What are the benefits?

[QTBeliever]

What are the benefits to belonging to GRMAS? Aside from the coral auction what do members get out of belonging to GRMAS?

[Gerde]

-Fellowship with other people in the hobby.
-Access to speakers, product reps, authors, retailers that we invite to our meetings to speak.
-Interaction with actual human beings that you can get information/opinions/ideas/support from regarding reef matters.
-Group Buys. We just discussed getting a group buy together at our last meeting.
-A link to your own personal website off of the GRMAS.org site (and possibly webspace included with your membership at some point).
-I'm working on discounts at local retailers for marine stuff if you are club member.

Anyone else have ideas?

We haven't seen you guys at a meeting lately, what's holding you back? See you in August?

[QTBeliever]

I guess we were just looking for information or "fellowship" of a nature that we don't already have via the internet.

I got the feeling of a lack of openness at the previous meeting we attended. Like ideas would have different weight from different members.

[Gerde]

I'm sorry that you feel that way. I'm not exactly sure what you mean by "like ideas would have different weight", but if you feel you get all of what you need from the internet, great.

The club is about sharing. Sharing ideas, information, and opinions. The club can only be as good as it's member's input and their commitment to be active participants in it.

Its intent is to get people out of the house, put them into a social situation, and have some fun together. It is about interacting with people face to face, that share some of the same interests as you. These are things the internet cannot provide.

Our next meeting is 8/1. We've been talking about an auction/swap/trade that we would like to host for the public in the fall, to generate interest in the club. Hope to see you at the next meeting, we can always use more input.