Past Presidential Message

PAST PRESIDENTIAL MESSAGES

Jim Chalmers December 2025

Hello everyone, hope all is well!

Went to the Hamilton club’s 75th birthday bash on November 14, 15, and 16. What a great time! Met a lot of new people and old friends, the food and speakers were second to none! The auction had lots of plants and fish the whole experience was great ,hats off to Carla McDonald Pres. and Mike Majer Vice President for putting this all together. Our club meeting on December 1st will feature pizza, a desert and soft beverage to say thank you to the membership and a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year as well! There will be a few other activities as well! Hope to see all that can attend!

Jim Chalmers

President of the best club on the planet!!!

Jim Chalmers October 2025

Hello all! Hope all is well!

We are going to have a program that I am excited to have it for our club! Franky Sebastioa will be doing aqua scaping using a 20-gallon aquarium which will be raffled off! He is a professional ranked 94th in the craft and heading towards Number 1. Make sure you do not miss this! Your executive have been working getting ready for our auction on November 1/25 at the hall. We had a great auction in the spring, and this one may be bigger. Also get your tickets for the upcoming Hamilton Birthday Bash/Convention which will be a great time! Get your tickets before they sell out! CAOAC elections are in full swing, and the results will be known Tuesday Sept. 30th .I have thrown my hat into the ring for the Presidents spot, if I do win, I will still be the President of the best club around… St Catharines!

Hope to see all who can attend.

Jim Chalmers

President

Jim Chalmers September 2025

Hello all! Hope all is well!

Where did the summer go, I hope you had a great summer holiday. We have been working to get the first meeting in shape! First up, The Hamilton Birthday Bash and Convention will take place on November 14-15-16 at the Burlington Holiday Inn. Tickets are available, get yours right away! Also, the Pet Expo and International Betta show will take place in Toronto. Tickets are on the Expo website. On Saturday November 1 our club auction will be at Our Lady of the Scapular Hall! We had a great turn out last auction and hope to fill the hall again.

Hope to see all who can attend.

Jim Chalmers

President

Jim Chalmers June 2025

Hello all! Hope all is well!

Despite the constant rain summer is around the corner! Time to get out and enjoy the summer breeze! We will be on hiatus until September, but will still hold Executive meetings to be ready for September and our auction on November 1/25 and the convention November 14, 15, and 16 at the Burlington Holiday Inn. Get your ticket early and save on the ticket price! At the June meeting, we will finalize theelections and introduce everyone to the new Executive. We have been working to bring us up a notch again and will have some new things to try out in September that benefit everyone. See everyone on June 2nd doors open at 7 pm, the meeting starts at 7:30 pm.

Hope to see all who can attend.

Jim Chalmers

President

Jim Chalmers May 2025

Hello all! Hope all is well!

Our last meeting was top shelf with Hayden Pounder giving us aglimpse of collecting fish and all that goes with it, an excellent presentation will

certainly ask him back! The hot dog night went off without a hitch kudos to Jon for getting together and setting it up will do it again in the future. On a high note, we had Ernest Biktimirov, who is certified in accounting, to look over our books, he wassatisfied that we are on the right track. Thank you, Ernest and Kudos, to Kandys foryour hard work. On the membership side of things, we hit a high note with 38 members attending, the highest in 6 years! We are striving to be the largest club in CAOAC! People show up at a meeting and like what they see and sign up, so we have to keep that going! If anyone knows a person who may be interested, bring them to a meeting! Your Executive is working on some things to make us bigger and better and will put them in play after checking them out thoroughly. Our speaker for our meeting on Monday May 5th/25 will be Sasha Hunter. The topic is ponds and pond keeping! Also, Bruce Palmer will let everyone know that June is election month if needed for the Executive positions. Also, we have an auction on May 03/25 the early registering is looking like a busy day. Get ahold of Jon to get registered and be ready to have a good time. Lastly, Dave Holland Treasurer and Frank Aquirre President of CAOAC will have a table at our auction for information and sale items

Hope to see all who can attend.

Jim Chalmers

President

Jim Chalmers April 2025

Hello all!

Hope all is well! We are going to open the doors at 6 PM this time as we are having a hot dog supper before we start! Jon will have tickets for anyone who has not purchased them for $10.00. We have a few new sponsors for the club; The Meat Shoppe located at 4725 Dorchester Rd., in Niagara Falls, donated and has quality meat and sells pet food! Ruffins in Welland is new to us and Ripley's Believe it or Not has also donated! Things are looking up! This month we have Hayden Pounder as our speaker on collecting in Ghana will be very interesting! On another note, Tom Hiller has stepped down as First Vice President. Tom has held that position and more throughout his 25 years as a member. I would like to thank him for all his service and endless support in making this club what it is today. He will still be a member so I know where he will be in case, we need his expertise. Congrats Tom, it’s been a pleasure working with you! The final note is about the upcoming convention at the Burlington Holiday Inn. If you have never been to one now is the time to book a spot. They are very informative and the auction and contacts you will make are second to none. The dates are Friday November 14 to Sunday November 16/2025 Book early and save a few dollars! That's all for now.

Hope to see all who can attend.

Jim Chalmers

President

Jim Chalmers March 2025

Hello all!

Hope all is well! This has been one of the coldest snow, ice and windy winters that have dropped on us in a long while. If you have ponds keep an eye on them, make sure they are not covered right over with ice as that would be fatal. On the other hand, it gives you time to keep the tanks clean and fish well fed. We have been advertising heavily on our web page to try and get more members to attend our meetings, and we have had some success with 7 people coming over and signing up! If any of you know people in the hobby bring them to a meeting! Our speaker this month is someone new to the speaker’s world and one of our own members Skip (Matthew) Rocheleau who will talk about how to make gadgets and gizmos to help you in the fish room. Upcoming events are Hamilton clubs auction Mar 22 at the Waterdown Legion 79 Hamilton St. N. from 9am to 6 pm. More to follow on our web page or upcoming meeting March 3/25.

Hope to see all who can attend.

Jim Chalmers

President

Jim Chalmers February 2025

Hello all!

Well, we are in another very cold winter! If you have ponds keep an eye on them, check the ice that is covering the pond and don't let it freeze over. At the next meeting, we will have Katie Church, with a program on Invasive species. It should be very interesting. We are looking for volunteers to fill the BAP and HAP positions. If you are interested, see one of the execs and we will gladly get you started. Upcoming auctions are at Durham and Peel region both are in April our club will be May 3rd. As you know Hamilton will be hosting the Convention on

Nov. 7, 8, 9, 2025 in Burlington at the Holiday Inn and on

Saturday September 27 at the Royal Canadian Legion in

Waterdown will be their auction. As usual, the executive have been working to make this year as good or better than last year.

Hope to see all who can attend.

Jim Chalmers

President

Jim Chalmers January 2025

Hello all,

Happy New Year! Hope your holidays were great! The Executive has been meeting to discuss ways we can make it a very interesting time for everyone. We are going to try the Zoom platform to see how it would benefit members, so we need some feedback. Also, the Hamilton club has stepped up and will be hosting a convention in Burlington at the Holiday Inn November 7, 8, 9, 2025 also its their 75th anniversary. So, congrats to them! They will be looking for helpers to make this an awesome time for all involved. Let me know if you can volunteer your time. Our speaker this month is Brian Glazer, who will talk on raising killie fish.

Hope to see all who can attend.

Jim Chalmers

President

Jim Chalmers December 2024

Hello all,

Hope all is well! Wow we had the best auction that I can remember. I think the Saturday date helped tremendously as the people just kept coming! A lot of good deals were had! I would like to thank the runners that never stopped Phil and Ernest doing chits Gary and Kandys handling the money and slips. A big thank you to Mike Majer who did excellent auctioneering along with Brian Glazier and Hayden Pounder out of the Peel Club. I had to tap out as my voice and throat stopped making any sounds! I found a new calling in running, and I am not too bad, if I say so myself. Jon and Annie did great at the canteen sold it out. Dan did great job keeping the bags flowing to the auctioneers Erin, Brett and Shawn for audio. Cindy selling the raffle tickets and Pam who welcomed people at the door and sold tickets for the tank raffle Tom for procuring all the items we had for the raffle! If I missed anyone my apologies. The December meeting is our Christmas Party and will be a good time for all who can attend! See you there.

Jim Chalmers

President

Jim Chalmers November 2024

Hello all,

Winter is slowly creeping in on us! If you have ponds now is the time to get them prepared for the big sleep! Our next meeting is Monday November 4/24 and we have Theresa coming in from Aqueon to give us a presentation on the products that Aqueon has. Always an interesting presentation. At the last meeting we had a problem with the video and sound which made it difficult for some to hear and see. That has been rectified as the remote that is need for this has to be signed out and returned so you can bet that will be priority one. Again, we would like to see entries for the fish of the month so we can keep Pat busy! On Saturday November 9/24 our auction will be held so get all buyers and sellers tags and items for auction as we will open at 8 AM auction starts at 10 AM. Once again, if you are able, please bring a food item to help the church with their food drive. Hope to see all there.

Jim Chalmers

President

Jim Chalmers October 2024

Hello all,

Hope you are enjoying the fall weather and colors! Time to look at getting you ponds and fish ready for winter. This time of year, you spend more time in your fish room and see if you want to get new species to raise. There are a number of clubs that will be having auctions Hamilton is on Sept.28 and ours will be on Nov. 09/24 so make a list of things you need. At our meeting on October 7/24, we will be talking about mentoring people who may be interested in sitting as an executive member or on committees. Try it you may like it! I will see you all Oct. 07/24 doors open at 7pm! Also, if you can bring nonperishable food items for the food bank it would be great. Hope to see all who can attend.

Jim Chalmers

President

Jim Chalmers September 2024

Hello all,

Hope you had a great summer! The weather was nice and hot for any vacationing you may have been on, I was busy at home keeping the ponds at a cooler temperature to make sure the fish were ok! We have a great start up this fall with speakers booked right into the new year. Mike Majer will kick it off with at the September meeting "You just maybe a redneck" routine that he has perfected followed by Frank Aquirre CAOAC President in October. We will be having an auction on Saturday Nov.9/24 and will be looking for help from the membership to make it successful. The Executive members will hit the road to get our sponsors to donate as usual so it will be busy for a couple months. Over the summer, we donated a tank to the children's library in St Catharine's. The exec members did a great job setting it up. The employees there have kept in touch and let us know what an impact it has had on the kids! Bravo to all involved. Also, our web master, Jon, has come up with a members/new members booklet that I will let you comment on! On another note, Pat Shriner does the fish of the month/jar show and would like the members to bring a fish they think can win! Also, we are asking members to bring for a non-perishable food item to the meeting to help the church feed the needy. Looking forward to see all who can attend.

Jim Chalmers

President

CURRENT PRESIDENTIAL MESSAGE

Jim Chalmers January 2026