Re: AGA memorial fund for Vicki Costley

["S. Hieber" <shieber@yahoo.com>]

Very nice. But I will offer a few comments.

I would prefer to not present the last paragraph. I think
it makes the AGA seem parochial and there are sufficient
reasons to turn down the request without relying on that
one. What I'm thinking others might think is, "Heck, AGA
wants to promote aquatic gardening. Why should that mean
they only deal with members. do they think on AGA people
are good gardeners or promote aquatic gardening?" Okay, not
a fair appraisal of AGA, but one I think that's likely to
made.

I still like stating the practical difficulty of chosing
any one person to honor, given that we couldn't do prizes
for them all or even many. It suggests that we are not
rejecting Vicki in particular but rejecting singling out
everyone.


sh
--- Erik Olson <erik@thekrib.com> wrote:
> Proposed letter I want to send tomorrow:
> --------------------
> 
> Hello Lana,
> 
> Thanks for your proposal, and I apologize for not writing
> back sooner. 
> 
> We have discussed your proposal very thoroughly on the
> AGA board this
> week.  It's really nice that you wish to honor the memory
> of your friend;  
> it seems like every year we've lost some really great
> people in the hobby.  
> Just a few months ago, for instance, Merrill Cohen passed
> on.  Merrill was
> an amazing long-term contributor to both the AGA and to
> the hobby in
> general, between his hardware innovations when he owned
> Aquarium Products,
> to his encouragement to aquatic gardening in general as
> part of the AGA
> Management Committee.  Last year we lost Peter Lewis, and
> before that Al
> Castro.
> 
> Unfortunately, while the thought is good, there ends up
> being several
> practical difficulties with the AGA taking on such a task
> as a recurring
> event.  First, the AGA has a limited amount of resources,
> both monetary
> (and more importantly) in personnel to manage such
> things.  Many questions
> have to be answered for such a fund: What is the purpose
> (other than to
> honor Vicki)?  Who is chosen to receive it, and why?  Who
> insures that
> this is taken care of each year?
> 
> Second, $25 is a relatively small amount of money.  It is
> almost too small
> to worry about using for an award.  It would seem much
> better to pool the
> money together and do a great one-time donation to a
> charitable or
> conservation organization, rather than spread it thin
> across an award
> given out many years.
> 
> Finally, and this is really the hardest to bring up, from
> everything we've
> heard, Vicki was a good friend to the AB Forums, but
> never a member of the
> AGA or involved in our area of the hobby at all.  It
> would seem fitting
> that AB would be the place where she is honored rather
> than a bunch of
> folks here who never really knew her to begin with.
> 


=====
S. Hieber

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