Big thanks to Christine, Shawn, Jon and Manuel as mentioned above. Christine essentially took on a second job over the past few months contacting sponsors, soliciting donations, designing and maintaining the website, putting together promotional materials, running the social media campaign, as well as a laundry list of other tasks, it was greatly appreciated. Manuel was our hotel liason and handled all contract negotiations and any other location based logistics, transported supplies to and from the event, including the auctions racks and handled the expenses of the event, which ended up being significant. Shawn was a great MC if you have thick skin, but is always a great ambassador for the club, handled all of the affairs regarding the speakers, and made sure all activities ran smoothly. Jon is always a great resource, overseeing logistics for things such as water for the vendors, AB tanks, and auction tanks, helping out with everything raffle related, arrangement of the Sunday Marketplace, auction logistics and oversight, and is always around when you need something.
There were a ton of other people helping too, and I greatly appreciate everyone that pitched in. I'm going to thank a few, but I apologize for the people I miss, as I never have the opportunity to stop and keep track of everyone, I'm generally running around at all times besides the auction. Thanks to Charnika
LiluDallas
and her Mom Lisa
L
lisa walker
, they did a great job helping track the donations for the auction, distributing group buy fish, front desk assistance, and many other areas. I always saw them around, and I know they helped with several other tasks, so in reward we added more responsibility in planning next year's event!
Big thanks to Becca
Becca
, Greg
Tangcollector
and Charnika
LiluDallas
for helping with contacting vendors and sponsors, your hard work was evident in the awesome selection of items we had for the raffle and fish auction, I think both were the biggest we've ever had, and the quality was top notch.
Andrew
Andrewtfw
is always a huge help, and generally has his hand in a little bit of everything, I know he pitched in from setup to teardown and was always around to help with anything needed. Matt
FishEggs
is another unsung hero, who pitched in with a little bit of everything, between setting up 2 large tanks for AB. The front desk was well staffed, I saw Cory
CSnyder00
, Walter
Z
zendog
, Reed
Reed
, Mark
MarkK
and a few others, I'm sorry for those I missed, I passed by the table many times but didn't always note who was there.
Big thanks to Rachel
msjinkzd
and Jen
DonkeyFish
for their time and effort in the Aquascaping demo, a fun activity and another source of revenue. Big thanks to Rachel for moderating the speaker panel as well, and her daughter Clelia spent a significant amount of time helping at the front desk.
Thanks to Becca for coordinating the Kid's Decorating Contest, and directing/helping the kids throughout the process, thats one of the least enviable jobs in my opinion. Thanks to Josh
JLW
for donating fish being used for the tanks. I know there must've been several other people helping out with the contest, I do appreciate anyone that helped, but I turn the other way when I see a bunch of kids in a crowded area getting excitable. Its one of the events I love having the club put on though, its important to start encouraging the next generation of fish keepers.
Thanks to everyone who helped bag fish for the auction, run fish in the auction, register people for the auction, check out people for the auction... Thanks to Jim
guarddog5
for running MGA for sales and for helping with bagging and recruiting his girlfriend Donna, Christine for running the screen for display purposes, as well as registration and checkout. Charnika and Lisa were around for registrations and checkout as well. I know Shawn and Andrew among a few others were helping with the bagging, it was our most efficient year, and got it done in record time, allowing for time to get some dinner and relax before the craziness restarted. It was fun to see some young kids excited to run bags for the auction, and they did a great job. Abby
xny89
was there to provide some muscle. I think a lot of people enjoyed the speakers announcing the lots and providing some details, big thanks to Mike Mull for his auctioneering.
Thanks to the local clubs (PVAS, GWAPA, ACLC, CCY, JRAS, and others) who helped sponsor events, or AB Contest classes, speakers etc. Your support is always appreciated, and we love having you guys attend our events, and we look forward to returning the favor when possible.
Thanks to everyone who attended, we hope you had a good time, its a lot of hard work, but we take it on so that everyone can enjoy a fun-filled weekend of fish-related events. Thanks to the vendors who donated fish and brought great stuff for sale, to the speakers for flying in and giving us their time and expertise, to all of the people and companies that donated towards the event, and the hotel staff for putting up with water everywhere and making sure everything was organized and running smoothly.
Again, too much to be thankful for that I'm sure I missed people, but any help was appreciated and we look forward to more volunteers in the future. CCA's success is built on the effort of it's members, so the only way to continue to be successful is for everyone to pitch in where they can.
