[asukawashere]

Anyone planning to go to the NEA convention in March? I'm inclined to at least visit the auction on Sunday, but driving up to Cromwell is rather a hike for me. I was wondering if anyone was willing to carpool and split the cost of gas...

On that note, there's also a big vendor's room to shop in on Saturday. Not convinced I want to make that hike twice in one weekend, but the hotel rooms are only $94/night (before tax) - if we can get a group of 4 people together (or 8 - 4 guys in 1 room and 4 girls in another), that's only about $25/person.

I'm just tossing some feelers out to see what might work - my plans are still up in the air and all, but I do think it would be a lot of fun to go to I'm always game for fish shopping...

 

[AlwaysNForever1373]

I'm game as long as its not the week I have family stuff!:-\"

 

[Zapins]

I think this is a great idea since we have a bit of a blank for our March meeting. I'll add it to the list. I wonder what is involved in getting our own table to sell things at? It might be worth setting up a club table to help cover the room cost. I've got a good amount of random stuff that I need to sell not to mention plant clippings.

 

[asukawashere]

I think I suggested this in another thread, but what about an invert-themed meeting for March? I know I want to go to at least the auction, but I can imagine a lot of people don't want to head all the way up to Cromwell and/or invest that kind of time and cash.

Anyway, with my final semester of college wrapping up (and my workload increasing exponentially), I'm finding I might need to rethink the overnighting it plan. Also, if we stay overnight, what exactly are we supposed to do with the live animals we (or at least I) would bring for the Sunday auction? I know critters can be packed for 2 days and all, but I'd feel kind of bad for the little buggers...

On the other hand, I would be ecstatic to be able to expand my shrimp collection at the auction... will probably bring a bag of snowball shrimp for Gordon Richards (and anyone else who requests some). I'll probably offer some cherry shrimp for auction (& maybe some crystal reds if the ones I got from Tonny are breeding by then...). I really want to get my hands on some Sulawesi shrimp if I can... for that matter, I should probably start setting up tanks for potential new shrimp acquisitions....

Also, a table is more work than you think. First of all, you'd have to have somebody manning for three days straight (vendor room opens on Fri). Secondly, in order to sell plants/livestock/whatever at an event like this, you have to have a sales use tax ID registered with the state (a $50 fee). I have one, since I need it to be able to wholesale my stock to the lfs, but I can't use it to cover club activities... really, we're best off selling anything at the auction, which is a charitable event and the NEA dudes can figure out all the tax stuff instead of us.

So, does anybody have a wishlist for the auction? Mine consists of:
- small tanks (5-20g), esp. some acrylic tanks
- dwarf shrimp (Caridina, Neocaridina, Paracaridina)
- Longarm shrimp (Macrobrachium)
- Crayfish, esp. dwarf crayfish (Cambarellus)
- Nice platies, swordtails, limia, or mollies
- Goodeids that I don't have
- ricefish (genus Oryzias)
- New plant specimens (especially emersed swordplants)
- Anything small and easy to breed...