fishfood
12-15-2008, 05:29 PM
First off, thank you to those who attended. We had a good time.
We had everyone show up between 2 and 2:30, and we all left around 4:30. For the first little while, we stood in front of szymek's tank, and adored his set up. We pointed out things here and there, to converse about.
Then we sat down around the table, and started getting to work on what we want to come of this "club".
We know there is MAST, and there is MACL. There's even MASK in Kitchener. But, here in the west end of the GTA, there isn't really anything. Those here in Mississauga, Oakville, Brampton, or closely surrounding areas, would have to resort to driving to either a MAST, MASK, or even MACL meet to take part in one.
Which is why we want/wanted to start up our own version os MAST/MASCL/MASK here in the went end of the GTA.
We discussed ideas and thoughts, of how we would like thinks to start, and where we would like to see them go. We decided on a permanent meet time every month, and the locations of each meet will be decided before it happens. With the meet being on the same day each month, the only think you'll have to worry about is the location. Our first thoughts are to rotate between people's houses for the time being, until hopefully we get decent enough amount of numbers, that we'll need a larger meeting place outside of someones house.
Having meetings at a persons house is a great idea because there will be more like minded brains there to discuss the persons tank, and possibly answer any questions they may have. OR, someone might see something that the owner hasn't noticed, and helped them in that way. Should we be in the need of a larger facility to hold our meets in, in the future, unfortunately, we will lose out on the luxury of getting to adore someone's tank while holding the meeting.
We discussed things today like workshops, meet ideas, etc. We know that MACL, MASK, and MAST provide there members with great meets, and that's what we want to do here for those in this area.
As with MACL and MAST, we also discussed having a membership fee. Something minimal that would be paid annually, and renew on the same day, for every member, regardless of join date. This helps out the club in many ways. We could/would/can use the mone towards things like webspace, when we eventually have our own site. We also pitched the idea, where everyone's money goes in to the club bank, and once a year, we use a portion of that money to purchase a large, frag-able coral from one of the handy stores near by, and slit it amongst those who particiapted.
Like I said, lots of things were discussed. It would take way to long to type it all out, but I can tell you this; we were all equally excited to get this off the ground, and we all hope this flourishes to provide an excellent aquarium community where we're missing one here in the west end of the GTA.
So here is some important information we came up with thus far;
- Meet night will be on the SECOND THURSDAY of every month. I just realized we forgot to pick a stationary time, but I imagine it will be somewhere between 7 and 8pm on those nights. Our meet today was two hours long, give or take 15 minutes, so I imagine our future meets will be there same, give or take an hour. It'll depends on the events the night of the meets.
- Membership fee. We thought a membership fee was a great idea, because the money will go towards things like club BBQ's, club fragging coral buys, etc. We had a bunch of ideas, which we thought was great. We also thought about things like if a new person wants to come to a meet, but isn't sure about the initial membership fee, we can have them there as a "guest" for two meets, and on the third, they have to decide whether or not this atmosphere is for them, and they decide then whether becomming a member is for them or not.
- As mentioned earlier, we talked about possible workshops, etc, to provide to our members.
- We also discussed, that in the future, when the ball gets rolling in an excellent forward motion, to have sponsors come aboard our club. Hopefully, providing things work out beween club and sponsor , they can offer things like a possible 10 to 15 percent off items in the store, or something along those lines.
- We assigned some roles to those who attended today, to help get the club off the ground
So much to do to get things going, but we're sure it'll all pay off.
Also, for the time being, until we have a larger member base, we will be using the more popular reef community sites to communicate with members.
Our homework form this meet was to come up with a name. In the other thread, we threw around some ideas.
Anyways, that's enough rambling on for now.
Thanks for your time,
Shane
Chairman of the soon to be named West End GTA Reef/Aquarium Club
We had everyone show up between 2 and 2:30, and we all left around 4:30. For the first little while, we stood in front of szymek's tank, and adored his set up. We pointed out things here and there, to converse about.
Then we sat down around the table, and started getting to work on what we want to come of this "club".
We know there is MAST, and there is MACL. There's even MASK in Kitchener. But, here in the west end of the GTA, there isn't really anything. Those here in Mississauga, Oakville, Brampton, or closely surrounding areas, would have to resort to driving to either a MAST, MASK, or even MACL meet to take part in one.
Which is why we want/wanted to start up our own version os MAST/MASCL/MASK here in the went end of the GTA.
We discussed ideas and thoughts, of how we would like thinks to start, and where we would like to see them go. We decided on a permanent meet time every month, and the locations of each meet will be decided before it happens. With the meet being on the same day each month, the only think you'll have to worry about is the location. Our first thoughts are to rotate between people's houses for the time being, until hopefully we get decent enough amount of numbers, that we'll need a larger meeting place outside of someones house.
Having meetings at a persons house is a great idea because there will be more like minded brains there to discuss the persons tank, and possibly answer any questions they may have. OR, someone might see something that the owner hasn't noticed, and helped them in that way. Should we be in the need of a larger facility to hold our meets in, in the future, unfortunately, we will lose out on the luxury of getting to adore someone's tank while holding the meeting.
We discussed things today like workshops, meet ideas, etc. We know that MACL, MASK, and MAST provide there members with great meets, and that's what we want to do here for those in this area.
As with MACL and MAST, we also discussed having a membership fee. Something minimal that would be paid annually, and renew on the same day, for every member, regardless of join date. This helps out the club in many ways. We could/would/can use the mone towards things like webspace, when we eventually have our own site. We also pitched the idea, where everyone's money goes in to the club bank, and once a year, we use a portion of that money to purchase a large, frag-able coral from one of the handy stores near by, and slit it amongst those who particiapted.
Like I said, lots of things were discussed. It would take way to long to type it all out, but I can tell you this; we were all equally excited to get this off the ground, and we all hope this flourishes to provide an excellent aquarium community where we're missing one here in the west end of the GTA.
So here is some important information we came up with thus far;
- Meet night will be on the SECOND THURSDAY of every month. I just realized we forgot to pick a stationary time, but I imagine it will be somewhere between 7 and 8pm on those nights. Our meet today was two hours long, give or take 15 minutes, so I imagine our future meets will be there same, give or take an hour. It'll depends on the events the night of the meets.
- Membership fee. We thought a membership fee was a great idea, because the money will go towards things like club BBQ's, club fragging coral buys, etc. We had a bunch of ideas, which we thought was great. We also thought about things like if a new person wants to come to a meet, but isn't sure about the initial membership fee, we can have them there as a "guest" for two meets, and on the third, they have to decide whether or not this atmosphere is for them, and they decide then whether becomming a member is for them or not.
- As mentioned earlier, we talked about possible workshops, etc, to provide to our members.
- We also discussed, that in the future, when the ball gets rolling in an excellent forward motion, to have sponsors come aboard our club. Hopefully, providing things work out beween club and sponsor , they can offer things like a possible 10 to 15 percent off items in the store, or something along those lines.
- We assigned some roles to those who attended today, to help get the club off the ground
So much to do to get things going, but we're sure it'll all pay off.
Also, for the time being, until we have a larger member base, we will be using the more popular reef community sites to communicate with members.
Our homework form this meet was to come up with a name. In the other thread, we threw around some ideas.
Anyways, that's enough rambling on for now.
Thanks for your time,
Shane
Chairman of the soon to be named West End GTA Reef/Aquarium Club