturbing trend gets reversed because unless you cultivate a younger,
more altruistic and sharing member, you "money-grubbing" complainers will be
left with trying to sell your "money killies" to the Pets-Mart's and PetCo's
of the world and see if they will give you more than a buck a fish!

PO'd in DC,

Dave Koran

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To join the AKA see http://aka.org/modules/tinycontent0/index.php?id=9
Archives are at http://fins.actwin.com/killietalk/