PSAS 2012-2013 New club year, new BOD. WE NEED YOUR INPUT!

[halmus]

PSAS-
Here is an unofficial, rough list of meetings we're looking at this year:

Jul - no official meeting

Aug - DIY auto top-off meeting at Jacob's house in DuPont. New free issues of Reef Hobbyist Magazine donated by our sponsors for everyone. We'll grill out some grub, check out the club tank, and talk about electronics safety in aquariums.

Sep - Frag Swap / Club Garage sale (probably be at Tom's new place) Raffle for eshops skimmer! Everybody start fragging and start saving up for some great frags from members. We'll trade and/or sell what we've got and check out Tom's new farm! Also, bring your used or new equipment that you want to trade or sell. There are always great deals to be had at this meeting.

Oct - Tentatively planning a tour of South-Sound tanks. We'll start collecting volunteers; people who want to open up their homes to share their systems. I'm really looking forward to seeing some tanks that I've only been able to see on threads so far. If people like the idea, we can try to organize a North-Sound tank tour in the future. We don't want to ignore our fine members to the North, but it's not feasible to travel all the way from south sound to north in one day and spend more than 5 minutes in each house and 5 hours on the road.

We really value the feedback here. We'll start a separate thread to organize this month's meeting shortly so we can start getting an idea what order we should be seeing the systems in so that we're not bouncing all over more than necessary.

Nov - To Be Determined (TBD) Maybe a speaker?

Dec - Christmas Party?

Jan - Frag Party. This is a good chance for members to gain experience in fragging corals. We'll be doing this in preparation for the Bob Moore Frag swap the following month.

Feb - Bob Moore Frag Swap!!!

Mar - TBD

Apr - TBD

May - TBD This year, we took a trip to Coral Props in Spokane. It was a great trip to see a facility where corals are propagated exclusively through solar power. That's right, the natural way. The greenhouse was incredibly interesting to see, and we came home with some incredible corals and clams. (was this trip in Apr or May?)

Jun - Annual club BBQ

As you can see, there are a number of months that are yet to be determined. We're already getting good feedback on ways we can improve the Bob Moore. We really count on the member's input on what you would like to see for meetings.

Are there specific speakers you'd like to hear from?
Are there topics you don't feel have been covered in the past? Questions you have from basic aquarium maintenance to advanced species specific topics?
Are there things you would like to see changed with the meetings we are already planning? Would you change them or not do them at all?
Are there emerging trends in the hobby that you would like to learn more about?
Is there a cause or public project you think that we as a club can contribute to? Maybe a beach clean up to give back to the community or something similar?

We as a club depend on each other and the BOD can only help plan meetings that interest the club if we know what the club is most interested in. We're hoping to make it another great year.

 

[halmus]

I should take a second to introduce the new BOD.

President - Jacob Hall (Halmus)
Secretary - Brain (Raamiah)
Membership Chairman - Devin (1GuyDude)

We're excited to have the chance to serve the club here. We've been posting up more info on the PSAS club forum and trying to get our "ducks" in a row generally. In the future, we'll try to stay more current here on RF because we know a lot of members are very active here. We're happy to have so much support from Mike here, and we're working on some new ways to get information out to the members concerning club meetings and events. Hope to see all of you at my house next month! It will be a good chance for us to meet up catch up. I haven't seem most of you since the Bob Moore, and I have a lot of names to learn and/or remember.

 

[1guydude]

bump! Support psas ppl. Join. Get discounts and handouts! Cmon!
p.s. sry for the txt talk.

 

[Red C Aquarium]

it will be great to meet you new guys

 

[halmus]

it will be great to meet you new guys

I've been coming up to the UW campus three days a week from DuPont and have been planning on taking the bus a little further north to stop by the store. Ya, the BUS. So, if I smell like hot trash when I walk in, it's not personal hygiene problems, it's the bus's natural fragrance. Good stories there. I grew up on a farm in Illinois. All this fancy public transit is so exotic.

I'm looking forward to seeing the store. I don't make it north very often anymore.

 

[barrierreefcf]

Congrats to all the new Board Members! Good to see more people involved. Looks like you've got a great meeting lineup started. Keep up the great work

 

[nata]

Thanks for organizing more great events..looking forward to every single one..

 

[halmus]

Congrats to all the new Board Members! Good to see more people involved. Looks like you've got a great meeting lineup started. Keep up the great work

Thanks Barrier! We're working pretty hard behind the scenes right now to get everything lined up for the year. We're looking for a location for the Bob Moore up North (Renton area approximately depending on what our budget will get us) so it's easier for the North end folks this year.

 

[halmus]

Thanks for organizing more great events..looking forward to every single one..

Thanks Nata! We hope to see some of the familiar faces around, and some new ones. Hopefully we can come up with some fresh ideas to compliment the events that people already look forward to throughout the year.

 

[halmus]

Speaking of fresh ideas. Anyone on the North end have anything they've been dying to participate in? We are completely open to constructive criticism. Things you defiantly don't want to see go away, things you wish the club would do differently?

 

[user 26995]

I've been coming up to the UW campus three days a week from DuPont and have been planning on taking the bus a little further north to stop by the store. Ya, the BUS. So, if I smell like hot trash when I walk in, it's not personal hygiene problems, it's the bus's natural fragrance. Good stories there. I grew up on a farm in Illinois. All this fancy public transit is so exotic.

I'm looking forward to seeing the store. I don't make it north very often anymore.

Are you planning to come up during the week? I can give you a lift from the UW to Red C. I go that way every week day.

 

[halmus]

Are you planning to come up during the week? I can give you a lift from the UW to Red C. I go that way every week day.

Thanks, but I happened to miss my bus up to the campus last Friday. I drove up there and went to Red C afterwords. After spending almost 2 hours talking to Rob, I got back on the road and spent the next THREE hours sitting in traffic trying to get home. It was good to see the shop, and I get a really nice Pavona coral, which is going to be great grown in. I've learned my lesson not to miss the bus. The connection I have to catch downtown also gives me a reason to stop by Piroshky Piroshky. I think I'll be ten pounds heavier after this summer quarter.

 

[user 26995]

only 10lbs? I'd gain that much a month if I was close enough to go there that often.

 

[1guydude]

Thxs for the support! Hope to c u at the meetings!

 

[trido]

I now have a job at Shoreline Community College. Apparently the rent at the facility is very cheap and in some buildings there are concrete floors which are very good for frag swaps. Sure would be nice to see the PSAS encompass the whole Puget Sound again as opposed to just the South end.

Also I know a great Guest speaker who would be willing to come to Seattle for not much more than a plane ticket and a few frags.

Have you considered slapping together a 12 light DIY LED as a topic and then raffling it off at the end of the meeting?

The Christmas parties are always a crap shoot. If its too close to Christmas, no one will show due to lack of shopping weekends. They have also been snowed out in the past.

 

[halmus]

Thanks for the feedback Trido. Our first move as BOD was to decide to hold the Bob Moore up North this year. We DO want to try to recover some of the participation from up North. At this point, it's kind of the chicken and egg dilemma. We don't see many people from the North participating, so it's hard to schedule events up there, and we aren't going to see participation up there if we ignore the North. So, we're trying to make the move first. I'll contact you about the college. We're hoping to have everything in writing next month so we can start advertising the event. We can also talk about the speaker you have in mind. We have one in mind as well, but don't know how it will work out. (I'll PM you).

The DIY LED idea was tossed around for the AUG meeting, but the club decided on DIY auto top-off instead. I still have the LED idea in my head, because I personally do quite a bit with them and always have ideas as the technology progresses. We'll probably end up doing it next spring when we have some open meetings to fill. We're pretty packed until then. Just Nov, which I hope to fill with a Nationally recognized speaker, location will hopefully be NORTH.

As participation grows again, I'd love to do a tank tour of the North! The only folks I know are down here. We really appreciate the input, and I'd love to meet some of the folks from the club's recent past. Think you'll be able to make it to any of the meetings Trido? Keep the suggestions coming, especially if there is a particular event you want to see North.

 

[1guydude]

+1 psas is trying to include puget sound as a whole. Id personally love to see all the clubs get together for one larger event but who knows...chicken and eggs and stuff.

 

[halmus]

I ran into an old member the other day that said he never attends meeting because we do the same old thing all the time.

Well.....I put this thread out when I took over at PSAS. The idea was, that people like him could post up here with their ideas, what we should be doing. You can judge for yourself what kind of feedback we have gotten.

Trido suggested we set up meetings up north. Because we have had so little support this year, I had to arrange for the February frag swap to be at the Kent grange. It's not as far north as I wanted. I couldn't get any feedback or even find out about doing anything at the college. No one would respond to me.

The January meeting will be at Red C Aquariums where we will frag our corals and hang out with Rob. Very cool.

The November meeting will be up in Seattle. We will be doing a beach clean-up. I couldn't think of anything else, because I don't have feedback on what people want, and I don't have any connections up in the Seattle area. We can't afford to do much else.

A mailing list was suggested. We implemented that, and Brian is now putting together a great monthly news letter. If you want on that, please PM me your email.

We are currently lining up a speaking engagement with Sanjay Joshi and Boomer here in Seattle in the Spring. We don't have the dates set yet, but we'll be sure to post them up when the time comes.



So, we are doing everything we can to make the events fun, educational, and diverse. What we need is participation. I guarantee you the next BOD won't be able to continue this level of activity with 20 members contributing annually. You can imagine the resources it takes to rent facilities, bring in nationally recognized speakers, and plan other events.

We can't possibly maintain two entire forums with so few people doing the work behind the scenes. We will do our best to maintain this section, but please consider seeing the changes being made over at thePSAS.org

 

[reedman]

OK...old member here (and former BOD member). I'd love to see something on aggressive tanks. would love to see something on different types of tanks (seahorses, scorpion fish, lions, groupers, etc.) and their care. Would love to hear from some of the collectors on their practices and how we (as the end consumer) can find the best specimens and care for them. I'd love to hear about best ways to recover from bad things (calc overdose, green hair algae outbreaks, tank overheat, power out, etc.).

There are so many topics other than how to frag, how to setup a new tank and ca/alk/mag balance. Lighting has been talked to death IMO (though LED and fiber are still pretty new and exciting to some). Skimmers are cool, but the principals haven't changed in decades so not much excitement there to those of us that have been around.

All this said, there needs to be a balance too. New folks need to hear about the basics and some of us old guys are happy to talk about it (especially if we are allowed to have a beer while doing it). Those of us that have heard alot of the basics see the meetings as a social club to catch up with friends and to share our knowledge. If it's just a lecture we tend to stay home or go have a beer with said friends.

I'd even go so far as to have one of the local shop owners (if willing) share how the business works. I think this would help folks understand why prices are the way they are, why it's important to support the local shops and how you can increase your odds of having whatever live item you buy survive. It can also highlight why developing a relationship with the shops can really help you in the end. It's not all about the price.

I'll try to get more input to this as I love that you have an interest in bringing both the north end folks in as well as getting the "old" guys back to the meetings.

-Reed

 

[reedman]

The other idea I would have is how to transition from one tank style to another. This is very common at all levels. Going from fresh to salt. from reef to fish only or vice-versa. I would even be so bold as to talk about transitioning from salt to fresh. I think the parallels between planted fresh water tanks and reefs is amazing and studying the works of Amano and applying them to reefs can have fantastic results. But how many reef keepers know who Amano is?

If you are in the hobby for any length of time you will change interests and finding out how to catch fish, how to re-home inhabitants, storing items for future use.

You asked for the input....lol