Minutes from the General Meeting on October 20, 2010

Minutes from the General meeting on August 15, 2012

Meeting held in HarborsideLearningCenter
Present: Rick Rosa,Joy Marzolf, Dan Sprague, Anna Krowczynska , Uma Mirani, Julia Cichowski and Bob Munson.
Absent: Steve Whitford, Jim Carozza, Tiffany Fowlie and Al Bozza.

Meeting Chaired byRick Rosa and attended by 25 people.

New members: gentleman who has been diving 4 years, but is new to local diving, Joe, who has been diving since 1974 and is an experienced ice and cold water diver.

At this point Rick reminded that on coming Saturday, August 18 is a new member’s dive at the Nubble Light lead by Mike Whyte.

Who has been diving: Tom was kayak diving with Mike and Peter near ChildrenIsland and Satan Rock – lots of lobsters and scallops, Anna dove at Halfway Rock and Egg Rock Island – lots of sea life, fishes and beautiful soft coral, as well as at Lane’s Cove where she spotted a torpedo ray.

Announcements:

Rick provided a recap of the GAFC event – 83 divers participated filling 90 surveys, 33 species of fish were spotted with cunners and winter flounder being most abandon (no surprise here). Jonathan Bird was filming an episode of the Jonathan Bird Blue World, weather was good, and it didn’t start raining till 6 pm – in all very successful event.

Next event, Tropical Fish Rescue and BBQ will take place in Ft Watherill, RI on Sunday, October 10.

Bill Murphy, Aquarium liaison, talked about restocking fish population for the new GOT, there will be an early collecting trip to Bahamas, Aquarium will also accept some of the tropical fish collected locally – Long Island and RI. Recently two species of shark were added to GOT: 4 bone heads and 2 black noses. In a week or so, all 100 penguins will be moved to Quincy, only few little blues will left and moved to a special room near the mammal exhibit, so visitors can observe them through the window.

Tom B – introduction to kayak diving will take place on Saturdays 18 and 25, info on the web.

Joy M – reminded about the upcoming speakers: September Jonathan Bird will talk about underwater habitat Aquarius and at the beginning will shot a short version of the Fish ID class taught by Bob Michelson as a part of the GAFC Jonathan Bird Blue World episode – chance of being seen on TV. In October Ethan Gordon will talk about Maldives, in November there will be members show and tell, in December Brian Skerry and January Amy Fleishman from Wellfleet Sanctuary will talk about turtle rescue. In February Greg Skomel will talk about shark tagging in Saudi Arabia and in March there will be another behind the scene tour. Lot’s of great speakers coming to the NEADC General meetings.

In lieu of GOT dive in September: Trainer for day on September 1 at 3:30, winner Megan Sorce and runner up Berry Nawoichik.

Raffle to benefit Shark Savers, ticket $5 – prices cool T-shirts, water bottles, hand puppets, DVDs.

Guest Speaker: Samantha Whitcraft from Shark Savers couldn’t come, she send the video apologizing for her absence and explaining that she was invited for a trip of the lifetime to rarely visited South Pacific Islands. Instead Joy presented her material and did an excellent job doing so.

First, Joy gave a brief summary and slides presentation from the Jawsfest that took place on Martha Vineyard’s. This event, no longer commemorate only filming the movie Jaws, although there were exhibit devoted to it, but also include art exhibits and lots talks about shark conservation.

Shark Savers is an organization devoted to the popularization of need for shark conservation (one third of all sharks are threatened with an extinction!). Their first action is a ban on shark fining campaign – we were shown the videos with known Asian celebrities condemning shark soup and calling for its ban. They also try to expand a ban on shark fin soup in US. The other campaign is to save the manta rays that are being slaughter for their gill racks used in oriental medicine. Finally, Shark Savers call for all divers to become citizen scientist and help in saving sharks by taking action in banning their slaughter as well as conducting shark surveys. Part of the presentation was a video of Florida divers talking about disappearances of sharks from Florida waters in the last 30 years.

Meeting adjourned at 8:30