Ok, I havenât heard from the rest of you folks. Should I make a motion, or
should we discuss
this some, first_Â If weâre going to do it, Iâd love your input on who we
should get as a
speaker. Obviously, Iâd want a U.S. (or at least N.A. speaker) to keep the costs
down. I know
that sometimes NEC has extra free room nights because of the size of the
convention. If AGA
will pay for the transportation, I can ask Janine if NEC can find them a corner
to hang their
hat. Alternately, if thereâs someone within driving distance who could do a
talk, we could pick
up the room cost.
Â
We had both Erik Do and Luis last year, so I donât want to use either of them.Â
Jeff Senske made
Janine crazy. (though it wasnât his fault that he never got there; the snow
storm took care of
thatâ he spent the weekend in the Chicago)Â Does anyone know if George Lo can
do a talk? (I
donât think we want a demo againâ they are too hard to orchestrate)Â What about
Jason Baliban?Â
Ghazanfar for a Crypt talk? I suppose we could ask Jay Luto to do something on
photographing
planted tanks. Any other possibilities? ÂÂThis could be a good opportunity to âtest
driveâ a
newer speaker that we might want to consider for AGA in the future.
Â
If the BOD agrees that we should do this, we could move the discussion of who
to the MC list for
more input.
Â
Karen
Â
From: aga-sc-bounces@thekrib.com [mailto:aga-sc-bounces@thekrib.com] On Behalf
Of S. Hieber
Sent: Sunday, December 07, 2008 7:51 AM
To: Aquatic Gardeners Association Board
Subject: Re: [AGA-sc] Forums and questions
Â
I should add that, although we don't have final figures yet, we did much better
at the
convention than I had estimated days befroe the event. With several thousand
dollars f savings
on Amano travel, very robust DVD sales, and a much higher percetnage of auction
sales than we've
ever had before, rather than netting in the neighborhood of $2g, the final
figure probably will
be closer to $6g or $7g. Putting some of that to work at NEC wouldn't be a
financial strain.
Â
sh
Â
________________________________________________________________________________________________
From: S. Hieber <shieber@yahoo.com>
To: Aquatic Gardeners Association Board <aga-sc@thekrib.com>
Sent: Sunday, December 7, 2008 7:40:37 AM
Subject: Re: [AGA-sc] Forums and questions
I don't see why not. I have watched aquatic gardening become a bigger part of
the discussions at
NEC over the last few years as more folks in those old traditional fish clubs
(some the oldest
in America) slowly grew aquatic gardeners. Even when a blizard made it nearly
impossoble for so
many folks to attend, we still had a decent turnout on Friday (the peak of the
blizzard) and a
very good turnout on Saturday. I think it would be a great place to usefully
apply more of AGA's
resources.
Â
sh
Â
________________________________________________________________________________________________
From: Karen Randall <karenran@verizon.net>
To: Aquatic Gardeners Association Board <aga-sc@thekrib.com>
Sent: Saturday, December 6, 2008 10:21:39 AM
Subject: Re: [AGA-sc] Forums and questions
Scott wrote:
Â
When we say we , as ome of us sometimes do, AGA should be doing more, what
more? What other
demand(s) needs to be filled by the AGA?ÂAnd as Karen points out, who will do the
more? Imo,
this isÂthe form of a realÂidea, such and such specific personsÂshould do such
and such specific
tasks to accomplish this or that particular thing. The very general stuff, AGA
should help
clubs (how? who knows?), AGA should change it's mission (to what end? who
knows?), isn't really
productive. Show me something for which there is a demandÂnot being met in the
communityÂand
someone in AGA to do some specific tasks toÂmeet thatÂdemand by using AGA
resources, that's
something real we can deal with. When AGA approaches things that way, it
usually does very well
-- the convention, TAG, bookstore and DVDs are great examples.
Â
Iâll tell you somewhere that there is a demand and a core group of workers who
have
consistently, over MANY years now (more than the convention has been in
existence) put in a
tremendous amount of effort. That is the NEC convention. You could say that
âAGAâ does a lot
for the convention already. But that really means that Karen, Scott and David
do a lot for the
NEC convention, and the only back-up is supplies of TAG and brochures. NEC
does a LOT for AGA
in return. They give us a large meeting room for two hours, free of cost.Â
They give us Vendor
room space, free of cost, and they carefully coordinate with me to make sure
that the plant
speaker they bring in (at large cost to them, and free of cost to AGA) is a
well-known, top
quality speaker. This is a tremendous amount of exposure for AGAâ You may be
seeing a pattern
here.<g>Â There are over 20 local clubs involved with NEC, ranging along the
entire northeast
seaboard (and a little inland, since there are Pennsylvania clubs as well<g>)
Â
NEC has always brought in a plant speaker. That speaker typically speaks
during the main part
conference schedule. ÂThen, because I usually know them personally and can work
it out, they
typically give a second talk at the AGA meeting. This year, NEC is having a
âplanted tank
themeâ. The âbig nameâ speaker will be Ole Pedersen. But he will already be
giving two talks
during the main conference schedule, so I hesitate to ask him to do a third. I
have also been
asked to do an updated version of my Thailand talk for the banquet. (I will
have been to
Thailand again at that point, so there will be a lot of new material included)Â
There will be a
plants-only auction on Friday night as well. I donât think there has ever been
a conference,
outside of AGA with so much to offer planted tank enthusiasts.Â
Â
The problem is our AGA meeting on Friday afternoon. Usually, I either have the
âmainâ plant
speaker do something, or I put together a talk. Sometimes David or Kim Bryan
has done
something. I suppose I COULD try to put together a second talk for Friday
afternoon, but,
honestly, Iâd rather not. Could AGA pay for a speaker for that slot? If so,
who should we
ask? Ole is speaking on: The algal-free planted aquarium - is it really
possible? and CO2
fertilization of planted tanks! Why is it sometimes necessary?
Karen
Â