Re: Fish Clubs

[<erik@thekrib.com>]

Frank's gonna love the off-topics lately... I will try to dilute its
effect with Apisto-related things.

Yes, overall I'd say fish clubs are declining.  There is a definite trend
of people being less involved in these sort of things than they were 10 or
15 years ago (not counting local variations... just a general trend). I'm
seeing that at ACA, at the clubs to our south and west, and even at the
two local clubs in our area (our club tends to have a large attendence of
non-members interested only in the presentation.  The other club exists
seemingly to bring in several marine speakers at an annual pay conference
(which does appear to be very succesful)).  I dunno. Maybe this is merely
a sign that clubs need to re-evaluate their goals, and change to fit the
times.

  Hey, last night Kathy noticed out that our A. panduro's spawned!
  Unfortunately, they're in sort of a community holding tank with
  contaminants, so we don't hold up much hope of them surviving.

If starting a new club, there are a lot of resources out there (which you
might like to use very selectively).  FAAS publishes a lot of material.
You can look at the bylaws of other clubs.  The most important thing to
do, IMHO, is to find a large enough group with common interests, and to
make sure the interests or goals of the club are understood and stated
clearly in the charter.  Hmm, it's kinda like starting a small business in
that sense.

  Neat!  We also found our Apistogrammoides now have wrigglers as of
  last night.  The fry are smaller than the daphnia I fed to the parents.

Tetra and the ACA both have speaker programs where they will pay part or
all of the speaker's airfare.  Other companies will give products in
donation for a club auction (Ray Lucas is an extreme example; he
represents a handfull of companies and actually auctions the stuff off
himself).  Allegedly FAAS was providing a list of club contacts to the
manufacturers, implying you should join FAAS lest you be blackballed by
the manufacturers, but this seems to have been just a rumor. We only had
one manufacturer actually call to confirm we were who we said we were.

  Darn! No sign of the previously-reported aggie spawn from earlier this
  week.  I think they've probably been eaten by the co-habitants of this
  tank. This 'll teach us to keep a bunch of different species in a
  holding tank to "grow up". 

I think Keith Kurko was setting up a mailing list for people interested in 
aquarium society management; this might help you get started too.

  - Erik
  happily NOT running a club this year. :)



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