We always love to see kids and teens at OCA meetings and events! There are many ways to get involved. Some of them are:

• Participating in OCA Championships
• Becoming an OCA Runner
• Showing fish at the Extravaganza and Bowl Show
• Becoming a Junior Member and collecting BAP points

OCA Drawing Championship

Draw a picture of a fish or anything related to the aquarium hobby, send it to the OCA, and win a cool prize! Every picture will win a small prize and we will publish it in the gallery above!

Also, the drawings that you send to the OCA will be auctioned at the OCA Extravaganza 2009, and the money will go to the Jim Smith Fund. Recently $1,000 from that fund were used to help save cichlids in Lake Malawi from illegal fishing. By submitting artwork to the OCA you can not only have fun and win great prizes, but you can also help save endangered cichlids!

Drawings should be send to the OCA web master:

Frank Mueller
1538 Morris Road
Kent OH 44240-5430

Please don’t forget to include your name, age, title of your picture (if it has one), and return address with your drawing. We need your name and age for publishing the picture on this web site, and your address so we can send you your prize! If you want to include a photo of yourself, we will publish it with your drawing, but you don’t have to do that.

The OCA Drawing Championship will run until the OCA meeting in June 2009. After that we will start something else, like a writing or photography championship for kids and teens. Watch this space for more information!

New in March 2009:

We can frame your OCA Drawing Championship certificate for about the same cost as mailing it to you. If you would like to have a framed certificate awarded to your kid at an OCA social meeting, please let us know when submitting the drawing. If nothing is specified, you will continue to receive a certificate (but no frame) in the mail.

Example 2009 OCA Drawing Championship Certificate.

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Becoming an OCA Runner

Many kids did a great job as runners at the OCA Extravaganza 2008.

A great way even for smaller kids to have fun and help out at OCA auctions is to act as a runner. Kids as young as 6 years have been OCA runners. They did a fantastic job and they had great fun at the same time! A lot of people like to be runners, because it gives them something to do during an auction, it helps out the OCA, and if the runner is a kid, sometimes they even get a little money as a tip!

Runners take a bag of fish that needs to be sold to the auctioneer at the front of the room and show it to him. The auctioneer explains to everybody in the room what’s in the bag, and takes bids. During that time, the runner holds up the bag, and carries it around so everybody can see it. When the bag has been sold, the runner takes the bag to the person who bought it, collects the money and gives it to the people at the registration desk at the back of the room. If there is change, the runner takes it to the buyer. Then the runner can pick up a new bag of fish, and start all over again. At auctions the OCA always needs a lot of runners, and kids can show that they can help out as much as any adult!

Tyler Priem, 12, worked tirelessly at OCA Winter Auction 2009. Seen here with OCA President Don Danko.

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Showing fish at the Extravaganza and Bowl Show

Mark Schmidt Jr., 11, won class 28 at the OCA Extravaganza 2008 with a beautiful red swordtail.

The OCA Extravaganza is the biggest meeting in the world for people who love cichlids and catfish. One of the coolest things about the OCA Extravaganza is that there is a huge show where you can come and see a lot of great fish. But where do the fish in the show come from? Well, some people who own those fish bring them in for the day, and some of these people are kids!

If you own any fish that fits in one of the show classes, you can bring those in and enter them in the show. If you are under 16, you can even bring in fish and other animals that you might keep in fish tanks (for example crayfish and turtles), and enter them in a special class (class 28). By entering in the show, you can win certificates, trophies and money!

Of course kids and teens can also participate in out monthly bowl show, which is a little show that we have at every OCA meeting.

Mark Schmidt Jr.’s big red crayfish in the special class for kids and teens under 16 at the OCA Extravaganza 2008. The crayfish is over two years old, and Mark grew it from an egg!

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Becoming a Junior Member and collecting BAP points

Jason and Alex maintain more tanks than some of our board members! Here they are picking up some free sponge filters from Dan Woodland at the OCA X-mas Party 2008.

Anybody who is in school and under 22 can become an OCA member for only $10 per year. This is great for older kids and teens who own their own tanks and breed fish, because it allows them to earn their own points in the OCA’s Breeder Award Program (BAP). The OCA has a BAP for cichlids and one for catfish. If you click on the links you get the exact rules, but basically whenever you breed a type of fish and bring six of the little fry to an OCA meeting, you get a cool certificate and you collect Breeder Award Points! If you get a lot of points, you can win some very nice looking awards!

OCA Breeder Award Certificate

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