We staffed a booth at the annual customer appreciation day held at Hoshi Koi on Saturday, June 15^th.  We were able to provide useful information to current and prospective pond and Koi keepers and we distributed promotional information for the upcoming convention.   

Once again we staffed a booth at the Puyallup Spring Fair held at the Western Washington Fair Grounds in Puyallup, Washington from April 11 - 14, 2013.  Our long term participation in 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 good attendance with over 100,000 guests over the 4 day run.  Tens of thousands of visitors passed by the booth and hundreds stopped by see the display Koi, 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 the upcoming annual PNKCA convention as well as other aspects of the hobby, including club and PNKCA membership.  We obtained contact information for about 25 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.

The Inland Empire Water Garden & Koi Society was invited to be special guests at the “Swimming in Flowers” Flower Show at Spokane Community College in 2013.  We were invited because of the theme.  The theme was played out with a large display of floral arrangements of Koi.  We had our booth directly across from this display. 

Our participation included having an information booth, large posters of award winning koi from Japan, a coloring table for the young and young at heart, a small tank with baby koi, informational pamphlets and volunteers ready to give answers on our club, ponds of all kinds, koi and goldfish, our upcoming pond tour, and where to get water plants – at the Garden Expo at our club’s booth! 

Thank you so much to our volunteers:  Linda Seifert, Frank Rehn, and Diana Lynn Rehn. 

The flower show was put on by SCC’s Horticultural program to earn money for the agricultural and horticultural students’ travel expenses to state and national competitions.  This was an upscale, quality event to showcase local florists, garden centers, landscape architects, artists, and various other vendors.  This Show is similar to the Garden Expo, but with approximately 90 vendors focusing more on floral and floral arranging, and incorporating floral into landscape.

Each year this event grows.  There weren’t as many vendors as The Garden Expo, which has over 300, but this year there was quite a crowd.  Some of the vendors there had a wide variety of spring-blooming plants which were a welcome sight after such a long winter.  Lots of garden art and other attractions were available.

The show this year started at 9 a.m. and ended at 5:00 p.m.  We were requested to stay until the end so anyone who decided to come late in the afternoon would still have vendors to see.  We enjoyed talking to those that stopped by and coloring with the young ones. 

The presentation room had floral arrangements done by the students, which were absolutely gorgeous (along with vendors). The floral arrangements were judged.  The arrangements were varied in textures and colors.  So beautiful to see as it was cold and wet outside. 

All in all, it was a very pleasant day, with many people stopping by asking about our club and ponds in general.  Next year the SCC Flower Show will be held on April 12, 2014.  This event is Free and the parking is Free.  Keep it in mind when you want to  pick up some of those first –blooming plants of the year!

This June, a small team of WK&WGS members staged an outreach event at Sky Nursery.  The early reports are quite encouraging, as members handed out numerous membership flyers along with copious tips, references, magazines and the occasional condolences.

Following an identical outreach event at Sky Nursery last Fall, we realized that a Spring date would be the key to reaching larger numbers of people.  Joe Abken, Sky Nursery’s General Manager, was very receptive to our return visit, and offered a range of suitable dates.  Once the June 1st date was set, members started to pitch in.  Don and Lorie Lyman offered a selection of their koi for display.  The set-up team convened on Friday night, and after Ted Baughman, Lucy MacNeil and Nancy Moore collected supplies from the storeroom, they met with Elizabeth Good and Don Lyman at Sky Nursery to prepare the site, fill the tank and decorate the booth.  Saturday morning started at Don and Lorie Lyman’s house, when Nic Damon of Pan Intercorp selected, netted and bagged five beautiful fish.  Meanwhile, over at Sky Nursery, Helena Hileman entertained the numerous earlybirds clamoring to see koi.  From the moment fish arrived, all of the volunteers found themselves in conversations with multiple onlookers. 

A big shout-out thank you is owed to Bill Tullis, who dropped everything to bring his personal air pump over on short notice!  Dan Forkan, Bob Sowell and Barb Sundgren continued the outreach event throughout the afternoon, before Chris Charbonneau and Elizabeth Good joined Ted in bagging fish, breaking down the tank and cleaning the site.

Thank you to everyone involved in a very successful event.  It was great to see the big billboard out front promoting the WK&WGS, and even more fun to see peoples faces light up at the sight of big, beautiful koi. 

Cascade Koi & Goldfish Club’s Display at the Portland Spring Home & Garden Show, Feb 20-24, 2013.

Gees, did we have a time of it at this show!  The show was almost completely ‘home’ and very little ‘garden’ which was very disappointing to us garden types, but, in another way, it prevented us from spending too much on plants we could probably do without!

The club spruced up the display a bit this year; new tablecloths and some pretty fish flags.  The crowd was still confused what we were about, but those of us with good lungs and a willing attitude soon reeled them into the booth promising to answer all their pond and fishy questions…and did we ever.  As usual the main topics were water clarity (not quality – amazing how people focus on the visual and ignore the mandatory), filtration issues and predation. 

There were some very lucky ponds that were fed and maintained by localized streams, never really needing water changes since they happened naturally.  But one, poor man, was unlucky enough to have his large pond situated in bovine country and apparently their ‘stream’ and well water were very high in nitrogen.  Top that off with happy spawning fish and he had over 100 fish (a guess on his part) surviving in an approximately 13,000 to 14,000 gallon, pea soup green pond and unfortunately gasping for air.  The good and the bad all rolled into one.  We spoke with him for a long time. 

We all had fun, some of us getting away with just one or two plants, some with silly yard art.  That’s the way it goes…