Proposed Meeting Time/Date Change?

[boviac]

Greetings,

It has been a while since I've been to a local meeting.

I would like to propose a date/time change to the second friday of the Month at 7pm. Same place at Round Table Pizza.

I am finding for me personally that with weekends, either I'm not home or if I am, I'm often involved with projects, lose track of time, and then end up missing the meeting. Further, the last weekend of the month conflicts with several holiday weekends. Weekdays are much more structured and easier for me to attend. I also know of at least one local reefer that is unable to attend with the current Sunday schedule.

I suspect the RARE (Redding) meetings are the first Friday of the month. I know the MARS (Sacramento) meetings are the third Friday of the month.

I'm unable to attend this July meeting (annual camping trip) and have asked Joel to discuss this option. Please feel free to share your thoughts with him should you attend the July meeting this Sunday at 5:30pm.

If this change is generally accepatable, the August meeting would be on August 10 at 7pm.

Please post comments as to whether this is good or bad for you.

Thanks and looking to see you there!

Regards,

-Chris

[mikekman]

Thursdays, Fridays, or Saturdays would be good. As president of the Chico club, you cannot be absent.....doesn't look good on you :D :D :D

Chris, perhaps you can see if the Redding reefers want to have a meeting with us? Long drive for them though so not sure. I sure want a frag swap between us and the redding reefers.

[boviac]

Yeah, I hear you Mike. I started that thread with the first sentance instead of being by itself - being a five line paragraph but I didn't want to sound that bad. Thanks for pointing it out though!

[mikekman]

Figure out when you can have the meeting. Also, see if you can call some Chico reefers to see if they can go. We want a large meeting.

[kinghokus420]

getting a new day to meet is a great idea. sundays are always way too busy. thurs or fri would be good. either way i will have my kids with me :). im sure some of the redding guys would come down, they've made a few in the past. they also were talking about a frag swap. either way i will be at the august meeting. sunday is my 7 yr wedding anniversary. see, sundays are too busy.

[missyshrout]

I would love to come to the meetings but Sunday is the busiest day for me too. Thursday, fri, or sat is great for me too.

[mikekman]

What does everyone think of club meetings twice a month? Once a month stinks because what if you miss it? With twice a month meetings, if you can't make it to one of them, you could go to the other one instead of waiting another month.

I agree with Melissa that thurs, fri, or sat meetings would be great. Fri and Sat are best days.

[boviac]

Great! Thanks for the comments. We'll see if there are any more by the end of Wednesday and decide if the mid-month Friday is best.

Mike - twice a Month!!! Hey, lets see if we can sustain monthly visits. If wanted anyone could always coordinate something else on the side or we could coordinate sub-committies that meet more frequently for certain events or topics. Once we get more established, we can coordinate a member contact list and post minutes from the meetings online so if anyone misses a meeting they can catch up on their own.

Now I'm not saying nay at all to twice a month meetings but people can and do get burned out in doing this outside of their own little reef world. After all it is really just a hobby - a rewarding, time-consuming, and financially draining hobby - some take it to a business level, but unfortunately many bail out sooner or later. Let's just get it started monthly for now.

Nonetheless, I'm surely open to all comments and criticisms. Please keep the ideas and comments coming.

[mikekman]

I'll be the sub committee that does a 2nd meeting during the month:D

I think there are a lot of people in this area that could learn a lot from the meetings because we have so many things to talk about. People will get burned out especially if they dive in and spend all their money before researching. The club can help educate people.

I like the idea of a contact list.

[boviac]

Mike,

If you and others want to have more frequent meetings - no problem. However, the I have these reservations about that proceeding. The point of the club is to advance the education and participation of the reef aquaria hobby throughout the local area. So in order to do that I feel the club should meet together as a group as much as possible. Should we have more than one option some may pick and choose which meetings they wish to go to and detract from the ability for a large group to meet and interact as a whole. Plus we want the club to be a club not niched for elite reefers or people with unending pocketbooks who may ostracise newbies.

Plus, again this is a hobby for most of us and many of us that have what it takes to have and maintain a reef aquarium tend to be busy with other things as well. One meeting a month/ 12 meetings a year is enough for me.

As for researching... I doubt the club will do more than slighly encourage that as there is more than enough free and worthwhile information on the internet as well as lots of books to read. If people aren't researching before the club - not much the club will do to change that. However, maybe they just need to be pointed in the right direction... how many nights have you 'lost' reading 'build' or 'DIY' threads on Reef Central? Maybe they just need to see some average joe having some different corals or a different setup than the LFS.

I don't know what would work for everyone. But I just don't think based upon my gut feeling and precedence that bi-monthly meetings will be effective for the club.

However, we need to generate some sort of org board for the group and I feel you'd qualify for some position on that board. As an officer group we could easily meet more frequently to make the meetings and other events more meaningful and productive.

We'll talk more on this soon.

-Chris

[mikekman]

Hey Chris, lets get the meeting set up and then we can all discuss all of this. Oh, do you think we can meet at a LFS instead of Round Table? Maybe see if Rick at Fish Etc will host a meeting. He could order some corals to come in the day of the meeting and make some money while people are there.

Either way, people can have fun looking at the corals for sale and then we can all talk to each other, etc.

I can't wait until the club has a regular membership of like 20+ people then we can do little raffles, swaps, and auctions like what they do in Sac.

Definitely after a few meetings, we should discuss with everyone at the club to see if they want a Chico/Redding get together.

[boviac]

Ok so after my improvised comment period, I now declare that the Chico Reef Club meeting will be the second Friday of the month at 7pm from now on. This August meeting will be at the north Chico Round Table off of Pillsbury Rd - Near movie theater.

If anyone would like to show off their tank please let it be known here.

Regards,

-Chris