[Killietalk] convention info/repeated

["Kray, Edd" <Edd_Kray at rf.doe.gov>]

Now that the system is working properly I have copied and am resending a
few post-convention messages that obviously did not make it through
yesterday. Ignore them if you saw them previously

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Greetings from Colorado.

This is Edd, back "downhill" from Breckenridge and in work for a short
while today (where I can hide and get a little rest).

THANKS TO ALL OF YOU who attended and made the show a big success.

Just a quick rundown for those of you who couldn't make it:

Yes: BIS was the belottii shown in Charles' photo.

 We can "crunch some numbers" tonight but it appears that the AKA will
do just fine based on this years proceeds. The auction $$ was just about
where it was last year (maybe 10% less). Thanks to Brian Perkins for his
"dynamite" selection of N&RSC fish which contributed greatly to this.

There were a couple of "firsts" at this convention: Most notably our
first (and likely last) annual convention snowball fight. After the
auction Sunday, the peat-spawner advocates challenged the mop-spawner
people to go-at-it out on the Coppertop deck. The 3 inches of snow from
Saturday night was still there for ammunition. I look forward to
someone's photo of this. I also need a photo of "the enforcer" at the
fish-sale.

I found the memberships help in bagging fish Saturday evening
incredible. I thought we were going to be up all night getting these
entries bagged. After the banquet I made a quick trip to the room to
drop something off and by the time I returned (barely 11PM) I walk in to
hear: "we're almost done". It was truly amazing.

Otherwise, I'm not going to start thanking people in this note. We don't
have enough space on several pages to list all the people who helped us
out on this. There is one who stands out though. She's about 5'2" with
red-hair and designed and operated the software that integrated the
ENTIRE show. Today I promise to cook dinner and do the dishes for her. I
also don't know what we would have done without without Sue and Thuan's
help from BAKA.

I will say thanks to the CKC folks who pulled this one off. I'll finally
admit that this was probably the smallest local group to ever attempt a
national convention. (You could count their numbers on the fingers of
two hands without even needing to go to your toes to get to the total)
Many of our members had never even SEEN a national show. Nevertheless,
they "did it" and got most of it right. I salute them.

At this point, I have two requests: 1) how about some photos of the show
on KT"? and 2) how about some advice on what to do with all those Moema
and rubrocaudata with which  so many of us came home?

Complete write-up to appear in the special convention JAKA in a month or
two, but if you have specific question today, send em' out here on KT.

One important aspect of this convention that I failed to mention in the
last post and that was not pre-announced because it was to be (and was)
a surprise is that:

The convention was dedicated to Roger Langton.

On Saturday evening we made this dedication and presented Roger with a
special painting of a A. batesii superimposed upon an image of the
country of Cameroon. This was a reminder of one of his first collecting
trips in which he collected the species and showed up at Peter Tirbak's
doorstep around 4 in the morning proudly holding a fish-bag of batesii
recently brought back from Africa.

We, at CKC, are very happy at having "inherited" Roger from BAKA when he
moved here some years back and we wished to show our, and the AKA's,
appreciation by means of this special dedication. 

Also, another first at the banquet/awards ceremony Saturday evening was
the presentation of the first ever George Maier Fund Grant. The award Of
$1000, went to Dr. Brian Watters for a future research project on
Nothobranchius. More details to follow on the AKA website. Roger, as
initiator and administrator of the GM Fund, was present to announce the
award.

Another convention first was the silent auction to benefit the GM fund.

The show results are posted on the AKA website. See

http://aka.org/convention/convention04/2004ShowResults.PDF

Fish entries were around 250 with another 40 or so entries in the
photo/art classes. There were few foreign entries and we need to take
responsibility for this as the AKA has not been very good at supporting
the shows of our friends overseas recently. We need a foreign shipments
coordinator who will rejuvenate this program. Only then will we start to
see the hundreds of foreign entries we used to get.



By the way Karl, it was announced by Peter that convention 2005 is going
to the Washington DC area.










To join the AKA see http://www.aka.org/pages/join.html
Archives are at http://fins.actwin.com/killietalk/