# What Do You Love About Your Aquarium Club?



## krisw (Jan 31, 2005)

I'm president of GWAPA, the D.C. area aquatic plant club, and every year around this time, the board gets together to plan out the meeting topics and events for the year. Each year, we send out a survey to our members asking them how we did the previous year, and what types of things they would like to see in the year ahead. This helps us tremendously in planning the upcoming year, and for any board members of clubs around the country I highly recommend it...

That said, to go one step further I'd love to hear what everyone on APC loves about their clubs. What was the best topic, best activity, most engaging event that you had last year? Is there anything that you've wanted to know more about, or how to do, that your club hasn't yet addressed? If you're not in a club, what would you want from one?

I'd love to hear your ideas, and just maybe our club or others reading this might be able to do some of these things... 

I'll start... This year, Cavan (moderator and Plant Finder guru here on APC) gave several talks at GWAPA meetings on various families in the aquatic plant world. He covered common plants, but also new ones entering the hobby. He was able to relay botanical information about many of the plants, but also how to use them artistically in aquascapes. Everyone attending learned something new despite their experience level. We got this idea from the local fish clubs, where they often have topics about a certain class of fish, or fish from a certain country. Why the heck hadn't we been doing the same for plants? Well, now we have, and hope to continue to in 2010. 

What've ya'll been doing?


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## Jim Lockhart (Jan 27, 2004)

Kris,

please send us Cavan . sfbaaps is a little bit different from most aquarium clubs. We do not have a standard meeting place. We move around the SF Bay area for our monthly meetings. Open houses, aquarium stores, Picnics and somethimes just a pizza place for a plant swap. Last year we setup an aquarium at a kids school, and recently had meetings at Aqua Forest, and the SF Conservatory of Flowers, where the meeting was in their Pond exhibit.

I think our most popular meetings are the monster tank setups, where we setup a tank for one or our members. When we visit an experienced member we like to have them describe their setup, from filters, CO2, fertz, tricks etc. We had Tom Barr do this for us at his last OH in Sacramento.


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## krisw (Jan 31, 2005)

Thanks for responding Jim! It sounds like you guys do a lot of the same things that GWAPA does. You're quite lucky to have the stores around you that you do!


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## Seattle_Aquarist (Mar 7, 2008)

Hi Kris,

We are very fortunate to have an excellent aquarium club here in Seattle, the Greater Seattle Aquarium Society. I too am on the Board of Directors and we work hard to try to put together an agenda that reflects the varied interests of our members. Also, we are fortunate to have several knowledgeable individuals like Erik Olson (The Krib / AGA) that are very active within the club. Erik typically videos all of the presentations and we make them available to members through our library.

Some of the fun things we do are: after almost every meeting we have a 'mini auction' where surplus fish, plants, and equipment is brought in by members and auctioned with the member receiving 50% and the club 50%; this is great fund raiser for the club and has allowed us to bring in some exellent out of town speakers like Ghazanfar Ghori and Luis Navarro. This year we have had Jennifer Reynolds from the Vancouver, BC Aquarium give a talk on her research at Lake Tanganyika and this spring we are pleased to have two noted cichlid speakers Ad Konings in May and Wayne Leibel in June!

We have a GSAS Home Show where we visit member homes and "judge" the aquariums that they have entered....lots of fun! Then we do a video and picture presentation to the members so they can see each others tanks. We have an annual plant auction (next month) and a "Big Annual Auction" in April. There is a GSAS Picnic in the summer with a swap meet and of course a Christmas Party meeting. Lastly, we have a monthly (Sept - June) newletter that is professional quality filled with articles and pictures and stories of our events. We are pleased to do an electronic exchange of our newsletter with any other clubs that would like to swap newsletters.

As you can tell, we are fortunate to have a very active club! Anyone visiting Seattle, or living in the Seattle ares, on the Second Tuesday of the Month from September through June is welcome to attend as a "guest". Just let me know!


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## rjfurbank (Jan 21, 2008)

Hey Everyone,

Great topic Kris! I will definitely be following this for ideas for our local club (Delaware Valley Aquatic Gardener's Association) which a few of us are just recently trying to reinvigorate after having closed down for a bit.

We've only been able to have a few meetings since getting things going again but what I am looking for is a forum to interact with and learn from other hobbyists who share similar interests (in person vs the internet). So far what I have really enjoyed is getting meet some new folks and getting to see other members' tanks and learn about their set ups, challenges, etc. . . Also, getting to watch Jason Baliban scape his new 180g tank at one of our recent events wasn't too bad. . . (and nice meeting you there as well!).

-Roy


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## doubleott05 (Jul 20, 2005)

we dont have any clubs in kansas city

darn...


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## krisw (Jan 31, 2005)

Sorry, I wasn't notified of replies on this thread for some reason.

Anyways, thanks for your input guys! The Seattle club sounds wonderful -- I remember missing your meeting by a day or two last time I was in town. You are fortunate to have someone like Erik who is skilled, willing, and possesses the equipment to videotape presentations. There's definitely a technical hurdle to get thru for that.

Roy, I really hope that you guys are able to revive DVAGA. Please let me know off-thread if there's anything GWAPA can do to help you guys...


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## mgamer20o0 (Jul 15, 2006)

> Everyone attending learned something new despite their experience level.


this is the key for me. i have never been to COAST meeting where i didnt learn something new. most of the time when i get back everyone knows where i been since i wont shut up about it. i really believe the role of clubs should be educations promotion of the hobby.

i really enjoy the social aspect and the auctions at coast since you never know what will pop up.


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## Seattle_Aquarist (Mar 7, 2008)

Hi krisw,

Well, we had our GSAS Annual Plant Auction last Tuesday evening. There were over 400 items up for bid (mostly plants) and 76 bidders in the audience. There was everything from huge anubias and java ferns to Marselia minuta, various mosses, and Cherry Shrimp. It is hard to believe that we went through everything in about 2 1/2 hours.

We raised enough funds so we should be able to invite some excellent speakers again next year. (Rumor has it that Tom Barr may be a speaker next fall!)


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