RE: Contacting clubs

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

Thank you Karen, for some more sound advice. It makes perfect sense.

> Prepare a simple ONE PAGE release for the aquarium clubs that
> states the name
> of the event, the pertinent dates, the confirmed judges, the web
> site address
> and a non-Internet contact person. ( address and phone number)
> State in the
> flyer that all all rules and entry forms are available either
> from the web site
> or via the contact person.

Ken asked:

> Ken G. writes: James, I have finished updating my list of societies/clubs
> that I will be contacting via email. In view of Karen's suggestions above,
> do you plan to change the "blurb" that you sent us last week? Or,
> should we
> proceed with what we have?

I think I should probably re-do that blurb, in light of Karen's suggestion.
As I mentioned last week, I think that it would be nice if we had available
on the web site some material which interested culbs and or individuals
could download (the pdf things), and which could be referred to in the
"blurb".

I had prepared a sort of "master list" of guideline points, gathered from
the guidelines section of the web-site and compiled it into a pdf document
which I sent to Erik and to David VanderWall last weekend. I think that my
version, which runs to around 25 pages, is WAY too long and detailed. David
had volunteered to take that "master list" and cut out the fat, so to
speak - slimming it down into the main points only and then put them into a
pdf file, which we could use on the web site.

I think that, especially in light of what Karen has said, that it might be a
good idea to hold off contacting the clubs until David has had the
opportunity to produce this slimmed down set of guidelines - if our audience
has only a limited attention or interest span, it makes no sense to shoot
ourselves in the foot by giving them too much information, all at once.

Since Clubs and their newsletters don't have the 4 month delay between
finding out about things and getting that information into print, I don't
think that a further delay of a week or so will make much of a difference
here - we get one shot at this, lets do it right.

I had also sent Erik a poster that I had done up primarily for my own use
locally. I sent it to him in pdf format and hoped that he would put it up on
the test web site so I could get some feedback on it. I had a friend here in
Toronto print it on glossy stock using his epson inkjet and it looks great.
I'm going to have it photocopied in color and hit the various local aquarium
stores to see if I can get it placed on their bulletin boards. Having
something like this available for clubs could be a good help and it could
also be noted on the "blurb" sent to clubs - if and when it shows up on the
web site...

On a related note, I have received a few phone calls from people here in
Toronto both about our local plant group and about this event. The people
who have been calling me are long time hobbyists who have heard about one or
the other, or both and who wanted more information. None of these people are
"computer savy" and most aren't hooked to the Internet. Karen had said early
on in this that we had to make sure we could get this to those AGA members
who are not online. It seems that not only AGA members are not online....
there is a huge potential audience that won't see this because they lack
computer access.

(no, I'm not suggesting that we change anything..... I like the fact that
this is online..... I'm just commenting that a lot of old timers in the
hobby will have no easy way of accessing this event....)

James Purchase
Toronto

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