Formal reefing club?

[reeferaddict]

I'm just curious to find out how many of you on the island would join & support a REAL reefkeeping club. One that meets regularly and could attract outside guest speakers, supply reps, (maybe with some freebies & deals... :mrgreen: ), as well as have our own members do presentations, have fragging demos & swaps etc etc... I'm thinking of a more personal exchange of info & the possibility of us being able to meet face to face to share our experiences. Ideally it would attract enough interest and membership that we could develop an open minded keen group to help guide new people and further the self sustainment of the hobby.

Please vote and pass along any ideas or suggestions.

[christyf5]

Sounds like a great idea, count me in! :cool: I'll also be a part of the organizing as well if needed :biggrin:

[Jaws]

Sure, why not. It might be hard finding enough people because the island's so spread out but it's definitely worth a shot. You've got my buy-in.

[TNTCanada]

Count me in always looking to meet and help anyone new or anyone old for that matter.

Cheers
Tyler

[IPZ]

If this new club is looking for sponsors, I would be glad to be one. I would be willing to provide the cost of a meeting place as well as items for door prizes , 50/50 tickets ect.

[TNTCanada]

The list is growing :mrgreen:

[Chaloupa]

I'd be in....would love to meet everyone face to face! Sarah :biggrin:

[Manny]

me too. we could meet every couple of months. we could switch the location on the island to acomidate every one. :cool:

[BCWolfen]

Hey I'm on board!!! Great idea.

[TNTCanada]

What is the min we need, so far we have 8. Do we even need a min? My place is up for grabes any time.

Cheers
Tyler

[gerrygab]

Count me in too!

[reeferaddict]

Hey this is coming along quite nicely! 8 the first day, Christy offering to organize and a potential sponsor! (Thanks Scott)

So I guess the first step would be to define a mission, ways and means to accomplish it, membership, initial meeting, and some sort of structure.

My initial thoughts would be the mission to be something like:

"To promote responsible, sustainable reef aquarium keeping through sharing of information and educating our members and the public about tropical reef life in nature and keeping it in captivity."

The means to accomplish this would be regular scheduled meetings with varying themes, featured speaker presentations, sharing and observations of breeding and propogation techniques, along with any other ideas that come..

Then we should decide on a meeting place and date, and decide how we could structure it.

I'm thinking members could offer things to each other such as mentorship, aquarium sitting, and of course a support system of sorts for people's emergencies, crashes etc... somebody needs a heater or a pump or something.. simple to start, but in the future we could have a group attend a MACNA conference or maybe even do a reef diving trip... It would just be nice to meet face to face... see each others systems in person, and have a social circle beyond our online personas of people sharing this passion... thanks for the great response... let's keep the ideas flowing and get the ball rolling... :mrgreen:

[Jaws]

Sounds good guys. I look forward to our first meeting. :smile:

[christyf5]

Bleh, mission schmission :wink:

A bunch of reef geeks getting together to geek out over fish and frags and the occasional beer. :razz:

I hope when you said "Formal" you didn't mean taking minutes and banging gavels and crap :razz:

[rickjames]

Sure why not, I'm in. :biggrin:

[Swags]

Count me in!
Phil

[reeferaddict]

Bleh, mission schmission :wink:

A bunch of reef geeks getting together to geek out over fish and frags and the occasional beer. :razz:

I hope when you said "Formal" you didn't mean taking minutes and banging gavels and crap :razz:

I guess this is where we determine the "structure"... IMO the best structure would be one that wasn't dependent upon the presence or actions of one or two individuals thereby ensuring the survival and continuation of the association, society or whatever we decide to call it... I hadn't thought of a gavel.. but now that ya mention it.... :idea: :mrgreen:

[HimSelf]

Great idea!! I think if we work out some type of car pooling system then we can shrink this island down in to a small town

I'm in!!!

[StirCrazy]

I'm just curious to find out how many of you on the island would join & support a REAL reefkeeping club.

look at the poll, there is 3 that would :mrgreen:

Steve

[Johnny Reefer]

I'm just curious to find out how many of you on the island would join & support a REAL reefkeeping club.

look at the poll, there is 3 that would :mrgreen:

Steve

Hmmm....I count 3 that wouldn't :confused:

Anyhoo...Ya! Count me in. I think it'd be good.
But ya, no gavel please. I get enough structure at work. :razz:

That makes a dozen.
Anyone want to make it a Baker's? :smile:

[StirCrazy]

I'm just curious to find out how many of you on the island would join & support a REAL reefkeeping club.

look at the poll, there is 3 that would :mrgreen:

Steve

Hmmm....I count 3 that wouldn't :confused:



only 3 votes for to "join and support" which would be a dues/membership paying type thing. only 1 was a definate no.

Steve

[Jaws]

I'd pay if it was needed, but I'd like to see some good things happen if I had to pay for anything. :smile:

[Johnny Reefer]

I'm just curious to find out how many of you on the island would join & support a REAL reefkeeping club.

look at the poll, there is 3 that would :mrgreen:

Steve

Hmmm....I count 3 that wouldn't :confused:



only 3 votes for to "join and support" which would be a dues/membership paying type thing. only 1 was a definate no.

Steve

I disagree. Join and support doesn't necessarily mean you have to pay dues.
My Mom belongs to a small monthly book club (about seven or eight members).
She joined it and she supports it, but she doesn't pay any dues.

I think what is key, here, is the definition of what a "REAL" reefkeeping club is.

Jim?....
Please clarify...
What is your vision of a "REAL" reefkeeping club?
What is your idea of a small annual fee?
At something like $10/year, say, I don't forsee anyone going to any MACNA conferences anytime soon! :neutral:

Thanx much,

[IPZ]

Lets not put the cart before the horse here... Jim's poll is simply to measure what kind of intrest there is in starting a reefing club.

I think that the idea behind this group is to allow people who share the common bond of reef keeping, to get together on a monthly basis, share ideas, experiences, and make new friends within the hobby.

As my company is prepared to sponsor the costs of a meeting place, ect, there should be no need for anyone to have to pay any fees. :mrgreen:

soooo ..... hows about we just schedule a meet ! :mrgreen:

[StirCrazy]

Lets not put the cart before the horse here... Jim's poll is simply to measure what kind of intrest there is in starting a reefing club.

I think that the idea behind this group is to allow people who share the common bond of reef keeping, to get together on a monthly basis, share ideas, experiences, and make new friends within the hobby.

As my company is prepared to sponsor the costs of a meeting place, ect, there should be no need for anyone to have to pay any fees. :mrgreen:

soooo ..... hows about we just schedule a meet ! :mrgreen:

exactly, same thing that pops up every year and is put on the back burner because there isn't enuf people on the island to make it realy work.

People are already talking about bringing people in to speak, well they do speak for free, but you have to pay there transportation, lodging, food, ect while they are here. I do belong to the Puget Sound Aquarium Society(and thats where I will most likely stay) they have over 300 members that pay 20.00 per year for a membership and still have to charge a feb bucks when they have guest speakers and such.

On the island I am sure we could scrape up 100 people but it would be so spread out and you would get poor turnouts for meetings. also I have a hard time seeing the vendors on the island supporting a club like the ones in the seattle area support the Puget Sound Aquarium Society, ie. one meating I was at one of the local stores donated about 15 mother colonies (sps) and about 32 frags (sps) and about 25 soft/LPS assorted corals so Anthony Califo could do a fragging demo/workshop and everyone went home with about 3 or 4 frags. I think that would put most local vendors out of business :mrgreen: also for a formal club you need to form a elected council to run the club. idealy they have to be from the same area so they can easily get togeather for meatings and they have to have the TIME to do it. you need a constitution and so on and so on (this isn't bad as you can read another well established club's and modify it o fit yours but the club still have to vote on it and pass it.

so as you can guess I voted no because I have seen this come up every year for the last 3 or 4 years and quietly go away because of lack of interest or ability to put it togeather, plus I am already a member of a society.

Steve

[rickjames]

Yeah, except the thing that sucks about joining an American club is that you couldn't bring back any frags of CITES protected corals! :sad:

I think the club is a great idea, and would be good for swapping frags and such.

[christyf5]

Steve,

I'm a member of the PSAS as well but neither you nor I were there when the PSAS first started out with 6 guys hanging out in another guys basement geeking out over some tank. Its not like it started off with 350 people wanting to pony up their $20 to see Anthony Calfo or Charles Delbeek give a talk. :rolleyes: I'm sure people will pay dues when there is something worth paying for. That is going to take time.

[StirCrazy]

Steve,

I'm a member of the PSAS as well but neither you nor I were there when the PSAS first started out with 6 guys hanging out in another guys basement geeking out over some tank. Its not like it started off with 350 people wanting to pony up their $20 to see Anthony Calfo or Charles Delbeek give a talk. :rolleyes: I'm sure people will pay dues when there is something worth paying for. That is going to take time.

not saying that, but what I am saying is that due to the population on the island and the geographical setting I would not expect anything on the Island to become even close to what PSAS ended up being.. yes I agree that 10 fish geeks is a start but the problem is our location and how spread out we are. take for example a start of 50 people. this is a good number for a start but now say that 50 people 20 are from Vic, 12 from Nanimo and the rest from all over the island. In a different club setting say all 50 are from Victoria. so for situation where every one is from the sane town at a normal meeting I would expect 15 to 20 people to attend regularly (most clubs get about 1/3 the membership attending regularly) now this doesn't mean the same 1/3 of the people but on average you will get about 1/3 attending.

now look at the first situation where the club is spread all over the island. how are you going to hold meetings? are you going to have them at different locations all the time? some ones house? ect??? are people going to travel all the time for them?? I expect the turn out would be lower than 1/4 on average and would end up being like we do now by some one inviting everyone over to look at there tank.

Ok so if we go with a more formal club with membership and everything. you are going to need a constant place to hold your meetings, like a hall or a empty garage ect.. where you can set things up for different meeting agendas. this works good when everyone is from the same area but for a spread out club people who are not close will get tired of driving long distances (already 1 person asking about carpooling in the post).

I am not saying it is a bad idea or that it won't work but rather that there is a lot more aspects to look at then a lot of people realize. I run a military club and the membership is spread out like crazy but we only have 1 annual meeting a year and out of 200 members you think I can get 20 that will commit to being on a couple comities that meet 4 times a year :rolleyes: lot of changes coming for next year I tell ya :mrgreen:

another thing to look at is how are you going to spread the word about this club? you want to do it in such a way that people with out Internet can participate also, which means you will have to do regular mail outs to keep them informed which costs money. and so on and so on.

you can start with 10 people but I think really until you get a paying membership you will not be doing anything that we don't already do on Can reef and when we go to other peoples places to help them or just stare at there tanks.

Steve

[christyf5]

take for example a start of 50 people. this is a good number for a start but now say that 50 people 20 are from Vic, 12 from Nanimo and the rest from all over the island. In a different club setting say all 50 are from Victoria. so for situation where every one is from the sane town at a normal meeting I would expect 15 to 20 people to attend regularly

so you're saying if we aren't from Victoria we're from the insane town? :razz:

I hear ya, but there is no reason why we can't hold the meetings wherever on the island, they don't have to always be in the same place. I realize some of you Victorians are scared to leave your big city so we will probably have meetings there quite often :wink:

[TNTCanada]

I think why not, give it a go. It has to start some time, somewhere. For example I joined a community counsel about a year and a half ago. It started out with three people sitting in a room talking over some ideas; we just wanted to do something that we were interested in. A year and a half later we have established a great council, have dozens of people joining the team and we’re growing everyday.
It’s all about meeting new contacts, getting new ideas learning new things and helping new people.
We all started somewhere maybe a gold fish in a tiny little bowl, visiting the Vancouver Aquarium or watching Jacques Cousteau dive the Great Barrier Reef. Some how we decided to go big or go home.
I’m sure we have all made mistakes that cost us lots of money, as well the loss of the critters we were trying to keep. It would be a great place for newbies to ask questions, and get advice. We would be able to save the keepers and animals some grief. It would also be a great place for the more advance people to challenge and help each other to take this wonderful hobby to the next level.

Just my two cents

Cheers
Tyler

[StirCrazy]

take for example a start of 50 people. this is a good number for a start but now say that 50 people 20 are from Vic, 12 from Nanimo and the rest from all over the island. In a different club setting say all 50 are from Victoria. so for situation where every one is from the sane town at a normal meeting I would expect 15 to 20 people to attend regularly

so you're saying if we aren't from Victoria we're from the insane town? :razz:



we... lets pretend I types "same" but now that you mention it :mrgreen:

Steve

[Johnny Reefer]

Lets not put the cart before the horse here...
Not sure if this is directed to me, but if it is, I don't think I was trying to put a cart before anything. :confused:


I think that the idea behind this group is to allow people who share the common bond of reef keeping, to get together on a monthly basis, share ideas, experiences, and make new friends within the hobby.
That's they way I see it. Doesn't have to be anything big. :mrgreen:

there should be no need for anyone to have to pay any fees. :mrgreen:
Agreed again. But I'd be willing to. :smile:


soooo ..... hows about we just schedule a meet ! :mrgreen:
Agreed with this too! Lets do it! :biggrin:

Cheers,

[jennytheleopardgrouper]

I'd be in! I'd like to see it more on the casual side, although occassional lectures would be okay.

[Squiddy]

I just saw his thread for the first time :redface:. I think this is a good idea and I'd be up for it.