2015 Meeting Discussion Thread

[mFrame]

I've been asked questions regarding the 2015 Meeting Schedule so I thought I would start this thread to discuss.

When I first took over the club one of my priorities was having a fixed meeting schedule so that members would know without a lot of thought when they could meet up. Meetings are fun and provide a great opportunity to learn about the hobby and to catch up with fellow members. We established the third Saturday of each month for our meetings. The first year we had great topics, hosts, guest speakers, door prizes, and growing attendance. We then started to receive requests to have meetings on days other than Saturday, so we switched to alternating Saturday and Sundays, still on the 3rd weekend of the month. While we saw some new faces now able to attend on Sunday, we lost some familiar faces that could only attend on Saturdays. Then over time attendance for both days began to decline. We expected this during the summer months, but it continued through the fall.

January is normally one of our largest meetings. In the past years we had an average attendance of 35+, but this year it was less than 10. Now we're approaching April and it would be great to figure this out for the rest of the year.

So, my questions for you:

• Do you still want to have a monthly meeting, or would you prefer quarterly?
• What would entice you to attend more often? (topics, guest speakers, door prizes, different location, etc.)
• Have you enjoyed our special events that we've done in the past (Sea World trip, Austin Aquarium, etc)?
• What other ideas or recommendations do you have?

Regardless of which schedule we decide on, I believe that going forward we should have an RSVP policy. You would RSVP ahead of time for you and however many of your family you think would attend. This wouldn't be a hard commitment, but if we found that RSVPs weren't accurate we'd have to figure out something new. If we don't have RSVPs for at least 10 people attending on the Monday before the meeting, the host may choose to cancel or back out of hosting. In that case we can still meet, but it would change to an informal meeting at a local fish store, pub, restaurant, etc. It's just not fair to ask hosts and staff to set aside a day to have a meeting in their house and only have a few members attend.

And yes, we are still planning to do a C4 in 2015, it just won't be in the spring. Stay tuned for an alternate discussion thread regarding it...

And lastly, thanks to all you ARCers, you make it all worthwhile,

Mike & the ARC Staff

[Dan H]

A bit of background - My wife and I were heavily involved with the West Michigan Marine Aquarium Club. She was elected president for a while, and I ran the website, we both gave presentations on different topics. The community around the club was very strong and it was a lot of fun. Plus we got to make some life long friends.

I would think that getting guest speakers and having members of the club do presentations on various topics would be interesting. We used to love the opportunity to research a topic, and create some short presentation. Usually the Q&A after the presentation was very fun as well. We did have the meetings at the same location most of the time, but occasionally it was held at people's houses or shops.

Another thing that WMMAC did was to have livestock and hardware auctions at every meeting. Those alone usually attracted a lot of people as you could get some crazy nice frags for really cheap.

I think if the goal is to create a stronger community of people in the hobby, then the meetings should be monthly. I like the RSVP thing, and certainly announcing a topic/speaker/whatever ahead of time would be nice.

Just my $0.02.

[Sascha D.]

I joined the club in May 2012. I had just gotten out of the military, graduated college and moved here from another state. My wife is from Texas and we chose Austin because we thought we would find young, like minded people here to make friends with. I have met many nice people through ARC and I am active on the forums nearly every day. The meetings I have attended didn't seem very organized and the speakers were not prepared to speak on the subject or answer questions fully. I have not attended meetings recently for those reasons.

I can't speak for everyone, but people in this hobby have generally spent many hours researching different aspects of fish and coral keeping. The disconnect happens when you read an article online or in a book of some sort and do not get to see the topic first hand. I think that many people would jump at the chance to see some of these things during a meeting. Not everyone has years of experience, has a 200g display tank full of acros or maintains a 100g frag tank and the people that do have to remember that the club is mostly made up of people that don't.

1. Coral fragging, where someone could demonstrate how to frag a coral or anemone.


2. Equipment demonstrations like calcium reactors, what they are, how they work and how to set them up. Trouble shootings and what can go wrong once you have them set up. Personally, I can tell you that I was not prepared for this upgrade.


3. Supplements, what gets diminished, what to do when it does and what to look for.


4. Chemicals that you can use to buffer aquariums, like how to use baking soda or calcium chloride.


5. How to get rid of pests. Maybe demonstrate how to make or use a bottle trap, kill aiptasia, or remove a fish from the system.


6. Aquarium maintenance. If the host has an awesome tank, then show us what you do to maintain it. How do you clean it, maintain the sand bed, etc.

Some of those suggestions are situational, but some can be done in any system without removal of the equipment or livestock. All you need is someone that already does it to explain what they do and why. I'm not a tech guy, but if someone has a projector or something that they are willing to lend then you can make slides for certain topics.

Maybe during the summer months the meeting could be a lunch event where you charge $5 at the door and someone is grilling hamburgers. I remember last year there was an outdoor event with food that looked like a blast.

I remember some people doing group buys in conjunction with club meetings. I wouldn't mind being a part of those and enjoy the meeting at the same time. You would most certainly hit free shipping.

[Kaplanm]

I think it would be really nice to do it monthly still.

I know I've not been to meetings in a long time, but I've been excited to start coming now that I've got a tank built. We're finally moving to a house that is just built for entertaining and I would love to host, often. I'm quite OK hosting for 10 people or 40. I would appreciate an RSVP, but that's only for informational purposes, I wouldn't wind up turning anyone away or canceling.

I think some of the topics that Sascha suggested would be fantastic talks that I would love to hear. They're common issues that people like me, just starting in the hobby, could really benefit from.

I think it could be cool to get a lending library started, I've got subscriptions to the big fish mags and goodness knows those back issues are just piling up.

I would love to see frag swaps, even if it's just tiny stuff. Again for those of us just starting, anything to cut down on our cost of entry is appreciated. I'm fine with having the patience to wait, but $30 a colony is starting to kill me.

I loved the door prizes the last time I went to a meeting. I use the grabber that I won almost every day.

It might be cool to have someone do a "showcased livestock of the month" find someone who's passionate about keeping a specific type of critter and have them do a deep dive talk about their passion. We could film them and pop them up on youtube later for people who couldn't make it, or just to get us some exposure. I think it could be really cool if we could try and reach out to individuals who aren't necessarily in the club, but who do have this sort of passion and try to video conference them in for a meeting.

I'm sad that I wasn't able to go on any of the "special trips" this past year, a lot of them looked really cool. I'm hoping we continue doing some of them so I can get on board.

Anyway, long story short, I'm up to doing as much as I can to keep this alive and well in the Austin area.

[FarmerTy]

My 2 cents:

I think we're all thinking the same thing for the most part. There's a great number of wonderful individuals on this club. I've met a ton of people and all of them have been awesome! I generally end up talking to and texting my reef friends more than my little circle of friends that are not reefers.

As regards to the meetings, I just think we need the charge to be taken to really organize and plan them in advance, so that people know what is the topic and who is hosting in plenty of time to make plans to attend.

I think we lose some of that momentum when meetings are announced only a few weeks in advance and it not always being mentioned what the topic is.

I know we're all busy and have our own lives to attend to... I feel like I drop the ball myself with the mentor program when I get busy, but I think a proactive and early approach to planning meetings is the disconnect.

We have people willing to host most times and like Sascha and dhulbert mentioned, we have a wealth of knowledge in the club that a short presentation over a specific topic would be beneficial for all parties.

I think I still enjoy having monthly meetings and we seem like we have the interest in it still. Perhaps just a retooling of the organization of the meeting, earlier notice, topic announced, who's presenting... perhaps that will help get them going again.

I know the one I hosted last year, I had self-promoted it months in advance (big surprise on the self promotion I'm sure [emoji12] ) and had the topic laid out ahead of time (tips on keeping sps), had speakers lined up, and even catered in some Vietnamese food as snacks. I think we ended up with 30 plus people there.

We don't need to go that far with catering food in but since the club has been so good to me personally and professionally, I wanted to give back and that was a way I could.

I'll aim to host one in the Fall again so keep your ears perked around that time! Topic: alternative coral dips... I could do a CARX primer too if we have interest. [emoji106]

[jolt]

+1 CaRX primer. Keep in mind that the fall is problematic for die hard football fans ...

[Kaplanm]

Doesn't mean that those of us who don't give a crap about football don't want to meet. or as a plan B, we could do a combined watch party / club meeting.

[FarmerTy]

Don't get me wrong... I love my reef tank. But when it comes down to football or my reef tank, move on over corals.

The combined football watching coral meeting sounds good in theory but I'd start getting irked if I was watching the game and then someone came up and tried to talk CARXs (calcium reactor) with me. C'mon man, you made me miss the TD! [emoji33]

[jolt]

Doesn't mean that those of us who don't give a crap about football don't want to meet. or as a plan B, we could do a combined watch party / club meeting.

Understood. I was clumsily trying to suggest that if the CaRX topic is in the fall I would be sad ....

[Kaplanm]

The combined football watching coral meeting sounds good in theory but I'd start getting irked if I was watching the game and then someone came up and tried to talk CARXs (calcium reactor) with me. C'mon man, you made me miss the TD! [emoji33]

Isn't that what halftime is for, or do cheerleaders take precedence over corals too?

[Sascha D.]

There are certainly incentives for going to one meeting or another, whether it be topic, gifts, or food, but we should want to meet. Low attendance means there is a disconnect for one reason or another. Reef nerds don't really need a reason to talk to other reef nerds, we just need a place!

[Dan H]

There are certainly incentives for going to one meeting or another, whether it be topic, gifts, or food, but we should want to meet. Low attendance means there is a disconnect for one reason or another. Reef nerds don't really need a reason to talk to other reef nerds, we just need a place!

Best response yet. That's a huge part of the hobby to me. Meeting other nerds and geeking out over interesting conversations about the hobby. Granted sometimes the discussions get too dogmatic and people can be blow hards, but then again I'm in the software business so I'm used to that. [emoji2]

I was sad the last 2 months had no meetings, I was hoping to meet some of y'all. Of course it's all new since I'm getting back in so my energy and motivation are off the charts right now.

I'm my experience, there needs to be a handful of really motivated people that just make it happen. The rest will follow.

[Reburn]

Kaplanm,

Some of us choose to attend games. Especially Saturday's when UT is in town. As I can understand you aren't a football nerd halftime is for going to the bathroom, getting snacks and drink refills. Yes football and it's extra circucular activities (pre, post and halftime shows) will take precedence over a reef club meeting. I am a die hard college fan. But I don't care about pro ball on Sunday's. There are members that prefer one over the other and sometimes both.

I have yet to attend a meeting simply because I haven't been able to fit one into my schedule.

You will never be able to accommodate everyone's schedule and doing so is futile.

My vote is for quartely, the less common they are the more people will express a sense of urgency to try and attend and get out of the "oh there will just be another one next month" attitude.

[+brian.srock]

We need a better RSVP system. When I had my meeting and spent time and money getting my tank and house ready and even got a business owner to talk about Scuba diving I only had 5 people show up.

It was set up in June on a Saturday last year so the sunday scheduling wasn't an issue.

I would like to see my friends monthly if just to talk shop.

[Kaplanm]

We need a better RSVP system. When I had my meeting and spent time and money getting my tank and house ready and even got a business owner to talk about Scuba diving I only had 5 people show up.

It was set up in June on a Saturday last year so the sunday scheduling wasn't an issue.

I would like to see my friends monthly if just to talk shop.

Amen.

There is always plan C. We could have formal club meetings quarterly and just do something a little less formal on the off months.

There are certainly incentives for going to one meeting or another, whether it be topic, gifts, or food, but we should want to meet. Low attendance means there is a disconnect for one reason or another. Reef nerds don't really need a reason to talk to other reef nerds, we just need a place!

I think this is a really solid point. I for one would be really interested to diagnose what the disconnect is.

[Sascha D.]

One issue that I have seen is the North and South divide. The meetings are held at someone's house and rightfully so since that is where the tank is. In the past I have seen that most of the people to volunteer to host live in the northern suburbs and the people that live too far south do not attend. I imagine the same would be true if reversed. I do not see a way to improve it though.

[Dan H]

Maybe we need some neutral grounds? Perhaps someone knows someone with a meeting room or somewhere central? I'm assuming downtown would be a pain with parking.

[Sascha D.]

Half of the fun is seeing the hosts tank. Some of the presentations require a display as well.

[Kaplanm]

Maybe we need some neutral grounds? Perhaps someone knows someone with a meeting room or somewhere central? I'm assuming downtown would be a pain with parking.

Does that make Lake Austin the 38th Parallel?

Is it perhaps simply a matter of making the effort to try and schedule every other meeting down south?

Perhaps a car pool setup might make it more palatable to some club members?

Half of the fun is seeing the hosts tank. Some of the presentations require a display as well.

I'm of a like mind. I thought Ty's point about making sure to schedule far in advance is a great point. It's easy to book off calendar space earlier in the month than it is the last week. Perhaps we make an effort to at least announce the host/date of the next event at the beginning or end of the current months event? Even if all the details aren't set in stone, at least knowing where/when can be enough to pencil something in.

[FarmerTy]

I honestly find the scheduling in advance as the main disconnect. Here's the order of priority I see:

1) Schedule in advance so plans can be made

2) Topic of interest to everyone (if the discussion is about hermit crabs, don't be too surprised if I'm not in the audience)

3) Location

4) Day

5) Door prizes and food

[Wardlaw]

I'm on the monthly train and I'd like to use the comparison of proper husbandry in our tanks to safety in the workplace.

Any of you that work for a large corporation have likely heard or been a part of many a safety talk/meeting. While this may not be the most interesting of topics for tenured veterans, it is an important topic none the less. The same goes for simple tank maintenance regiments. You may not agree with the nuances of one tank owners methods, but I feel that a lot can be learned by listening to other persons' experiences.

Even when we discuss the more exciting topics (CARX, dosing. etc.) we could have a single point that is focused on that all (especially noobs) can gain from. I for one have had a million aha moments when discussing the most menial of tasks with other reefers (water changes). If we make the information valuable to all levels of reefers, more attendance will be had.

When you first join and you don't "know" the great guys and gals on here, it can be intimidating to go to their home. If you know that there is some guarantee that you may learn something relevant to you, and also learn about a topic that may not be relevant now but could in the future, you are more likely to show up.

and oh yeah food and prizes, food and prizes

dismounting safety soap box, with caution

[mFrame]

Thanks for participating. If you've just been reading along, please chime in!

You've all touched on some key points that I'll try to summarize and address here:

• Overloading meetings - coordinating group buys so that the pickup can occur at the meeting is a great idea, and one that has been floated before. The challenge we had is that the staff and I don't coordinate group buys, members do. So if you want to coordinate a group buy for delivery at the meeting, great! Let us know how we can help. Similarly, you're always welcome to bring frags to meetings to sell or swap (in addition to our dedicated bi-annual frag swaps specifically for that purpose)
• Interesting Topics - this can be challenging, because what is interesting to a newbie is not necessarily interesting to someone who has been in the hobby a while. Some of our more successful meetings have been building LED light figures and making dry rock. We can start a proposed meeting topic thread, along with volunteers who can teach or demonstrate, which would help a lot. Pest removal is always useful, and many common maintenance tasks can be covered as well.
• Recording Sessions - This is a great idea, it would not only allow members who missed or wish to watch the topic again, but would provide content for our ARC youtube channel.
• Location - the eternal North vs South debate. There just aren't that many reefers who have offered to host in central locations, so meetings tend to be North or South. To try to make it fair and improve attendance, we try to juggle meetings north or south every other month. This is also why we have meetings on Saturdays, it's just too hard for people to get around during the week after work.
• Scheduling - I think the mixed Saturday/Sunday lead to confusion. Having the meetings stay on the 3rd Saturday of the month makes it easy to remember.
• Schedule Conflicts - Fall is always bad due to football. For this reason we encourage meeting hosts to have the meeting before or after a game. This hits us with both Saturday and Sunday games, another reason why we tried juggling them. If a host has a large house they could also offer to have the game on in another room or in the background. The only other real way to do this is just to manage expectations via the RSVP.
• Backup plan in Meeting Announcement - I like the idea of having a backup plan in place at the time each meeting location is announced, and whether or not RSVP minimum is in place. It's easy for me to put the RSVP in the meeting announcement so you can tell at a glance if we met the minimum. If not, the alternate "informal meeting" location and time would already be there.
• Organization - In general I think this is where we have failed you. As attendance dropped we began to be a bit disheartened and we let that affect future planning. I'll work hardest here to improve that.
• Charging for events - the goal is not to charge for events other than special events like Sea World, etc. We have several local sponsors that have kindly offered in the past to provide food or drinks, especially if we have events at their store where it is easier for them to provide such. Having a charge to participate either leads to people not coming, or not buying the items. In addition it means that someone is left cooking and not getting to be involved (Dave and I ended up working the grill all day at our Fall frag swap)
• Email notifications - I avoid sending email reminders out to members for everything but membership renewals. Would you like to have a reminder sent to you before meetings?
• Library - ARC does have a lending library(link here), but I've found that with the availability of the internet I have yet to have anyone request or borrow a book.
• Promoting Meetings - In the end, we the staff can schedule and announce the meetings, but there's no reason the meeting host and other members can't help promote it. As Ty mentioned, an active meeting host helps our volunteer staff make sure that people know about the meeting and get hyped about attending, as well as insuring they have a large crowd at their place so they can show off their tank.

Finally, I'd address the "disconnect" with members. This post was to help try to remedy that, and I appreciate all of your involvement, but I'm asking for more. This thread has been viewed 146 times and currently has 19 posts other than mine, with less than 10 people participating.

If you're not shy and speak up, the staff and I will do everything we can to provide the meetings you want to attend.

[Gig 'em @ NDstructible]

OH lord, I hear you on the safety moments Wardlaw! My company requires a safety moment before any meeting can begin. I'm over here in the BP Refinery in S. Chicago and they made me sit through an entire day's worth of safety training just so I can renew my badge!

I agree though, we get a lot of new people in the hobby at the meetings and it would be good to run over the basics of reef keeping since so many people are clueless getting into the hobby. Not everyone should be required to sit through it, but it would be a good way to get the meetings rolling while answering a lot of questions people may have (or even clarify on things they thought they knew, but were actually wrong or out dated).

The promise of good prizes is what gets me in the door. I agree with Ty, knowing in advance is the best way for me to plan and prepare for a meeting, but location also plays a role. If there's a meeting way down south, or pretty far off the beaten path from the larger Austin roads, I won't waste my Saturday driving around town. Some people don't mind going out of there way and there's really no way to fix the issue to make everyone happy, but with my work travel schedule, it's hard to get out of the house when I'm home on the weekends.

It's also hard for me to convince my fiance to go with me, she was pretty bored last time I took her. And without her "permission"/(preventing her from getting upset that I chose fish over here when I'm home) it's difficult to go. Maybe have a little cocktail lounge for the wives/significant other to gather and talk about their spouses annoying obsession while they can mingle and do their own thing?

... dreams, sweet sweet dreams

[victoly]

Lol @ cocktail lounge. We just need to have those without spouses contribute to a shopping fun, so that spouses can go shop. Totally fair.

[Kaplanm]

OH lord, I hear you on the safety moments Wardlaw! My company requires a safety moment before any meeting can begin. I'm over here in the BP Refinery in S. Chicago and they made me sit through an entire day's worth of safety training just so I can renew my badge!

I agree though, we get a lot of new people in the hobby at the meetings and it would be good to run over the basics of reef keeping since so many people are clueless getting into the hobby. Not everyone should be required to sit through it, but it would be a good way to get the meetings rolling while answering a lot of questions people may have (or even clarify on things they thought they knew, but were actually wrong or out dated).

The promise of good prizes is what gets me in the door. I agree with Ty, knowing in advance is the best way for me to plan and prepare for a meeting, but location also plays a role. If there's a meeting way down south, or pretty far off the beaten path from the larger Austin roads, I won't waste my Saturday driving around town. Some people don't mind going out of there way and there's really no way to fix the issue to make everyone happy, but with my work travel schedule, it's hard to get out of the house when I'm home on the weekends.

It's also hard for me to convince my fiance to go with me, she was pretty bored last time I took her. And without her "permission"/(preventing her from getting upset that I chose fish over here when I'm home) it's difficult to go. Maybe have a little cocktail lounge for the wives/significant other to gather and talk about their spouses annoying obsession while they can mingle and do their own thing?

... dreams, sweet sweet dreams

Being one of the n00b members I can attest that there is a great deal of anxiety with attending meetings at members houses. The one meeting I did attend it seemed like everyone knew each other so well and I was the one guy crashing a family get together. Having an "Ice Breaker" moment at the beginning to really get the n00bs involved would be a significant gain in terms of boosting future attendance.

I also love the ideal of a cocktail lounge for significant others of "Reef-Oholics". My fiancee has minimal interest in the hobby, but would love an excuse to meet some new people and knock a few back.

That said... our new house is actually going to be configured like this. We're putting in a bar up front, and then we'll have a main lounge/entertaining space past the kitchen. As soon as I convince my fiancee that we've actually "moved in" I can't wait to host one of the meetings.