Early in 2014， I asked Yuko Shirako, at ZNA Head Office, if there was any way I could be included on the team for the ZNA 50th Golden Jubilee International Show held in November this year? (photos1& 2) The experience of participating in this show would be very valuable and both Ian and I really wanted to attend this milestone event. Since, as an Assistant Certified Judge, I was not qualified for involvement in the judging, Yuko very kindly arranged for me to be part of one of the logistics teams (photo 3) who accompany the groups of judges; directing them to appropriate koi vats and recording the results. This was a superb opportunity for me, to be involved in such a prestigious show, fielding some incredible koi. Being so close to the action turned out almost as valuable as actually judging the classes myself (photo 4). Particularly since one of my team, Aaron Lit (Certified Judge, Hong Kong Koi Club) spokeexcellent English and was quite willing to discuss judging decisions with me. Led by Tanaka san, my team were responsible for the 60 bu class; which took a considerable time to judge, as it contained very large numbers of koi, especially in Go-Sanke (Kohaku, Sanke & Showa) varieties. We must have walked many miles that day amongst the literally hundreds of show bins. There were over a thousand koi exhibited for this Golden Jubilee event, demonstrating superb quality. We noticed especially that the gradeof Sanke shown this year was really excellent (photo 5). Numbers of jumbo koi (over 80 bu) were also high; judging Grand Champion, the first event of the day, was hard work for all the judges, with so many potential koi to check. This was made even more difficult because of the size of the show site. English Style shows mean you have to visit a great many bins to check individual koi, whereas in years gone by, a Japanese Style show allowed all koi of the same size
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