What aquarists want in a club

[Nasty]

I'm living in a town with, excluding Petco, two stores that stock coral...honestly, neither one of them is particularly impressive, both just picking up the game in the last 8 months.

 

This lovely place is called...Reno, Nevada...

 

Here we have two clubs

 

Reno Area Reef Society and the Sierra Reefers...

 

The reason there is two in such a small town is that there were personal issues with the driving forces of the two groups that prevented a joining...the "personal issues" are now over, as the "driving forces" are now out of the hobby... Which leaves this town with two(very...very small) groups of people that have no meetings, events, or leadership.

 

I want to restart this scene...I'm just not sure what people want from a reef club.

 

Before the economy went to #### I managed a LFS, for personal reasons the owner had to shut down shop, and I was just about finishing college anyway so career time reared it ugly face.

 

During my years at the LFS I hosted meetings and frag swaps for the Sierra reefers, but I never really wanted to get involved with the club thing, I was tired and jaded of aquaria at the time, last thing I wanted to do was spend more time after work Gallic about aquariums before going home and taking care of my personal reefs...a little too much of a good thing.

 

I guess back to the point.

 

 

Does anyone have any advice or tips that have worked for your local reef clubs and kept people atleast slightly interested in the hobby and aquarist community?

 

I appreciate any advice you have to give...I'm pretty good at networking but for the most part, atleast for now. I'm going to do a rehab on reno's reef community with little outside support and want to get all my ducks in a row before I commit myself.

[Swanwillow]

Where I am there's no fish stores with real reef focus within a hundred miles, and we semi-struggle to keep our three active clubs going. (Frozen ocean out of Bemidji, Red River Valley Reefers outta Fargo, and Lake Superior out of Duluth) But the MAIN thing is to be open and cooperative with everyone. Help newbies, have club meetings every few months. Don't push for people to do things, but be thankful when they offer to help/host a meeting/bring food to the meetings (we do potlucks up here)

 

Our last meeting, while small, was a big hit. We made our own frozen food. Another big meeting happened in February. We all started at one person's house, and drove to 5 houses. Every house served something different to eat. ie-my house was first, I served chips with taco dip. Next house, we had burritos. Stuff like that really helps get us together and talking.