Catfish Convention a brief report from the edge.
For Hillstreamcatfish.com
For many years the UK
based Catfish Study Group has held its annual convention on a
Sunday, usually the third Sunday in February. These were just
one-day events with a convention dinner being held the evening
before, However; under the Chairmanship and inspired leadership of
Ian Fuller, the conventions have gained such popularity that it now
takes place over a full weekend, under one roof; and includes a
informal evening meal on the Friday, with a semi-formal banquet on
the Saturday evening. The convention it must be said really
commences with a loose gathering on a Friday afternoon at the
hotel, followed by a small shop tour and then back again to the
hotel complex for an informal evening meal, which in turn is
followed by a talk presented by the CSG itself. These Conventions
are events where catfish enthusiasts gather to moot certain
idea’s and listen to talks given by both academia and
aquarists on a wide range of catfish related subjects; with talks
and lectures in previous years being given by academics such as
Prof; Isbrücker, Prof; Armbruster and Dr Weitzman; and aquarists
such as Ian Fuller; Corydorasworld.com, Julian Dignal;
planetcatfish.com, Alan James; Scotcat.com and Lee Finley;
USA.
For this year’s
convention the CSG had invited six people to speak. The first
speaker being the groups own, long serving committee member, expert
show judge and fish sculptor extraordinaire, Brian Walsh; who after
the Friday evening meal; presented, the groups talk on the types
and functions of the various mouths and dentition of Catfishes. The
other convention speaker’s over the weekend were Dr Michael
Hardman, who presently resides in the Finnish archipelago, but who
was born quite near to the convention base of Wigan; in Preston and
who in his youth, was an active member of the group when it was
known as the N.A.C.G. Dr Hardiman gave a talk on the reproductive
behaviour of most catfishes. Dinyar Lalkaka and his son Rustam from
New York both gave individual and excellent talks, with Rustam
speaking on African catfishes on the Saturday and his father Dinyar
speaking on Asian catfishes on the Sunday. Dr Martin Taylor gave an
informative talk on phylogeny of corydoras catfish, and this
year’s non-catfish speaker was Mark Breeze; who gave everyone
a very informative insight in how he maintains and breeds Dwarf
cichlids. All these talks proved popular with the convention
audience and were often the basis of conversations that went long
into the night.
One thing that struck
me looking around the convention was that there were quite a few
people from over sea’s present, from afar as the USA to as
close as Denmark and Norway. Apart from the talks, on the Saturday
morning there were various ‘social workshops’ taking
place, which were on topics as varied as ‘live foods’
‘Diseases & parasites’ ‘water quality’
‘Fish photography’ and there were information stands
occupied by other specialists groups and societies, such as the
British Cichlid Association and the British Livebearers
Association; all of which proved to be well-liked by all that
attended.
However, one feels that
a sign of a good convention is when everybody partakes of a few
social beers in the evenings and the obligatory game of pool and
darts; and this years convention proved to be no exception as some
members managed to stay awake well past 3 am in the morning; on
both the Friday and Saturday nights.
Next
years convention will be held in March and not the usual February
for the first time. 2009 is a double anniversary for the Catfish
Study Group in that is will be ten years since the Northern Area
Catfish Group changed its name and became the Catfish Study Group
and it will also be thirty years since the Northern area catfish
group was formed. So knowing the Chairman as I do, Convention 2009
should prove to be an exceptional one, both in content and
attendee’s, I for one eagerly await March
2009.