Potomac Valley Aquarium Society

Meeting Notes

July, 2008

The July 14 meeting started earlier than usual with a nice spread prepared by Sherry, with contributions from Mark and Jerry as an informal gathering to meet the speaker, David Boruchowitz, Editor in Chief of Tropical Fish Hobbyist. David gave an amusing slideshow of thoughts about fish keeping as a hobby and proceeded to answer questions about his vision of the hobby. He maintained that the local fish store has valuable opportunities to compete with online vendors in terms of variety of fish, picking out live fish, and talking with store employees. He said that online purchases of dry goods have a competitive edge over the LFS, but that the LFS has the advantage that you can go in the store and see the fish, a valuable marketing tool for local fish stores.

The second part of the evening was a presentation for Stanley H. Weitzman, Ph.D and Marilyn J. Weitzman, who are pioneers in the field as icthyologists, authors, and scientists at the Smithsonian who have collected and named many new species of fish. They were instrumental in bringing attention to field of South American fish, and they have collected fish in their many trips to the Amazon and have motivated individuals and scientists to explore the hobby. They were presented with an honorary lifetime PVAS membership. PVAS is sponsoring a scholarship, in the Weitzman's name, for individuals who live or are travelling in the Peruvian Amazon to study and collect fish. The meeting ended with an auction. About 40 people attended.

Recording Secretary, Mark Harnet