Our May Giant Auction was a packed house, with both salt and freshwater enthusiasts attending. We continue to fill the hall with over 100 members as we attract members from all forms of fish keeping. We had saltwater items, we had freshwater items and even pond items. I thank our staff for picking up donations all over the city — without them we would not thrive. We bring in more and more 50/50 from our members. It is nice to enjoy this hobby, and make a few bucks to support it. Reminder: we offer 50/50 on 10 bags only of livestock, for active members. We accept all donations, but we will not give 50/50 on anything but plants and fish.

 

 

Our membership continues to grow with new faces and also our long time members that have been with us for years. I have been with the club for 30 years, and love my time here.

June we welcome Page MacGregor to speak on Axolotls to close our year. Page gave a great presentation last time she addressed our club — I am sure she will again!

We still need to be out by 11:30, so we ask when the auction ends if you are not a board member, to exit promptly. We need to clean up and place everything back to where it was. We ask that you pickup around where you were your sitting, and throw all garbage out. NYA allows us use this great space, so we need to respect Education Hall, and keep it clean.

 

When bidding on items please keep your hand up if you are interested. Once your hand is down the auctioneer will move to the next bidder. This saves us time so we can get out before midnight.

We have a new format at NYA parking effective immediately. We are permitted to use the parking lot at NYA, with some new rules. The front gates will be open at 7:00 pm and close at 8:30 pm. anyone arriving after will have to find street parking. The gates will reopen at 10:30 to closing. If you have to leave before, please use street parking. Also anyone on foot will have to use the entrance on West 10th to the boardwalk. You must have your active membership card on you for entrance. If you don’t have one we will issue one free for the first time after we will charge $1 dollar for replacement. Please try to help us with the new rules, or we risk losing the parking lot.

I’ve noticed members opening boxes at the sales table. Please if you want to buy something, ask our sales person to show it to you. But if you have no intention of buying it, please don’t open anything. You would not do that in your local pet shop, so please don’t here. It is hard to get things back in their box; pieces go missing and waste our sales person’s time.

We are now taking entries for our t-shirt contest, so enter your drawings before August 22nd. Enter as many as you like. We will announce our winner at the September meeting. Send all entries to editor@basny.org Your design file should not exceed 10 mb and your image should be at least 1500px x 1500px.

Our photo contest is also still running — so enter your pictures! You can enter as often and as many as you like. As you know, taking good pictures of your fish is challenging, but showing off your tank is rewarding.

Let us know if you want speakers on a particular aquatic topic. We need our members to be more involved as we are always trying to improve our club. So let us know your ideas! Also consider lending a hand at the meetings. It takes a lot of hard work from our board members to put on an organized, informative and entertaining show every month. Anyone wishing to help out, we will gladly give you something to do.

Remember to visit our Facebook page where we feature items for sale from manufacturers, and donations.  We always have tanks and equipment for sale. If you are looking for something aquatic, please reach out to us. We probably have it in storage. We can’t bring everything to the meeting. Also if you have any aquatic related items you don’t need, we will always take them for our sales table.

Our publication, AquaticNews, is published twice a year: Winter/Spring and Summer/Fall. Any hobby or aquatic information you hear or read about, please share with our editor, Ginny Cahill. Please send all emails to Ginny at editor@basny.org. We are always looking for your input on our events and publications!

For more info, please call out hotline 718-837-4455.

Steven Matassa