Dear Aquarist,

Our December Holiday Party closed out another calendar year at BAS with our annual holiday party at the Bridgeview Diner, and it went off very well. We handed out our awards and certificates for writing articles for our award winning publication Aquatica. We also won many awards from the Federation of American Aquarium Societies (FAAS). We celebrated the acknowledgement of our many sponsors and benefactors; without them we would not exist.

Come January 13, we will have Michael Barber kick off the new calendar year with his talk on “Tropical Fish Collecting & Wildlife Expeditions.” As always, we will meet on the second Friday of the month, and have free parking and refreshments. Doors open at 7:30 pm.

At our January event, we will be raffling off two tickets to the Kingsborough College play that runs between February and May, 2017.

The members voted for where they want to go for a club bus trip. We will be going to the Baltimore Aquarium on a Saturday in either April or May. We will also visit a couple of local fish stores on the return trip. However, we are still working on a price for the trip. Please let us know of your interest so we can investigate costs.

We continue to have several vacant slots for our Officers and Board members. The openings are 1st Vice President, Exchange Editor and Treasurer. Also there are several Board slots open. Having these positions unfilled creates a negative impact on what the club can do for our mem¬bers. As with any organization, less people means less gets done. This is your club and we are asking you to step up and help out. Vacancies in vital positions make a huge difference as to what we can provide to you, our members! Please help out. One thing that we must drop is our 50/50 for livestock at our April and November events since we do not have a Treasurer to coordinate.

Also, if you want to see different speakers and learn about different aquatic systems, fish, plants and marine life, please let me know. The elected officials of the Brooklyn Aquarium Society are here to serve YOU! Let us know what you want and why because it’s helpful to everyone. It is important that you visit and patronize our sponsors. It goes full circle: by helping them, they are also helping you as hobbyists and everyone is helping the Brooklyn Aquarium Society, so help us, help you!

For more info, please call our BAS Hotline at (718) 837-4455, or visit our modern website at www.brooklynaquariumsociety.org.

On a more personal note – any member who wants to attend a Board meeting, which are held at Education Hall of the New York Aquarium on the 1st Friday of the month, September through June, please notify me at (347) 277-4793 by the Tuesday before the meeting.

Steven Matassa
President