The good old Day's

[pasofino]

Some one in my last post reminded me about the good old day's with Importers/ breeders such as Wattley, gwennbrook farms, sherdian Bay, Discus Haven, dale jordan up in winnepeg.
I remember 15 years ago going to an ACA convention in florida and being part of the first Discus study Group, Jack Wattley spoke at that one.
Then a year later we had a big convention in New york with a variety of speakers from all over the world. Then there was one in baltimore with a big cook out at peter thodes house, i unfortunatly missed that one. :(
Then the last one was in chicago and since then every thing seem to died. Except for NADS put on a show or two recently.
There are still people in new york that are still pissed off at the Discus study group, something about missing funds. I still have all my old DSG news letters. I remember being in new york that year pursueing my second wife at the auction.
And Ed Santacruz bought a huge discus brought from overseas, this fish was 10" long from the tip of the nose to the base of the tail, it was at least 1" of solid fish across the nose. I think he paid 300 for it.Ed didn't ever get this huge fish to breed though. What a great compitition between East and West breeders.
Ken reeves put on a great seminar with microscopes and brought in discus and angels that were sick from a locale store,we disected them to find parasites, it was great.
I visited alot of breeders/importers in the usa back then some good/some bad it was alot of fun. ;D

So here's my question that i would like to post, since ther are so many discus lovers out there in the usa or maybe there isn't.

Why hasn't a new national club been formed, with news letters and possible discus shows, that haven't been organized in the usa in over 10 years?

Maybe every one in this country is as arrogant as are soon to be thrown out jesse ventura (Gov. of Minnesota) with the slogan of (My governor can beat up your govenor) but replace it with my discus are better than your discus attitude. Its all me me me IIIII.

I believe everyone has some thing to offer, weather into fish, horses, dogs or what ever your into.
But time and time again i join these groups that are into animals and they set up clubs, then the politics and the clicky groups start with in the group , before you know it everyone is against everyone else in the club, and they really don't care about what started to be a great get together to learn about animals.

I guess those day's are gone for good i don't think that there is enough interest in the usa anymore to have a get together and show and tell about this King of the aquarium
Hobby any more.

We'll i guess i stuck my foot in my mouth again, i'm not going to make anybody happy to see me in this forum.
Take care and if your not a slave to your animals, take up video games. You can learn so much more that way.

Ahh the good old day's, i must be getting to old and a bit of a scruge/crumudgin, i opolagize again. ( I'm taking your feed back with a grain of salt, so don't take this so serious)

Happy holidays to all who i've met over the years that are in this forum, give your animals a big treat over the holidays.
We'll see you in february.
See ya bye!

Those do sound like good days. I think the communication available via the internet has made the need to meet less vital and as a result we make do with this form of meeting instead. Digital cameras have their role too. It certainly saves money but doesn't compare with face-to-face meeting and the camaraderie that comes from that. Many of us are still travelling to meet the others but on a much smaller & less organized scale. It usually revolves around our desire to buy some more fish rather then an exchange of ideas.

Dave

[mench]

Well I will jump onto the bandwagon...I agree with you Paul ( hope that is your name) it would be nice to have a North American,or whatever ya want to call it,Discus club.I really don't think that it would be that hard to set up,Yea easy for me to say....The biggest thing is to have a core group of people to help run it and the biggest things ya need is not to have so many rules that everybody is fighting all the time...oh yea another thing .people have to check thier egos and thin skin at the door...
I have been toying with the idea of maybe starting a small discus club around my city,maybe we could get some people from Buffalo,Canada etc.
I know that just talking to some people in my city,that there are a lot more discus keepers than I thought,so if I expand the area ro say 75 miles all around,I would guess we would have a pretty strong club.Himmmm the more I think about this the more I think I am going to try it...All ya have to do is start out easy,put an add in some of the local papers,word of mouth,and post on the boards...Have a starter meeting,my house???,find out what people are looking to get out of a club,keep the meetings to maybe every 3 or 4 months to start,then see where it goes or if there is even any intrest...then build from there.I think a lot of people can benfit from a club,lots of shared info,maybe a little fish trading etc,etc.
Dam,I am getting excited just talking about...Time to toss the idea around to some of my fish buds in the area....Maybe someone will carry the idea further and restart the old Discus study group...Here's hoping....

Mench

Paul....

I will indeed be at you place in February, if not before. Not only to see and hear what you have to teach about Discus, but for a long time childhood love of the most beautiful animal on this planet.. "The Horse".....

I do hope to see you here again, please do not give up on Simply. I am sorry your beginning was a rough start, determination does pay..

Julz :(

[JeffreyRichard]

Actually, a group of us got together to discuss discus (play on words ... pretty good, huh?) ... check out the treads on the Northeast Discus Meeting.

One of the topics we discussed was the idea of a society. We agreed that we'd meet again I think in the spring and then maybe again in the summer.

What we did was quite informal ... by intention. Much of the legwork was done by Al Sabetta ... we were extremely lucky to have an enthusiastic coordinator. BUT, we all agreed (I think ... someone correct me if I'm wrong) that we wanted to keep this low-keyed ... at least compared with DSG of the past.

I attended the DSG Symposium in Tampa (1995, I recall), and it was great! I'd love to see an organization put together where similar events can be run. The problem comes in when politics and personal agendas get in the way. Best I can figure, the DSG fell apart because too many people wanted to be in charge, it got too big, and there were too many agendas. Heck, you dont have to spend very long on ANY web board to see the degree of "opinions" permeating the subject of discus (or guppies, bettas, angelfish, reefs, ...).

That said, I do think that an organization can be established to promote the concept of live symposiums/shows/meetings. I haven't figured out all the details yet, but the concept would be :
local/regional groups set up to run autonomously ... meeting regularly (quarterly/semi annually). The core of the organization would be the local groups, not a national group. Local Government vs Federal Government (I morphing into a Republican as I type ... must be my tax bracket) periodic "national" event run in conjunction with some other event (ACA?) modest goals, simple organization, small budget
If an organization can be run modestly by modest officers, this can succeed. But you'd have to check your ego at the door ...

Just my $.02 ($1.38 Canadian).
Jeff Richard

[JeffreyRichard]

Factoid of the day ... $1.38 in Rhode Island-ese is said "a buck tree-eighty"

Factoid #2 - For all use west of da Mississippi, Rhode Island is a State, not paht of New Yawk

[Don_Lee]

Paul,

Thanks for the post, it was great to read of the beginning of discus fever in the USA. I hope that an organization is formed someday, it would be great to have one discus organization for the world! I would love to have some way of communicating with discus hobbyists from all over the world, and I would think that regional get togethers could be an offshoot of the same. On a similiar note, I would love to see DiskusBrief be available worldwide.

Don ;D

it's fuuny, I just replied to another thread on the same topic here.

I can't belive discus are so dead that a decent club couldn't be formed. while an ambitious goal, it certainly seems a feasble goal to attain.

[Denny]

geez,

and now you are stuck with us every few months ;D



denny

[Willie]

We got off to a pretty decent start at the last ACA in NJ. We had Cary & Joe & Danny & Jack in the same room talking discus, with a lot of Simply Discus types hanging on their every word.

I do agree, Paul, that there may well be enough interest for a national meeting. Nothing so formal as ACA, but this forum has generated absolutely incredible interest. The local club meetings inspired by the forum have been absolute blasts. We need to organize something near one of the major hatcheries. I'd certain travel to get there and I think many of us would do so as well.

Willie

Hey Willie, dont you mean the last years ACA in GA...... ;D ;D ;D
This year looks to be even better!!!!!!!!!


Randy