# Niko and your mailbox



## Tex Gal (Nov 1, 2007)

Wanted to pm you but your mailbox is full. Would you please clear some space? Thanks


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## CherylR (Aug 12, 2004)

TexGal, to whom are you speaking? All of us in the club? I e-mailed Nikolay today and had no response, but my Inbox at APC is only half-full.

Cheryl


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## milalic (Aug 26, 2005)

Niko will not respond for a while. He has a family emergency and is out of the country.
If I might be able to help you, let me know.

thanks


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## CherylR (Aug 12, 2004)

Okay, thanks. Niko, we wish you and your family all the best.

Cheryl


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## ranchwest (Jul 17, 2005)

CherylR said:


> TexGal, to whom are you speaking? All of us in the club? I e-mailed Nikolay today and had no response, but my Inbox at APC is only half-full.
> 
> Cheryl


TexGal referred to "PM", so I think she meant here on APC.

I don't want to come across as negative, but we need to find a way to revitalize the club. A few years ago I hosted a meeting and my living room was full, maybe 20 or so people. Many meetings back then had a lot of members present.

At recent meetings that I've attended, there were only about 4 to 8 people. And we didn't have a MetroPlex meeting in May or June.

I'd like to open a discussion of how we can get things ramped up again.


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## Tex Gal (Nov 1, 2007)

I will be at any Sunday meeting you have. Sat. is not a day I can attend. 

(Sorry for the stupid title, I was trying to get Niko's attention to empty his mailbox.)


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## milalic (Aug 26, 2005)

May we had a trip to San Marcos as the meeting which I think no one made it apart from Niko
Last month meeting, we could not find a host for it.

Since I joined the club we had the same amount of people show for meetings. I believe at most we were 10. What I have seen is that members do not check APC. I am not sure who is in charge of the website and broadcasting and announcement through e-mail to all the members.

I do like Cheryl suggestion for this month:

http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/...-club/53171-july-host-topic-s-discussion.html

Ranchwest,

what do you suggest?



ranchwest said:


> TexGal referred to "PM", so I think she meant here on APC.
> 
> I don't want to come across as negative, but we need to find a way to revitalize the club. A few years ago I hosted a meeting and my living room was full, maybe 20 or so people. Many meetings back then had a lot of members present.
> 
> ...


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## Avalon (Mar 7, 2005)

I would like to be a member and a regular participant, but I have a hard time making the meetings since I work most weekends. Evenings would be great, any day. I'm not sure how some would feel about evening meetings.


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## Tex Gal (Nov 1, 2007)

Since I've just joined not long ago and can't make the Sat meetings I'm not sure what you've tried. Some suggestions to increase participation:

1.Each member donate equipment, fish, shrimp, substrate,etc. from which to do a random drawing each month. I understand that you do swap plants at each meeting. If yall are like me you have a fish box with stuff that you don't use, extra light, filter, etc. If you raise shrimp that could be a donation....

2. Bring a cd with pxs of your tanks. We'd have a time where we show the each person's tank, issues etc.

ALSO: I would be glad to host a meeting at my place. It can be any other time but Friday night sundown to Sat night sundown.


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## ranchwest (Jul 17, 2005)

milalic said:


> May we had a trip to San Marcos as the meeting which I think no one made it apart from Niko
> Last month meeting, we could not find a host for it.
> 
> Since I joined the club we had the same amount of people show for meetings. I believe at most we were 10. What I have seen is that members do not check APC. I am not sure who is in charge of the website and broadcasting and announcement through e-mail to all the members.
> ...


Well, I always figure that when things are slow it is time for some sort of shakeup. What's been happening has contributed to the slowness. That's not a statement toward the club, but just a general notion.

I know I travel to football games a lot in the fall and I got to the point to where I was working so much that my aquarium went to double ugly. Everyone has a reason why they can't make meetings sometimes, but it seems just the mention of a problem has stimulated some discussion and interest.

Ideas? I don't know. Maybe an auction. I know we like guest speakers, but we have some very knowledgeable people right here in the club. I've seen the aquariums -- don't tell me you don't know what you're doing, lol. Maybe a meeting fascilitator who can keep things interesting and moving. Maybe a campaign to try to get back the members who haven't attended lately. Maybe being more flexible on the meeting date and/or site. I don't know, just some ideas to try to jump start some discussion.

As I mentioned, I missed a lot of meetings because I was working a lot of hours. So, I don't know what happened to slow the club. I don't think it is just the economy because I think it has been this way for awhile and the fish stores are still selling quite a few plants. As difficult as it may be, I think we need to look at ourselves. We can probably all do more to promote and build the club. It's really a question of how much we want a more active club.


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## ranchwest (Jul 17, 2005)

Tex Gal said:


> Since I've just joined not long ago and can't make the Sat meetings I'm not sure what you've tried. Some suggestions to increase participation:
> 
> 1.Each member donate equipment, fish, shrimp, substrate,etc. from which to do a random drawing each month. I understand that you do swap plants at each meeting. If yall are like me you have a fish box with stuff that you don't use, extra light, filter, etc. If you raise shrimp that could be a donation....
> 
> ...


Good ideas.

As far as I know, the club has more money than we've figured out how to use. So, I assume we could buy door prizes if we couldn't come up with them any other way.

On the pictures, I think we need pictures of both the good and the bad. Show those difficult to grow plants and those baby fish that survive in the plants, but also show the algae problems, the over-growth of plants, the difficiencies that we're not sure whether they're related to light, ferts or something else. There could be a lot of discussion from pictures. Getting the pictures in ahead of time would help.


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## CherylR (Aug 12, 2004)

I really wish we could have this discussion on one thread. Sigh.

In my opinion, the slowdown of the club can only partially be attributed to the economy. I think it's been a question of less and less communication among club members. In any given group of people, about half will not remember to check this forum for new messages without reminders. So they won't know about the meeting at all unless you contact them via e-mail. Then another 5% of them don't ever check their e-mail, or changed their e-mail and forgot to tell us.

There is an e-mail mailing list called dfwapc, but it hadn't been updated in a long time. Niko was posting here, then I was re-posting it on the mailing list, but half the members weren't on the list and half the people on the list weren't members! This has been fixed. You will all get e-mails from this list. No one is using it to chat anymore, so likely it will just be meeting announcements.

So who is in charge of marketing? The Vice President is supposed to be in charge of it, but we don't have one. Niko was doing great, even though he works three jobs. I tried to help a little this year, but I get very busy with TAG and disappear for weeks several times per year, which makes me very unreliable for that chore.

Here's a point I *really* want everyone to hear. This is a CLUB, which means everyone has something to contribute. I think for a long time it has been Nikolay's sole burden and that's not fair to him. Look what happened when he had a family emergency -- nothing.

Things are looking up, though. Several people have offered to host. I'll be in touch with those people. The e-mail list is current. The two threads where we are discussing the club have 200 hits. Mike has a digital projector that can be plugged into a laptop. We have heard some good ideas for future meetings and no one said, "Nah, that sucks."  That's encouraging.


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## ranchwest (Jul 17, 2005)

I'll be glad to help out. 

I'm also one who can only help a portion of the year. I am away much of the fall.

In Niko's absence, we need someone to make some basic decisions, such as meeting sites and dates. Cheryl, can you or Mike do that?


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## CherylR (Aug 12, 2004)

I *am* doing that!


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## ranchwest (Jul 17, 2005)

CherylR said:


> I *am* doing that!


Hope it didn't seem that I was implying you weren't. I was just lending support to the idea of moving forward.

Thanks for all you do.


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