[koicluboftheair]

Koi Club Fiefdoms:

Yesterday I found that:
1) What Burt really meant regarding the difference between how the Japanese and AKCA judges determine the winners in shows.
2) After claiming the Southern Koi Association ZNA membership was by invitation only and further attempts by Rod, Mike, and others to dissuade me from this perception I had a Eureka moment upon finding a membership application on the main page of their website. Surprise! Surprise! Surprise! That makes me feel much better about SKA ZNA. I’ll try to spread the good news!

I’m hoping my concerns on the following can also be cleared up as were those two thoughs that I expressed here yesterday.

There were obviously two koi shows last weekend. The North Florida Koi Club had their 20th Anniversary Show with many high quality koi that showed south of Jacksonville, Florida. The Southern Koi Association ZNA also had their 1st Koi Show in Naples, Florida.

-Why was it necessary for these two shows to compete against one another on the same weekend and on the same message boards for attention? Having these two shows on the same weekend required that those same people that would typically work and show at both to pick and choose. Obviously vendors were put in a position of picking and choosing also. Plus, visitors were put in the situation of choosing between locations and flat out told here that the place to be was Naples if you want to see some of the best fish and here the best speakers. Just one weekend apart would have seemed to have been a much more cooperative approach, but of course SKA was created and is run by many well respected leaders in AKCA so there is probably a very good explanation.

-I understand at one point there was a miscommunication about dates, but the dates of both shows has otherwise been known for months. To me this seems to be something of a shot across the bow at clubs like North Florida that might not have gone along with the wishes of some running the old All Florida Koi & Pond Show (AFKAPS), which SKA and others reconstituted in the same location as the Central Florida Koi Show, which by the way is only a few months away from now in March 2007. The same folks that organized the SKA Show are running the Central Florida Show. I’m not a board member or part of any committees in the North Florida Club and infrequently attend meetings, but have friends and associates that worked tirelessly to pull off a good koi show. It seems obvious to me (and I’m willing to be corrected on my perceptions as with those matters yesterday) that the leaders of SKA, and the Central Florida Show, many who are highly respected AKCA leaders as well are doing such things for selfish reasons. I can appreciate the rationale to reorganize AFKAPS and have SKAs leaders running essentially the same show, but when SKA would seem to try and compete with a long standing Florida Koi Club with a standing tradition for that time frame that by the way is also scheduled to host the 2008 AKCA Seminar it just seems wrong. How much money has AKCA been making of recent on the seminars and how can that improve? Hopefully SKA won’t have an event the weekend of it in 2008, but of course they wouldn’t do that, but instead try to soften up the club a bit maybe?

-Obviously I’m not the only one noticing such circumstances as a few of the other message board members within the koi community are bringing up the same points. And it isn’t as if there are not others out here that can finance super shows that are willing to do battle over koi territory, but should the AKCA & ZNA leaderships divvy up territories like fiefdoms? There are far more people in the hobby than are members of either AKCA or ZNA organizations and perceptions such as mine are widespread and don’t require killing the messenger to improve the orgs, but suggest an honest discussion if possible of possible reforms or just tell me I’m crazy, tell all your friends and associates the same and hope that suffices as a band aide on the situation.