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Birmingham Koi Show 2009

sponsored by PRESTWOOD PET ZONE  

“So who wants a show vat?” This was the question posed by club and show chairman Tom Nicklin at our June meeting.  We all know that when that question is asked it can mean only one thing, our annual closed show is just around the corner.

Birming and West Midlands Koi Club

So it proved to be.  Which is why Saturday 26th September at 7.00am saw us catching and bagging our koi to take to Highdown Nurseries, near Stourbridge.  The location for our 7th annual closed show. 

Benching got underway at 8.00am and under the guidance of Lyn Murray and Lee Dootson, the BKKS H.S.C., was completed by 11.30am, with a total of 104 koi entered in the following sizes and again justifying using only four size groups.:

 

Size 1 - 34 | Size 2 - 38 | Size 3 - 24 | Size 4 - 8

The judging team for this year was: Bernie Woollands, Carol McCall, Christine Woolger, with trainees Alan Tait and John Anderson.  Their first decision was, as always, Grand Champion and after some deliberation it was awarded to last years’ Adult Champion, a 59cm Kohaku owned by yours truly and the wife (she likes to be mentioned on these occasions.) After taking a break for lunch the judging began in earnest.  We also won Mature Champion with a Sanke.  Adult Champion was taken by Tom Nicklin’s Shiro Utsuri, Young Champion was a Kohaku owned by Steve Hemmings, with Baby Champion being taken by Mark & Sue Chetter’s Kohaku, Jumbo was taken by Tom Nicklin and Best Doitsu was awarded to Alan Onslow for his Showa.

 

Steve Hemmings and Peter Waddington

This though was not the end of the judging, as on Sunday afternoon the Birmingham and West Midlands Koi Club were proud and honoured to have Peter Waddington come along and judge ‘Unique Koi,’ which went to Tom Nicklin for his size 4 Gin Rin Shiro Bekko.

Peter also judged ‘Best Vat,’ this award went to  was again on hand to present Steve with his prize, a signed copy of Peter’s new book ‘The KOI POND.’

Whilst all this was going on, visitor’s to the show could browse the dealers there; first up was Koi Café, with generous offers on Silkworm Pupae; next was Show Koi with a great range of show vats; further along were Colkoi, where anything from an air stone to a Nexus were for sale; Derbyshire Bonsai again had an excellent display of both indoor and outdoor bonsai; garden ornaments could be found for sale at G.S.N. Garden Concrete Products; Gatwick Koi had some real bargains on offer, Sekiguchi jumbo tosai Showa just £65.00.  Gary also had one of his new shower filters on display (which, as I write this article, is now sitting at the side of our pond.)

Membership / Raffle Stand

Our main sponsor Prestwood Petzone, had an excellent selection of Hikari foods all at special show prices and South Coast Koi had an amazing B.O.G.O.F. deal on Sakari Koi food.  Club member Chas Stevens was on hand, complete with laptop, to give health advise to visitors.  For just £1.00 raffle tickets could be purchased at the membership stand, where there was a superb array of prizes donated by Kockney Koi.

Once visitors had taken in all that the dealers had to offer, it was time to rest their weary legs and sample the delights of our refreshment stands, which included, without doubt, the best selection of homemade cakes seen at any UK koi show!

Thank You’s

The Water Team

Putting on any koi show is not easy and can cost a considerable amount of money.  To get sponsors for the show this year, especially in the current climate, was quite a task.  So it is with wholehearted appreciation that we thank the following Companies for their support and generosity: Prestwood Petzone, Kockney Koi, Tetra, Yume Koi, House of Kata, NT Labs, Vita koi food, Peter Waddington, Kusuri Products, Shirley Aquatics, Richdon Koi, The Koi Collection, Nishikoi, Maple Tool Hire, Woodstock Timber and Northway Auto Services. 

We would also like to thank everyone who has visited our show this year.  It does make all the hard work worthwhile and you have helped make our 7th annual closed show, the best one yet!

We would like to finish with a couple of quotes from two prominent members of the koi community:

Gary of Gatwick Koi  “Lovely show, put on by a very special group of people.”

Peter Waddington “Congratulations, a lovely show with a perfect atmosphere.”

See you in 2010, on the last weekend in September at Highdown Nurseries.

Tony & Mandy Barker. 

(Photographs of winning koi kindly supplied by Greg Sutton)