WKWGS elected to do our public event at Sky Nursery on 145 th and Aurora in North Seattle. The nursery sells pond supplies and water plants, and sometimes have a koi pond that customers enjoy. It was being remodeled this season, so there were no fish to attract interest, so we sprung into action!

On October 6th, we set up an eight foot tank, and member Bill Tullis brought four of his lovely fish to display. We had eight club volunteers staffing our display between 10 and 4. Due to the October date, we elected to emphasize "winterizing your pond" related topics.

Our presence was a hit! Both experienced pond keepers and the newly interested came by to learn about their ponds and fish. We had the fish varieties poster, our show pamphlets (full of great information and we needed to use them up anyway!) and membership information for our club as part of our display.

We hope we recruited a few new members, but dozens left better informed.

Submitted by
Chris Charbonneau

The Puget Sound Koi Club had an excellent year for interacting with the public and promoting the hobby and our club.  We established and staffed informational booths at several events this year.  We found a new local vendor, the Pond Pad located in Puyallup, WA, and worked with them to put up and staff our booth at their grand opening the weekend of April 28th.  We also staffed a booth at the Customer Appreciation day held at Hoshi Koi on Saturday, May 5^th.  We were able to provide useful information to current and prospective pond and Koi keepers and even added a new member.   

Once again we staffed a booth at the Puyallup Spring Fair held at the Western Washington Fair Grounds in Puyallup, Washington from April 19 - 22, 2012.  Our long term attendance at the Fair has resulted in a prime booth location in the main exhibition hall.  We again shared our booth with Hoshi Koi, a local Koi and pond vendor that brings products and expertise for interested attendees.  This year’s Fair had excellent attendance with over 126,000 guests.  Tens of thousands of visitors passed by our booth and hundreds stopped by see the display of Koi, and gather information, and chat with the club members about all things Koi.

Puget Sound Koi Club members put in extraordinary effort and maintained a presence in the booth from opening till closing each day.  Many club members took turns and enjoyed discussing Koi keeping and water gardening with the hundreds of booth visitors.  We distributed promotional materials for our upcoming Koi show (in Aug) as well as other aspects of the hobby, including club and PNKCA membership.  We obtained contact information for about 40 guests for follow up and potential membership in the club.   

This event continues to be our best opportunity to interact with the community, promote the hobby to the public, and gain new members.  We look forward to continuing this event for many years.

On May 12, 2012,  the Inland Empire Water Garden & Koi Society participated in the Garden Expo.  This event is a huge event in the Spokane area each year.  It is held at the Spokane Community College the second Saturday of May each year.  Our Club has participated in this event for many years, including our 100-year old member (now 101 years old), Jim Elms!  He sells, and sells out every year, our water hyacinths! 

This year our President, Diana Lynn Rehn, was invited to speak at the Garden Expo.  Her presentation was on the differences between koi ponds and water gardens and how to make each. 

Her presentation was well-attended by over 30 people and lively.  She started with small water features, to bog gardens, to water gardens, and then presented on a pure koi pond without any plants and the equipment needed.  She drew different designs for each on a white-board and explained the different types of equipment, included bead filters, vortexes, pumps, ultra-violet lights, and both natural and chemical products that are available to be used in the pond.  She explained the flow of the pond and how to figure out how large of a pump a person would need. 

She talked briefly about the different types of plants available and the different types of goldfish that were hardy in our area.  She also told the audience of the different vendors that were available locally.

A question and answer session was made available at the end of the presentation with many people asking questions.

Hand-outs were given to all in attendance with information on the major considerations for any type of pond.  New members were given a copy of the AKCA Filters and Koi Health booklets, along with our club information.  

Children’s Day at Portland’s Japanese Garden

Portland’s Japanese Garden hosts a wonderful event for children each year to celebrate the two events in Japan honoring children, Boy’s Day and Girl’s Day. The event is always on the first weekend in May and this year it was on Saturday, May 5^th. Even though the day was cloudy and a bit chilly, the Northwest Koi and Goldfish Club members enjoyed the day talking to the children about koi. The members set up a display tank with several beautiful koi for the children to ask interesting questions about and we were certainly entertained by many of their fun questions; “How old are they?”, “Do they bite?”, “Do they have names?”, “Do you eat them?” , “How big do they get?”, “How long do they live?”, ‘Do they have teeth?”,  “Can they smell?”,  “Can I pet them?”, to name just a few.  Besides enjoying the fish and learning about them, the children also had fun folding origami koi that the club provided for them and reading about the koi in a pamphlet that the members handed out.

The children also participated in many other activities at the Garden including the koi kite parade, coloring koi flags, folding Japanese hats, and collecting the stamps around the garden. The children also enjoyed the thunderous demonstration from Portland’s Taiko Drummers, and many of them also had a chance to participate in playing the drums. As this early spring afternoon progressed the children enjoyed traditional Japanese storytelling and a tea ceremony.

It was also wonderful to see all the beautiful new koi that were introduced last year doing so well. There were a total of 18 koi introduced last year after the renovation to the koi pond and these koi are thriving in their healthier environment. The children and our members had a great time at the Japanese Garden and all of us look forward to doing this event again next year! The club really appreciates the grant money that PNKCA has approved for us this year, it helped to make our day at the Japanese Garden a very successful and fun event.

Submitted by:Linda Montgomery

Northwest Koi and Goldfish Club