©2003 South East Section
2003 South East Show 24th & 25th August.
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Our 17th Open Show that brought about many new milestones in the history of the club, amongst them :- 
A combination of good weather, an established reputation and a bit of advertising brought in the crowds. Its been remarked upon in the past that the South East show is the 'Koi Keepers show' alluding to the fact that the majority of the people that come through the gates are committed koi keepers and not just passing trade. This was very evident, as a quick look at the logo's on the visitors t-shirts would show. Seen over the weekend were:- Crouch Valley, Essex, Heart of Wales, Koichat.com, Manchester and District, Mid Lincs, Midland Koi Association, MSB, North East, Potteries, South Hants, Southern Koi Group, Southern ZNA, Suffolk & North Essex, and Worthing sections.
Amongst the many visitors were a number of Koi celebrities, including the former editor of Koi Carp Christina Guthrie, Koichat.com moderator Mark Gardner, the MKA 'Water maestro' Jimmy Morris and the prominent Belgian Koi Hobbyist Danny Deschrijver (far right - the one with the tie is NVN Chairman Toen Feyen).
Several off-duty BKKS Judges turned up as well, namely Keith Bertie, Alan Coogan, Gary Hillier, Doug Raby and Walter Reed, all of which could be found 'promoting the hobby' at the section run beer ten at one time or another.
Our youngest visitor was Holly Webster, making her show debut at just six days old.
With dealers coming from as far afield as York and the Isle of Wight, exhibitors from Wales to Southend via Nottingham, and UK hobbyists from the Tyne to the Solent all congregating in this southeast corner of England, it gave our foreign guests a chance to see what the UK koi hobby is all about.
Visitors to the South East tent might have been confused by one of the stands found inside. Our guests from the Netherlands had brought along their own stand, 
adding a touch of colour and european culture (right) with an array of koi paraphanalia. They weren't the only colourful stands though (left).
During the build up to the show we had been approached by several overseas Koi Societies about participating in the show. The Dutch Koi Society (Nishikigoi Vereniging Nederland - NVN) were the first, followed by the South African Koi Keepers Society, the Oregon Koi & Watergardens Society and eventually the international division of the Zen Nippon Airinkai (ZNA). Welcoming them with open arms, we found that each of them were bringing a 'Friendship' trophy to be awarded on top of the normal set of awards.
The eventual ‘additional’ award list read:-
It would have ended there, but then the Potteries section presented us with a Friendship trophy to be awarded annually to the best South East novice entry at the show. Alan & Margaret Cooke were the lucky winners for this year.
In an attempt to promote rare, unusual and/or unpopular varieties we had adopted the Japanese ZNA 'Select variety' award to see if it could make any difference. Every year at their biggest show they choose a particular variety to receive a special award. In this, our first attempt, we had chosen the Yamabuki Ogon as the variety in question. We had originally asked former BKKS Chairman and judge Gary 'Yamabuki' Pritchard to judge this for us, but we eventually changed this by asking him to head a team of International Judges and judge all of our additional awards. This led to us having two teams of judges at the show.
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Gary Pritchard (UK) |
Statistics taken over a period of 11 years have shown that the Hikarimuji show class (which contains the Yamabuki) had fallen in popularity from 3rd place to 10th.
This year it had moved back to 4th place. Whether or not this had anything to do with the 'selected variety award' can only be conjecture at this point. However, we shall continue the experiment next year to see.
Among our home grown celebrities it was noted that every one of our former show-chairmen were working at the show in one capacity or another. Doug ‘Dob’ Holder, our first Open show chairman exhibited some of his homebred sanke in the show and picked up several awards including 3rd in size 1 overall. An event that needs to be put in to context to really appreciate how big a deal this was. Dob’s Sanke came first in variety beating 14 other contenders in its class. It then went on to beat all but two of the other winners in its size, there being 68 fish entered in size 1. Amongst those it beat was at least one fish that was known to have been bought for a four figure sum. This is the first time that we know of, where an English bred fish has beaten so much Japanese opposition in open competition.
In the end the award was given to our Show Chairman Terry Wells' fish (left) over Membership Secretary Tony Hussey who was awarded Mature Champion, both fish were supplied by the Koi Water Barn. 
Our Vice-Chairman & BKKS Rep Chris Ball was awarded Adult Champion with a size 5 Hiroshima Sakai Kohaku (also from the Barn) while the Young Champion award went to Heart of Wales couple, Angie & Ken Evans with their size 4 Kohaku (right).
The Baby Champion went to MSB members Keith & Barry Burkin (Kohaku size 2).
Of our additional awards, the SAKKS award (right) went to a Ginrin exhibited by Karl Davison where a touch of irony crept in, Karl having spent part of his early life in South Africa. Karl surprised presenter Mike Harvey by thanking him formally in Afrikaans, "Baie Dankie, Meneer".
The NVN award (left) went to a much favoured Koromo Showa (below right) exhibited by Neil Smith. 
The Best Tategoi award went to the Adult Champion, and the OKWS award for best Doitsu went to a size 4 Shusui (near right)exhibited by the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea who regularly display their fish at our show.
On top of our own awards the JSC saw fit to award two JSC Merit awards, one to the Koromo Showa and another to a size 4 Shiro Utsuri owned by Chris Ball.
The complete results and a few select photos were published on our website by Sunday evening emulating the Manchester and District section earlier in the year.
Every year at the show we present "the John Pitham Trophy" to one of our members for outstanding services to the section. This year the recipients were Ray & Lynne Baker who have held many posts in the section, not least the show water management for 16years.
Luckily we weren’t bothered by the extremes of weather that has plagued us in other years. For the most part the sun shone and when it didn’t the cloud cover provided some cool relief.
In addition to the koi show, the British Reptile and Amphibian Society gave us a display of snakes, lizards, frogs and toads,
and the West Kent Bonsai Society provided another free display which included an exhibit in honour of the NVN Chairman Toen Feyen entitled ‘Eikel’, a token of our appreciation for his contribution to the show.
Plans are already underway for our 18th Open show, so remember to book next years August Bank Holiday now.
