[airinhere]

With statements like
"The LFSs are not mentioned in the charter. The members are. Preserving the LFSs is only required when not doing so negatively affects the members.

Please keep your arguments concrete. First and foremost, establish how the LFS going away is a detriment to our members. Secondly, define how MARS prevents them from staying in business."

I think I can see why the club used to have major issues with the local LFS.

You are kidding right?

What would our club be without the LFS in the area to provide us with stuff to put in our tanks (and the tanks themselves?)

Mail order all the time? Not me. No way.

"and to acquire and own such property as may be necessary for any or all of the foregoing purposes."

Allow me to help clarify that statement.
(from the homepage of MARS)

"knowledge and materials required to keep marine aquariums are enthusiastically shared."

So if you want to use club resources to make group buys and they evenly distribute everything to the whole club, I guess that would be okay. You are using my money to make the group buy. Only fair that I should get part of the return. Buy in amount for the group buys dont count. End result would be even distribution.

Example.

I donated about a hundred and some frags to the last frag swap. I left with about 15. Everyone left with about 15 I am thinking. Should I have gotten a hundred frags to take home?

No. We share. Even distribution.

And lastly,

" I know of several cases where the group buy coordinators, myself included, were stuck with more product than they needed because member committed but didn't collect."

If that is a driving concern here, great, but please understand that it is also a major responsibility. I think its fairly common to see group buys turn ugly very quickly. I agree with Justin that the group as a whole should not be dragged into that kind of mess.