[calvin]

Hello everyone

we have had a reply beck from Daniel Knop and unfortunately he will not make it to IMACSA 2010 as an invited speaker, he does however send all his best to everyone involved in the hobby here in S.A.

We are still awaiting a reply from Sylvia Earle.

We are left with a gap for a speaker and I wanted to put some feelers out.

here is a list or some Highly recommended speakers ,perhaps we could attach a poll to this thread and get an idea of who South African reefers would like to hear speak at a conference and topics that would interest "us"

I would like to thank Anthony Calfo for all the wonderful suggestions.

Mitch Carl of the Omaha Zoo and Aquarium (hilariously dry wit... very good personality on both sides of the posium). Has had corals planulate in his zoo tanks, he's the most successful member of the SEACORE project (hand rearing thousands of endangered Acropora palmata corals), has experience building massive reef displays in all capacities, and fine work with lesser but awesome species such as garden eels, scorpaenids, etc. He's capable of doing a wide range of topics

Dr. Bruice Carlson.. legendary. And may be great fun to detail his old experiences rearing rare angelfishes, nautiluses, endemic shrimps as well as current events at the GA AQ

Kelly Jedlicki - breeding puffers, breeding seahorses, all marine fish pathology. registered nurse with about a dozen other accreditations applied to aquatic health science

Charles Mazel - 30 year research on coral fluorescence and the many ways this applies to surveys in the wild, ID of species in aquaria, functions of reef lighting, etc. Phenomenal eye candy

Dr. Frank Marini - world leading stem cell researcher, one of first to breed Banggai cardinals, spawned lionfishes, anglerfishes, wolf eels, zebra morays, etc. Very experienced marine breeder. Advanced, bit dry but excellent content

Richard Pyle... world renowned deep water diver, stunning rare species photography... hard to get though.

Rich Terrell - down-home aquarist type with public aquarium life experience. Expertise in: Abiotic Life Support for Coral Systems: Comparison of hobbyist and public aquarium systems i.e., coral reef tank filtration systems FISHH (Fishes Ill-Suited for Home Hobbyists) focusing on large fishes commonly available in the pet trade.

Mark Vera... outstanding personality (friend too), extremely giving of industry s-called secret knowledge. Commercial phyto manufacturer, details home live food culture, seahorse breeding, coral and fish nutrition and many more topics.

Justin Grabel... wild aquarist, incredibly funny. Works well with me (Anthony) in coral propagation workshops, other lecture topics include: Care and Propagation of Goniopora, Fusion and Grafting in Corals
Skimmerless Coral Propagation Systems, and Growing coral with LED's

Matthew Wittenrich - fish breeding expert

Joe Burger - reef lighting guru


please let us know what you think ASAP so we can start contacting speakers

ciao

[Regal]

My vote is for Dr. Frank Marini & Matthew Wittenrich, but then again very limited talks and not for everyone. To be honest calvin, noone on there for me would be worth the cost(flights, accommodation etc). Speakers specific to certain fields, example, breeding, lighting isnt worth it as it's not financially viable to have 20 speakers like they have at macna etc.(where cost of hosting those speakers is 1/20th of ours). You need a well known reefkeeping speaker that knowns more than 1 field, someone like anthony who can give talk on anything from lighting to breeding to fragging to even what you can eat in your tank, if you understand what I mean.

[calvin]

Francois I know where you are coming from ,these are the top speakers in the US and most definitely the most interesting and entertaining ! we can allways go down another route and start looking for more academic speakers who will be more well known but perhaps not at all as interesting. this is a highly recommended list of speakers and I do think out best options.

[Regal]

The problem I have with the list is they might be well known in the states. Some are known here, but not well known and I dont know if I would pay for a ticket to attend a conference and not having an idea of what I'm going to receive for my money. By me I mean the average reefer attending these shows. Like taking out a movie without having seeing a trailer on who's playing in it, what's it about etc. I am not at all saying these are not very competent speakers or that they might be great fun to see, but that the problem we just dont know them.

You have visited MACNA before so will know much better than any of us who would be the right speaker for our market/target audience. If you are going with any of the above speakers, it might be a good idea to invite them to become a member here and we could give them a special guest forum, so people can get to know them well in advance of advertising their talks in SA.

[Slumbum]

you got to be able to market these ous flat out. doesnt matter if no one knows them.

[calvin]

thats the idea

We dont wan to invite someone who everyone knows because they are well published and when it comes to actually standing up and speaking they can be fairly boring, this is often the case with the more academic speakers . I would love to sit through a more scientific lecture however many novice reef keepers will not

[calvin]

My personal favorites would be the following

Mitch Carl
Dr Bruce Carlson
Richard Pyle
Mark Vera

having met some of these speakers I can vouch for there professionalism as well as there ability to hold an audience

[zaraki]

i think its interesting to hear someone speak that ive never heard before, and sometime the general speech is, well, too general for me. id like to hear some hard facts about a specific topic. otherwise i know everything of nothing. its just my opinion.

[hotdog83]

Mark Vera sounds like a cool speaker from that list you put up there.

[Slumbum]

Justin Grabel

[calvin]

Justin would be great

[Stressed Eric]

That's a great list to choose from Calvin, good job. I'll put my hand up for Dr. Marini - as much as his style may be dry I'd still love to learn some of his tricks in captive breeding

[colbar]

Calvin, the list of speakers you got, was it from Anthony? If that is his recommendation, we should take his lead. He has been out before and knows quite a few of the guys.
I would love to listen to Mark Vera.

[robvdv]

Here's my vote in ascending order of preference, i.e. I'd like to see Matt the most:

Matthew Wittenrich
Mitch Carl
Dr. Frank Marini
Dr. Bruce Carlson

[Quinton Hoole]

Great job Calvin! RE: Francois's comments, and as has been said, I think it's a case of marketing the guys. Personally I enjoyed the 'unknown' speakers this year as much as I did the 'big names'.

From your list, Vera and Carlson stood out for me, but at the end of the day they all sound great, and I'd attend if you could get any two off the list.

Q

[Baradhel]

It's a good list....actually quite hard to pick since I'm sure they'd all be interesting.

Edit: You know what I'd actually really like to hear a talk on....non-photosynthetic species/systems.

[Kryofrozen]

Ok, my question is how many can you afford to bring out.

From what I've heard from the previous IMACSA organisers is that its incredibly expensive to bring out even two international speakers!

If you can only brin out two I can then drill down to my two favourites on the list.

[Al4Fish]

Hi Calvin - sorry to take a while getting to this posting
A great list of speakers - wouldn't know where to begin choosing - though I would suggest not just a speaker with good knowledge but also a speaker with has a good rapport with an audience.
Also, these topics are awesome but how relevant to the home reefer? I would rather have someone more applicable to the home hobby like Mitch, Mark Justin or Joe

[calvin]

hi everyone

Colbar
yes these are all speakers suggested by Anthony

Rob

regarding Mitch Carl and Bruce , I think these guys will the best options to take Sylvia Earles place if she can not attend

Quinton

I also think mark would be a great choice

Cher

we will be bringing out 3 international speakers one of wich is anthony who has confirmed

AL
welcome back :-)