APD "rumours"

["James Purchase" <jpurch@interlog.com>]

I just read the latest APD and it contains a couple of references to the
event we have been planning for the past six or seven months. I know that I
had said that I wanted to sort of "keep this under wraps" to some extent,
but now that the Proposal is done and all but submitted (I'm STILL waiting
for Bob Cashin to give me the names and mailing addresses of the AGA MC
members...), it might be time to say something publicly....

But before I do say anything, I want to clear it with everyone first.

This is STILL just a proposal - it is by no means a "done deal". The AGA MC
may turn us down flat. Alternatively, they may ask that major (or minor)
changes be made to what we have proposed before they agree to approve it.
These things are a fact of life and something anyone who has done anything
like this before will be only too familiar with.

So, I don't wish to create hype where it isn't desirable.

However, the Proposal IS a body of work upon which we have worked for a LONG
time. It DID start from a discussion on the APD and there are MANY people
there who are very interested in aquascaping and what we have been up to.

The group we have currently here is relatively small and (at least recently)
not very vocal. In order to actually IMPLEMENT this Proposal, and make it a
reality, is going to take more than merely AGA backing - it is going to take
people willing to work together to make it happen.

As mentioned earlier, there is much which remains to be done -

Web-site design and set-up
Translation of information into other languages
Selection of Judges
Obtaining Prizes
Setting the Date
Announcement of and Publicizing the event
Scanning entries
etc., etc....

What I propose to do is to upload the final Proposal as an Acrobat PDF file
to the mock web-site (plus, clean up the site, removing a lot of the old,
redundant material which is there), and then post a note to the APD advising
people that the Proposal we have bene working on has been submitted to the
AGA MC and they are free to view what has been submitted on the mock
web-site.

At the SAME TIME, I would like to solicit people to join us in actually
DOING this thing. The APD has an International membership and perhaps, once
they can actually "SEE" the Proposal, some more people may be incited to
become involved - we don't have anybody other than Jose who speaks a
language other than English (as far as I know, anyway). Months ago, I had
approached the chap who does German translation for the AGA and asked for
his help but he had to decline due to time pressures). We need (or at least
could really benefit from) people who could translate at least SOME of the
material into French, German, Spanish, etc. if we are going to make this
really "International".

You can never have too many volunteers.... and, if we can get the help,
perhaps our limit of 300 entries could be raised or eliminated.

I emphasize that I don't intend this to be an announcement of the event at
this time, merely an update to the APD of where we as a group stand now,
showing them what we have produced to date, and a request for more
volunteers for the next stage of the project.

What do people think? Again, this would be done AFTER the proposal goes in
the mail to the AGA MC.

James Purchase
Toronto



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