Technical Advisory Committee

[Neil Frank <nfrank@mindspring.com>]

Steve Puschak is no longer the chair of the technical advisory committee.
Essentially, he has been fired! He has been unresponsive and irresponsible
in fulfilling his duties for the AGA.  The position had been previously
filled by Dale Speirs and Diana Walstad... both with high honors. I liked
this position for AGA because I think it helped our non-internet members
with answers and also helped me with the publication of TAG with 2-4 pages
of information that I could dependably draw from (until Steve took over) to
fill out an issue (whose number of pages MUST be a multiple of 4). I do not
have a replacement for Steve in mind, nor do I feel that the position must
be replaced or continued in the same manner. If anyone has a suggested
replacement or any comments on the future of this committee, please make
your comments to this forum. By the way, Steve said he wanted to quit for
awhile, but "did not think I could replace him." He also said he will
provide me with  short articles now and then which he can do on an adhoc
basis.

Steve's departure was precipitated by my inquiry about material for the
Nov-dec issue and a letter which I received from a member. I recently
received a "complaint" from AGA member Karel Koke who was dissapointed in
our lack of fellowship by not responding to her/his request for assistance.
A request was made to Steve around June of this year. Steve had some
communication with Paul (for advice) and Steve send Paul some scanned
images of Karel's plant leaves. There were several email messages between
Paul and Steve which I can forward to anyone who is interested. The bottom
line is Paul gave Steve the help he requested, but Steve did not followup
to Karel with a reply... not even a tentative answer. 

I will snail mail Karel a brief, polite and appologetic reply on behalf of
the AGA. Karel sent me a copy of a receipt for mailing her plant leaves to
Steve. Although Steve says he did not offer to pay her, I am inclined to
make that offer. If you agree, maybe the cashman can send her a check ($15.50)
Karel Koke
610 Meadow Ave
Santa Clara CA 95051

Steve commented that he was busy (but not too busy to regularly and
religiously participate on the aquatic plant mailing list (which is
probably more fun) and that he did not have material to send me for the
nov-dec issue because he was "not getting any questions in the mail."
Although it is easy for us to use the internet as the primary source of
communication, I am afraid that we may be ignoring another important
segment of our membership. AGA is now competing with many excellent sources
of information: the INTERNET (including the aquatic plant list and Karen's
AFM column); Karen's column in AFM, nice new books, etc. Because people
view the INTERNET as free and they may be getting the aquarium magazines
anyway, there may be less of a need for them to subscribe to TAG. If we
don't support our members, don't communicate our internal activities and if
we appear to be catering to a select group of people, our membership will
soon dwindle and our hard working management will become unmotivated. 

A concerned member of the SC,

Neil