Crouch Valley Auction May 2010
Saturday 8th May 2010 saw the Crouch Valley members do what they do best and that is to support the UK’s number one Koi club at one of their many annual events.
As normal at the Barleylands venue there is a Saturday morning farmers market, a place where they sell their local farm produce which can be anything from meats to cheese to fine cakes. A majority of the Crouch members turned up early so we waited about for the farmers to leave and of course see if we could pick up any freebies, well why not if you don’t ask your don’t get!
Once the farmers had left and the market hall was basically empty we got about giving everything a good clean and sweep in ready for our equipment arriving by trailer. With the many hands that turned up you can see from the offset that things were going to get done very quickly on that Saturday afternoon.
Within only an hour of the equipment arriving vats where being erected and water began to fill the vats, other jobs like bunting was being placed around the market by Andy and the PA system was being put together and tested by Vic. The Chief Auctioneers stand was being put in place and all the paperwork was being put in place like voting cards and vat numbers. Saturday afternoon came and went very quickly and so on that note once again thank you to all the members that give up their afternoon.
06:00 Alarm went off! Crikey it’s Sunday morning is it that time already, I had planned to get up early on the Sunday as I had two Koi to pick up from one of the Crouch valley members ponds and I wanted to be at the venue at around 07:00 or there after. So after some swift netting action at John’s I was soon on my way to the venue with two Koi bagged and boxed and ready.
By the time I arrived there was plenty already going on, Koi were being benched and the vats were filling with Koi in bags, on a quick look around you could already see that there was a great turn out of quality Koi and that many people would be walking away that day with some outstanding bargains.
Once again there was 15 vats on display and each one by 11 o’clock had something that caught your eye, Sunday started off a little chilly but this had not stopped the many hundreds walking through the door to see what was on offer, we even had a couple come all the way down from South Shields which was over a 5 hour drive just to attend the day so on that note a big thank you to Simon & Sheryl for your Koi dedication.
With the numbers of people in attendance and bidding being rather fierce at times with some persistent bidders it was not long until all the vats were empty of Koi, I would like to thank all the barrow pushers for there efforts in transporting the Koi safely from the market to the cars.
It was then time to break down the auction, vats to be emptied, cleaner and dried. Tables and chairs to be put away and everything else stored away ready for the trailer to pick it all up again for storage.
Well what a weekend, what an auction!
Why not join us for the next one, September 5th 2010 same place, same great team, thank you Crouch Valley Koi Club members.
Graham McCartney
BKKS & Crouch Valley Member
