[theaquaticlife]

I really enjoyed the first meeting we had and look forward to future meetings.

Anyone who missed the meeting I hope to see at future meetings. A brief overview for all who missed:

Had meet and greet, thanks to John we had donuts!
Discussed type of organization and decided to keep small club without monthly dues and no formal leadership. Just a like minded group of people furthering their own hobby in a relaxed atmosphere!

Meetings in the future will be hosted monthly and will move from member to member (if they want) to host small monthly meetings in their homes. That way we can see everyones set up and works for them. This will keep us from dues and dreaded fund raising events to rent a place for meetings.

We will also have DIY workshops, location TBD for anyone interested. The DIY will consist of projects that if you want to participate cost of supplies etc will be out of your own pocket.
Project ideas were:
protein skimmers, auto top offs, water testing, overflow & sumps, denitrater coils, calcium reactors, drilling & plumbing, lighting, wiring and aquarium repair

We also discussed field trips like shedds aquarium etc in the future

Some frags were swapped and the ones I got looked great this morning!

Hope everyone had as much fun as I did

[combs44]

Makes me even more sad that I missed it.

Hopefully I can catch the next one.

[Lowej82]

I think all went over well, we had a good turn out as far as numbers plus a very good mix level of experince which will be great being as I am on the lower end of knowledge chain and will be able to learn lots.......

I didnt think we had made it to discussing how we wanted the club ran, I myself would like to apoint a few things to certain people.....Volunteers thats we could elect for certain positions, Just to keep everything in line and moving along good. Still have everything picked & choosen by the club like we do now. We will go over this a little more at the next meeting.

[Lowej82]

Originally Posted by theaquaticlife

decided to keep small club without monthly dues and no formal leadership. Just a like minded group of people furthering their own hobby in a relaxed atmosphere!

Meetings in the future will be hosted monthly and will move from member to member (if they want) to host small monthly meetings in their homes. That way we can see everyones set up and works for them. This will keep us from dues and dreaded fund raising events to rent a place for meetings.

I wanted to fill in a little more here, As of now we have no Club cost, However we will be setting a our own personal SDIRB club website, So a small yearly membership fee of $12~$15 would be helpfull to keep that up, plus would help out with other fun stuff for the club. It would be more like a yearly donation for all the help you would get plus everything you can learn. Combs44 & Myself have talked about setting up a Account for a Non~Profit club that would require 2 people to sign to spend any funds.....Having all club funds info available for any club member to see at any meeting.

It would be wrong for us to ask for club fees or donations without any overhead. I feel having our own club site would be a great benefit for SDIRB. This is something I have been playing with.

Please feel free to input on this topic anyone.

Thanks John

[combs44]

Just to chime in with John, if we do ultimately decide to get a site up and running, we would probably encourage a structure similar to BNARC. We would have both paid and non-paid members, and the paid members would possibly have a couple added benefits just for helping keep the club going. This would in no way be a way to shun non-paid members, just a way to reward the paying members for helping us have more resources available to promote the success of the club.


As mentioned, we would plan to start a separate checking (requiring dual signorship) account to house club funds, and I would be able to provide monthly statements as well as expense reports electronically to all who cared to know where our money was being spent. I would also have paper copies available at each monthly meeting.

We would do our best to keep information related to club finances as open and available as possible.

Again, we are open to all comments and suggestions surrounding the topic, and welcome any and all that you have to offer.

[theaquaticlife]

As far as a website goes you know you can go through MSN small business websites and they let you set one up for free with no annual fees. I set my business one up with them and dont pay a dime. Just list us as a non for profit business or club and go from there. You can upload pictures and do all the normal things any other website does....

just a thought