[koicluboftheair]

Is there any organization within the koi community that works with koi clubs sharing with them standards for how to hold a successful meeting, show, pond tour, pursuing publicity, do community service and outreach, and demonstrating basic organizational standards for efficiently running internal club operations?

There seems to be a lot of potential for such an organization if there is not one already. Each club would appear to have to come up from scratch with their own standards and some may never accomplish the litany of requirements to optimize their potential, which in turns slows the growth of the hobby and could potentially jeopardize the hobby itself.

Can you imagine running your pond system like club members have to piece together good and bad info to run their clubs? Surely there would be a lot of dead koi in the proverbial pond (where the pond represents the club standards) if that were the case.

There is so much diversity in how clubs run, which of course is fun to examine, but again isn’t necessarily good for the hobby as a whole. Of course these are AKCA clubs I’m referring to. Large clubs do not appear to necessarily be better organized than smaller ones. And as everything appears to hinge on the interests of a few active volunteers in each club that have to take the reins and ramrod through some matters it doesn’t appear this can be easily changed.

Examples;
-How to do publicity: Is there a written standard?
-Producing a Koi Show: Is there an A to Z written standard?
-Publicity for all Club Events: Is there a written standard demonstrating how to manipulate the various media platforms (print, radio, television, Internet) to best benefit club and overall organization?

Surely there are many more examples, but those are a few.

I understand that AKCA clubs are considered "hobbyist" clubs, but it also seems this all goes on against a backdrop of bureaucratic legislation that views grass carp and other species that in some instances includes our ornamental carp a threat to broader U.S. interests. As policies adapt in Washington, D.C. and the various state capitals and World trade organizations it could be beneficial if the hobbyist clubs were better organized to maintain the hobby, but this would only seem possible with better organization.