great ideas ghazni...
i know they're great because they are the identical ideas (minus the insurance, that's yucky...
) that i proposed to the BOD about 4 years ago.
...as i'm sure reed, colleen, and others from that time will remember. :idea:
and ironically enough, after serving on the BOD for 2 years, working at the major local reef shops for the last several years, and watching the finances of even large corporations currently, i think it is a foolish thing to mandate that we make ourselves solely a non-profit organization, only able to ask for hand outs, making the responsibility even greater on our sponsors, who as you mentioned, are already feeling like they give to us but receive nothing in return. i think we should, if anything, lighten the load on our sponsors.
i propose that, like a child, psas needs to grow up.
considering the amount of tracking, paperwork, and general red tape involved with not-for-profit status, i know for a fact from personal experience that it is just as easy (or difficult ) to be an LLC and report quarterly sales tax.
so that is exactly what i propose.
i think psas can sell aquaria-related items of great need to its members (and all markets beyond, if we wish) at a discount, and retain the profit for the club to use for monthly meetings, speakers, raffles, etc.
this could be as simple as having a singular discounted item, like, say, IO salt buckets, test kits, frozen food, or basically any periodical everyone consumes regularly, at each meeting for sale/pick up. or even upgrading the website with a shopping cart and selling on the internet, if we choose such complexity, after making profit for awhile. it could be as easy or difficult as we want it...
also, the other thing: i think that psas really needs to "go green", especially considering our particular niche being reefing, which directly affects the environment. we need to take a percentage of our profit and put it where our mouths are by donating back to reef saving/environmental reconstruction, preservation, etc...
we need to mandate that the club itself and its members are dedicated to making the impact on the reefs and environment as minimal as possible with our hobby practices, methodology, etc.
i think an idea that could be a big part of that would be:
"the northwest coral growers coalition"
basically, the club starts by purchasing and soliciting donations from its members for used and/or new equpiment, enough to set up a medium sized reef to grow coral, like a 150-180g. then find volunteers to donate time to maintaining said reef, i.e. location, waterchanges, etc...(ME!!! I'm glad to do it, or anyone else who wishes
)
then instead of taking your grow out coral frags to stores, who are only willing to give you like $15-20 per full-sized coral, if that, members can take there corals to the N.C.G.C. tank, where, when sold, the profit will be shared with them 50/50; the farmers will in a sense then be partners. A co-op! and if farmers choose, they could just donate the profits from the corals they bring directly to the club. again, it could be as easy as having one day a week where members/farmers stop by the ncgc tank to drop off & pick up, or as complex as a website storefront with shipping.
let me also mention to folks that both of the barrage of ideas we have sounds great, but a reality of this election is that we are coming into the year almost half over...at this point i almost think all of this just makes good planning for next year, and that the new president should just concentrate on following the course for the rest of this year and planning ahead to the big bbq raffle for summer, so that we have a massive stock pile of sweet goodies to raffle off like in times past bbq's...
but, it is the president's job to offer motivation, direction, and inspiration. and i just wanted to share a few of my many good ideas
