Welcome to Northern Midwest ZNA

My name is Gerard McDonald from Sydney Australia, I was born in the west cost of Ireland in 1959 in a small town called Belmullet, my street name was called American St this was due to it proximity to America.

I came to Australia in 1985 and met my wife, Kazuyo in Sydney in 1988, this started my love of all things Japanese it was not until a couple of trips to Japan that I decide to build a Japanese garden which included a pond.

Not knowing I could get Koi in Australia I  purchase some gold fish which were soon jumping out of the water due to the amount of  mosquito lave,  so I returned the gold fish and explained my situation, and hands held high he uttered the word all you need is Koi so from then to now Koi has been part of my life for some 20 years.

My first pond  was a small pond some 4000 tonne as my knowledge grew so did my desire to have a bigger pond so with shovel and pick we started one long weekend and dug what is now a 80,000 tonne pond it has had a couple of make overs and I have just finished the last make over which was massive and took two years .

I have since built another pond @ 100,000 tonne and also set up a new breeding complex containing 2x 10,000 4 x 4,000 and 5x1,000, my whole house is surrounded by water.

I started learning how to judging while working in Macau China, I was invited to the first Koi show in China where I met Kato San who asked why I was not  trying to become a ZNA Judge, we had met prior at ZNA show in Japan so with his encouragement I enrolled and straight away I was invited to participate as a trainee judge in Singapore, Malaysia and Japan, since then I have judged in Europe, Japan, Asia and South Africa, and now America also judged a lot of local Koi shows and conducted seminars .

I have met a lot of American judges in Europe and in Japan so look forward to catching up with some of those friends. I am looking forward to judging and hope I can do a good job.

Some of the highlight of my career.

3 years as chairperson of the northern branch

10 years on the show committee 

2 years as Vice President of the KSA

4 year as President of the KSA

10 years as a member of the circle of friends

Attained ZNA Local Certified Judge in 2007

Attained ZNA Assistant Certified Judge in 2010

Attained ZNA Certified Judge in 2012

Kazuyo McDonald - Candidate Judge

My name is Kazuyo McDonald, I was born in Osaka, Japan and have been living in Australia since 1988.

I have met my husband, Gerard in 1988 and we got married in Japan 1989. We have been enjoying our Koi hobby  for over 20 years.  When Gerard was transferred to Macau China for his work in 2006, I had to look after our Koi while he was away. I managed to keep all our Koi happy and the pond water was crystal clean, I was very lucky that I didn’t have  any major trouble until his return in 2007.  It was hard work but I really enjoyed it and learnt a lot about Koi. While Gerard was in China, he had many opportunities to judge at Koi shows in Asia and I was lucky enough to be invited as well,at these Koi Shows we met so many great Koi judges from overseas. Since I became Local Certified Judge in 2007, we have some wonderful chances to judge Koi shows all over the world - Japan, China, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, South Africa, Holland and England and of course America 

Joined ZNA in 1997

Attained ZNA Local Certified Judge in 2007

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