MAY May Musings CLUB ORGANIZATION. Larry Templeton

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1 MAY 2009 CLUB ORGANIZATION President Vice President Secretary Treasurer Board of Directors Meeting Coordinator , newsletter Web site master Audio visual Pond Tour, Holiday party Dealer Relations Speakers Librarian Club Reporter Membership Refreshments Club equipment Koi Health Advisor Julaine Mullaney (408) Terry Denevan Cal Hansen Eduardo Massa Ken Snarr Terry Denevan (408) (650) Rita Hughes (408) Cal Hansen (408) Bill Mundy Cal Hansen Marifran & Bill Mundy (408) Ken Snarr (650) Sanjiv Kapoor (408) AKCA Representative Art Director Emergency Pond Services Meeting notes Mike Perret (408) Ken Snarr Charity Lloyd (408) May Musings The Cherry Blossom Festival is behind us and the big issue now is preparing for the 18th Annual Pond tour scheduled for Saturday, July 18. This is always a big job and we are extremely dependent on our membership for volunteers to take responsibility for various jobs. A successful pond tour is essential for the continued health and welfare of the Club. The big news this month is the much-anticipated presence of Mamoru and Taro Kodama at our May General Meeting on Friday, May 18th. Please see p.5 of this issue for more info on their operation. In addition to discussing the selection of champion koi and the Kodama Koi Farm grow- out operations, Mamoru Kodama will judge the entries in the sanke and showa tosai grow- out contest organized a year ago by Mike Perret. We re extremely fortunate to have such a distinguished koi expert to evaluate the entries. On Saturday, May 16th, Sanjiv Kapoor will escort the Kodamas on a private tour of five local ponds hosted by Sanjiv, John & Rita Hughes, Bill & Marifran Mundy, Terry & Carole Denevan and Ken & Barbara Snarr. The tour will culminate in a pond social at Cynthia & s (495 Cuesta Drive, Los Altos) beginning at 2pm and ending at 5pm. All members are invited to join in the fun and take the opportunity to socialize with the Kodamas. The Club Board of Directors held a special planning meeting the evening of Thursday, May 7 to discuss the distribution of tasks among our volunteers. We urge you to volunteer to participate in at least one of the following activities (see also p.3 Board Meetings ) Publicity: Preparation of writeups, placement with garden and pond clubs, nurseries, magazines, newspapers, etc. Printed material: Production and placement of flyers, posters, information cards, etc at businesses throughout the area. Postcards & Updating and regular mail lists, printing, addressing and stamping the postcards. Pond tour booklets: Photographing and gathering data for the 6 tour ponds, preparation and printing of the booklets. Tour Day Operations: It takes 52 volunteers just to run the tour sites. This is a fun job where you meet many interesting guests and potential members. Please come to the May meeting ready to sign up for a shift or contact Rita Hughes at rita_hughes_1@hotmail.com or to volunteer. We need you! We want you!

2 Meetings & Events Monthly Club Meetings 7:30pm on the third Friday of each month in the American Legion Hall, 1504 Minnesota Ave, San Jose May General Meeting Friday, May 15, 7:30pm Speaker: Mamoru and Taro Kodama will speak to us on growing champion koi. The Kodamas are world-renowned grower of fine koi and operate one of the world s largest growout facilities. Pond Q&A as usual Refreshments by Marifran & Bill Mundy. We all look foward to their special intermission goodies. Attendance drawing prize Richard Holden s name was drawn at the April meeting but he wasn t present to collect. The May prize will be $140. Board of Directors Meeting The May board meeting was held on Thursday, May 7. The non-standard date was selected so we d have more time for Pond Tour Planning. Club Activities Our Club provides a wide variety of experiences, some to help people learn about designing, building and maintaining Koi and ponds, some to bring in new members, and some for just plain social enjoyment. For example: Monthly meetings with speakers, Q&A and refreshments Annual Pond Tour Pond Socials in the summer Holiday party A library of pond-related videos Representation with the Associated Koi Clubs of America Booths at events such as the Cherry Blossom Festival and several Home & Garden Shows. Many of these activities are effective at bringing in new members, which is essential for the continuing existence of the club. Cherry Blossom Festival With thanks to volunteers Ken Snarr, Terry Denevan Bill & Marifran Mundy, Charity Lloyd, Bill Stoye, Carol & Rob Nelson and Cynthia &, the Club s display at the 2009 CBF was a real success. The weather was gorgeous and the visitors, as usual, were enchanted by Ken s live koi display. We passed out scads of pond tour flyers, brochures and information cards. The crowds might have been a bit thinner than in past years, but everyone seemed to enjoy the show.

3 April General Monthly Meeting Q&A In response to a question, Mike Perret noted that we re not ready yet for full feeding because filters can t process a full load until the water temperature is degrees or higher. Mike sez, When you feed the fish, you re feeding the filter. It has to be ready. Speaker - Steve Iwaki Steve gave a fascinating talk on the art and science of Bonsai. He exhibited a number of fine examples of Bonsai and showed slides of many more. April & May Board of Directors Meetings The main topic of both meetings was planning for the Pond Tour in July. The biggest issue is publicity. Without it, we won t get the attendance we need. As always, we will focus on magazines, newspapers, local news outlets, garden clubs, pond clubs, koi-related businesses, etc. We need volunteers to help handle publicity for the Pond Tour. Wayne Kuhfahl will head up the on-line publicity placement charge. The six ponds have been selected - go to the Club web site for a complete list. Ken Snarr and will collect the pond info including photos, equipment lists and diagrams for the tour booklet. Larry will prepare the maps and do the booklet layout. Barbara Snarr will print the booklets. We need to line up all ads for the booklet by the May meeting. Ask every one you know to place a business-card size ad for $25. What a deal! Rita Hughes will lead the effort to recruit tour-day volunteers. We re asking all members to participate in placing flyers and info cards in prominent places such as stores, shopping malls, etc. Cal Hansen will be leading this effort. Get your materials from Cal at the May meeting. Get creative as to where to put them!

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5 Future Speakers May In May, we will have two most distinguished speakers. Mamoru Kodama is the President of Kodama Koi Farm, Inc. and a Director of Miyoshiike Co., Ltd, the parent company. The Kodama Koi company is one of the most respected and prestigious Koi dealers in the world and operates Koi grow-out farms in Menifee, California and Mililani, Hawaii. He will be accompanied by his son Taro Kodama who is Manager of the International Service Department. Mamoru-san is renowned in the industry for his abilities and accomplishments in selecting and growing champion Koi. He authored two books on selecting champion Koi that are considered bibles in the field. The Hawaii farm is one of the largest in the world. It has fifty 5,000 gallon quarantine tanks and seventy 37,500 gallon grow-out tanks. The Kodamas will speak at our regular Friday evening general meeting on May 15 and on Saturday, May 16, will be hosted by the Club on a private tour of 5 local ponds. Following the tour, Larry & Cynthia Templeton will host the Kodamas at the Club s May Pond Social. All members are encouraged to come and enjoy a very special afternoon with the Kodamas. June Our June speaker will be Anthony Quintero, the owner and operator of Koi Enterprises in Sacramento. Anthony has been a passionate koi enthusiast since childhood and is the operator of a thriving pond shop. The Koi Enterprise web site at About-Koi-Enterprise-c-210.html is very interesting and we urge you to check it out. Again, we owe Charity Lloyd a big thank you for making the arrangements. July As always, the July meeting will be devoted to last minute preparations for the Annual Pond Tour. All participants including pond owners, ticket takers and docents are asked to come to this meeting so that we will all be coordinated. August and beyond TBD. If you have an idea, please us at SCVKWG@gmail.com

6 Meet Our Members...Ken & Barbara Snarr Ken and Barbara Snarr are known to most members for their major contributions to shaping the club into the lively and vital organization it is today. They have been principal organizers of the annual Pond tour, various festivals and meeting programs and have done a huge amount of work to keep us going. Ken & Barbara live in Mountain View, and their home is nearly surrounded by two ponds a gorgeous Koi pond and a fine water garden. Both Ken and Barbara are sort of retired. Ken spent most of his career working in the electronics industry doing high purity piping for specialty gases and fluids. Ken formally retired in 1997 and he and Barbara turned their attention to doing the house and garden things they had long put off. First they put in a small water trickle feature in the garden...you can almost guess the rest. The next step was a 100 gal preformed puddle, followed by the addition of a waterfall. Eventually, the rose garden was moved to the front yard and the puddle grew into a 1,200 gal pond with a larger waterfall. This led to koi and eventually to a long-term friendship with Gregg Steed of Cherry Hill Koi & Watergarden. And having fast-growing koi led to a 5,000 gal pond, a larger waterfall and a koi-buying trip to Japan with Gregg. Over the years, Ken s collection of show fish has become quite spectacular. Ken began helping Gregg with various projects and found that his industrial plumbing skills and his new pond construction skills were in great demand. He also found that he deeply enjoyed the work. Eventually, Ken was designing and building entire ponds on his own. Thus began Ken & Barbara's Pond Service. Like the koi, the business grew quickly. And this, of course, necessitated another trip to Japan, this time with Barbara and with a 7- day extension to see more of this lovely country. Along the way, they discovered the SCVKWG and became active members. Barbara became club President in 2003 and Ken is a long-time major resource for helping members solve their pond problems. He has also given several highly informative presentations to our monthly meetings and recently joined the Board of Directors. Both Ken and Barbara enjoy travel and this led to the purchase of their traveling second home, a 35 ft RV witha rack on the back for Ken s ATV. The RV and ATV proved to be so much fun that they wanted to make more time available for enjoying them. Thus began the process of retiring again. Ken is now training others to take over the service end of the business and has cut back on pond building. This should pave the way for new and interesting RV adventures.

7 Treasurer s Report The club remains in good shape financially. As usual, most of our income is from the pond tour and memberships. Both income streams are predominately in July. The rest of the year, it s mostly outgo, and that mostly for rent on the meeting hall and printing and mailing expenses for the newsletter. April 9, 2009 through May 9,2009 Opening balance $5, Due to the pressures of pond tour preparations, the treasurer s report will be delayed until next month. In addition, the Club owns a CD with a value of $12, as of 1/5/2009. The CD was renewed on 2/5/09 for a period of 1 year at an interest rate of 2%. The next renewal date is 2/5/10 As always, our appreciation goes to Julaine Mullaney for all the hard work she puts in as Club Treasurer. Her reports are always accurate and easy to understand. Advertising Rates are for 11 issues (one year). All ads appear in both the newsletter and on our web site! Business card $35.00 Half page $ Quarter page $95.00 Full page $ If you place an ad in mid-year, your cost for that year will be prorated based on the number of months remaining until July 1. To place an ad, please send ad copy (.pdf or.jpg file or high quality printed form) to the or snail mail address below and we ll send you a bill. Membership Membership dues are $30.00 per year, payable on July 1. If you join in mid-year, your dues for the that year will be prorated at the rate of $2.50 per month to the next July 1 and $30.00 per year thereafter. To join, send your personal info (name, address, phone no. and address) either by or snail mail to one of the addresses shown below. Contact Us For details on either ads or membership, please scvkwg@gmail.com or come to one of our meetings. The latter is certainly preferred as we d like to get to know you! To contact us by mail, our address is: SCVKWG P.O. Box 9006 San Jose, CA 95157

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