Special Election of President of PSAS

[barrierreefcf]

I'll put my money where my mouth is. This is just one off-the-cuff idea. I'm sure it could be refined to benefit the club, consumer, and store even more. If the PSAS wants to send out an email and put up a post we can try this from this saturday until next friday. We have about 40 of the farmed Ricordea florida in-stock. For every PSAS member who says "I am buying this to support the club" when purchasing one of these Rics we will donate $5 to the club. If all 40 go there's a quick $200 for sending out an email and putting up a single post. Someone from the BOD please PM me if you want to do this so I know its happening and can tell the crew. Please emphasize that we must be told that the purchase is being made in support of the club.

 

[EriksReptiles]

That said, the idea of the club becoming an LLC and buying and selling consumables on a regular basis or through a website is disturbing. Should this happen, would the PSAS really expect sponsor stores to make donations and sell memberships to support an organization that would then be taking away business? The stores are your frontline for new members. I can tell you that the idea of selling a membership to a new reefer, knowing that they would then have access to discounted merchandise through the club, does not appeal to us. If you want to generate extra revenue use the month's meeting sponsor store to organize a discounted group buy and skim a little for the club. Pun intended There's all kinds of ways to fundraise without taking away from the sponsor stores.

I completely agree with you there Cy. I think the club having its own "store" would in turn lose a lot of sponsors, due to the fact they have to compete with the club.

I like your Ricordea idea too, Cy! A Good way to raise money is to include the stores on buys like that!

Thanks Erik

 

[demandrid]

awesome points and ideas ghanzi and cy, the keeping of a reef for the club seems like it would be a logistical nightmare at best with location and people not having access to it and in the long run would seem to be more of a headache than a benifit to members and the bod

 

[ghazni]

Thanks a lot for the support folks and our sponsors.

It's really encouraging to see your participation.

Cy, we will consider your effor. And see what we can do.

Expect a PM overnight...

 

[RichV]

My wife is a determination agent at the IRS for non-profit organizations. She said she has approved another aquarium club in the past. There are criteria which need to be met that she can help with if it is decided to go that direction. BTW, the government just raised the application fee to $750 recently.

Rich

 

[ghazni]

Thanks Rich. This is great to hear. We'll keep you in mind if the club decides to become 501 (c) (3).

 

[Skimmy]

So there has been some drama behind the scenes that we were pulled into and I want to publicly say that Barrier Reef supports both nominations. The club will benefit from all the enthusiasm the new BOD has and both nominations bring a lot to the table.

That said, the idea of the club becoming an LLC and buying and selling consumables on a regular basis or through a website is disturbing. Should this happen, would the PSAS really expect sponsor stores to make donations and sell memberships to support an organization that would then be taking away business? The stores are your frontline for new members. I can tell you that the idea of selling a membership to a new reefer, knowing that they would then have access to discounted merchandise through the club, does not appeal to us. If you want to generate extra revenue use the month's meeting sponsor store to organize a discounted group buy and skim a little for the club. Pun intended There's all kinds of ways to fundraise without taking away from the sponsor stores.

well, unfortunately for the lfs's, that's the whole idea, to divorce ourselves from the sponsors all together, so that we may be atonomous. i must say, im kinda suprised to hear mis-giving about the idea from an actual store owner, i personally thought you would have reveled in the idea of not having to give a percentage of your profit away and i always got the impression that any of the stores were always unimpressed with the amount of business that the psas brings them in general. so if that business was missing, would you even notice??

so that was my main motivation for this idea, to ease the burden on sponsors, and to allow us more financial freedom.
if local stores actually wish to be more involved with us, possibly increasing the amount of participation and donations, then great, because we will really rely on them if we are totally non profit.
and also, there is a fair amount of labor and paperwork involved with calling/emailing long lists of aquaria companies, local and national, asking them for a hand out EVERY YEAR for the rest of the life of the club, that in conjunction with the tracking of transactions for non profit tax status, it really isnt any more difficult or time consuming to run a small business. and this is from my first hand experience, not heresay. i think very few of you have any idea what it's like to look at a pages long list of people to contact to solicit funds from. it does take more time and commitment than what ghazni is suggesting, which is why in the past the club elected to not deal with non profit status, a charter, etc. otherwise, i'd probably be right there next to you , still suggesting the same thing myself.
so no, an LLC isnt some big crazy ball of snakes that just gets thrown in the lap of new bod members as they arrive, it can be organized, planned, and simplified.
my suggestion isnt to have the bod working harder or longer, it's having the bod work smarter...

and i competely disagree with ghazni's opinion that it is wrong to to want the club and all members to go green. i think its foolhearty and inconsiderate to the planet, oceans and lifeforms that we stewart here to not consider them first and foremost. the responsability lies with us, being the dominant species that is presumably the most intelligent. and if we as individual caring humans do not make these commitments, then nobody will.

 

[ghazni]

Mark,
I think you're greatly underestimating the power of 501 (3) (c) status if we reach there. Here're some key advantages that I see we can get:

1. Do you know that you can get conference rooms for speakers for free if you're 501(3) (c) organization? I work for Microsoft and I know we can get the conference room to accommodate our meetings for free rather than paying $250 to BCC or hosting it at people's place every time.

2. Do you realize people like Randy Reed who're planning to do the presentation in Seattle can charge their ticket and hotel as tax write-off if they want?

3. Do you realize the great items that we get for our raffles from our LFS can be tax deductible to these LFS instead of them taking the cost of their pocket just to support us or, worse, not giving these items to us because of some ill-feelings that we're in direct competition with them?

4. Do you realize we don't even need to file taxes being a 501 (3) (c) or simple non-proft since we'll never get more than $25,000 in a year? Only thing we need to do is get a receipt book and give them to our donors.

5. Do you know you can drop by to Local Wal-Mart and explain you're 501 (3) (c) or even simple non-profit org and get donations of $200-$500. I have done it for events in school for non-profit orgs in Texas multiple times.

Regarding removing dependency from our sponsors (most of which are our LFS), I think our sponsors are not the just the source of providing donations to us but also as a source of information. I only was able to join reeffrontiers.com and learnt about PSAS from salt water city. Do you think they will educate people about PSAS willingly if they have to compete with us too? Not only that, you’re now burdening the volunteers of PSAS (BOD) to track where to order items, where to store them, how to transport them and how to provide shipping to members who want their stuff regardless of they come to the meeting or not.

In my original post, I mentioned that we need to create the online community as I have always suggested. This is an entire eco system which revolves around the club, but it provides PSAS the ability to connect members with our sponsors and vice versa. Going LLC route is probably not the best thing for this “club”. And I say club because we’re the club whose mission “is to provide greater Puget Sound saltwater hobbyists an open topic forum in order to learn, to share experiences and to disseminate knowledge” (copied from thepsas.org website).

Anyways, these are 2 different schools of thought and I am sure we can discuss the pros and cons of each and make the best decision for our club including the opinions of our members and BOD.


Regarding going green, I said we should educate our members in my post rather than mandating them as you mentioned in your original post. How do you suggest we mandate it? Should we require every member to sign-up a disclaimer when they become a member? Or should we actively track them to make sure they’re green. Like I said before, this should be our commitment to us individually and the club should educate the concept via good practices (as it has been happening) rather than mandating it.
If you read our welcome page on http://thepsas.org, you can see that PSAS is "committed to the preservation of the world's reefs while at the same time maintaining a sustainable hobby". Helping our members and educating them the benefits of going green is a great idea, but imho, this is not the main business of club. And this is not the posting we made this year. It has been there for years or at least since when I joined.

 

[ghazni]

And one more point that I think I should mention which is very important and you probaly have not considered:

You said you were looking for a job at some LFS at the last event. How would you avoid the conflict of interest when you're working for LFS and also happen to be the president of a LLC who also happens to provide stuff like Salt or corals? Would you do a sidebar with the shoppers to buy stuff from PSAS while working on LFS (at their pay time)? Or would you tell the members at the forum to buy stuff from LFS (being a good employee) rather than from PSAS because the store has it cheaper?

 

[barrierreefcf]

Wow...you guys need to get this figured out. I'm stepping out of this conversation.

 

[Herefishyfishy]

Wow...you guys need to get this figured out. I'm stepping out of this conversation.

As usual, I am with Cy. (thanks for always being one of the club's best supporters!)

And to add my personal opinion: If anyone's interested in turning the "Society" into a business, count me out.
Sounds like a huge headache with a lot more downside than any potential gains.

My apologies if anyone is offended, this is absolutely not my intention and now I too will shut up

 

[Ed Hahn]

My oppinion is we do need to work together will all LFS, members, etc. to keep everything flowing as smooth as possible. I am not sure turning PSAS into a store to compete is a good idea. I want everyone treated with respect and equally like you would want to be treated please.

 

[Jan]

It appears at least from reading this thread that the idea of the club venturing into LLC land is not supported by the majority so it's probably not a good investment of time to keep pressing in that direction.

However, the idea of a coral-coop (I used to live on a farm that sold all its products through a fruit coop ) is intriguing. It seems like this idea could easily live on its own. So why not pursue this idea separate from the club elections, Mark?

 

[Skimmy]

Mark,
I think you're greatly underestimating the power of 501 (3) (c) status

i probably am, and i should research the extent of what we can do to make monies for ourselves and still legally remain non profit.

and look, non profit is a good idea, i wanted to do it myself, but it is a fair amount of work, gardnering funds from all these different businesses, and i just dont like the idea of having to be at the mercy of what others choose to give to us, that's all. i'd like for us to be in control of how we make money, which we may or may not be able to do with non profit status...

And one more point that I think I should mention which is very important and you probaly have not considered:

You said you were looking for a job at some LFS at the last event. How would you avoid the conflict of interest when you're working for LFS and also happen to be the president of a LLC who also happens to provide stuff like Salt or corals? Would you do a sidebar with the shoppers to buy stuff from PSAS while working on LFS (at their pay time)? Or would you tell the members at the forum to buy stuff from LFS (being a good employee) rather than from PSAS because the store has it cheaper?

how could i have not considered that???
of coarse if psas were to become a competing business, how would i think i would maintain a job at a competitor?? lol
and further more, i served on the bod while working for various different local reef businesses, and i never, NEVER put one above another in the public realm, all stores were offered equal treatment, no one store was shown favoritism whatsoever. it was the stores themselves who would choose their level of participation.

one area i completely agree with you in is that we really need a website worth a damn, weather were attemping to reimburst sponsors with advertising, or attemping our own business ventures. having just a static website that isnt updated regularly is if anything a turn off to potential new members researching us on the internet. granted, right now the website is looking comparatively better than it has in times past, and it's obvious we have impoved it.

and like i said earlier, all of these ideas we have are great, but the new president IS coming in much later...the president is usually elected in may, that gives the new bod 3-4 months to prepare for the year's new events, hence my comment about coming in almost half way into the year. it's the start of the year for the members, not the bod... so that is why i think the new president should almost just stay the current coarse for the next few months and ensure that our annually largest money making event, the bbq summer raffle, is big and fat, so that we may increase our resource base for the next year, to implement whichever ideas we decide to agree upon

 

[krisfal]

I am loving the debate here. Gives us all a picture of the knowledge and ideas of these two candidates, which I can see merits in some of the ideas from both candidates. However to help me make a decision I would like to pose a few questions to the candidates that I hope both will take the time to address.

1. What was the inspiration for you to join the PSAS?

2. If you could only improve 1 thing about the club, what would it be?

3. What is the driving force behind your decision to run for president of the club?

4. What do you feel is the number 1 priority of the club?

5. The main duty of the president is be a leader for the Board of Directors and for the club. What qualifications and experience do you have in leading groups of people?

Thank you in advance for your responses.

 

[ghazni]

Kris, these are very good questions and I am sure it would definitely make Mark and me think about it.

I will post my answers to your questions on this thread in order for everyone to be aware of my position. I need sometime to put my thoughts together plus finish off some work deliverables. Expect post in sometime..

 

[Skimmy]

i too am happy to answer these, and will do so shortly

 

[Skimmy]

I am loving the debate here. Gives us all a picture of the knowledge and ideas of these two candidates, which I can see merits in some of the ideas from both candidates. However to help me make a decision I would like to pose a few questions to the candidates that I hope both will take the time to address.

1. What was the inspiration for you to join the PSAS?

2. If you could only improve 1 thing about the club, what would it be?

3. What is the driving force behind your decision to run for president of the club?

4. What do you feel is the number 1 priority of the club?

5. The main duty of the president is be a leader for the Board of Directors and for the club. What qualifications and experience do you have in leading groups of people?

Thank you in advance for your responses.

1. mike obrian put me in a headlock and said, "gimme your money, bish"!!!
seriously though...i was working at Blue Sierra and Eric Bornemann was in town, we were the location of the meeting that month, and so i by fiat attended my first psas meeting, and became a member what was that...2001??? 2002?? and btw, do some of you old timers remember that meeting?? remember the table FULL of snackfoods and desserts we had??? wtf happended to that tradition??? lol

2. definitely the website. whether we're reimbursing sponsors with advertising or embarking upon business ventures, i think it's a solid tool we haven't been using like we should.

3. none...i was nominated by bod members, and reluctantly agreed
i was told by several members of the bod that my experience and expertise were missed, and perfect to fill the gaps that currently exist. i immediately realized this was an awesome opportunity and i'm excited to be doing all this. i have no alterior motive to mod everyone's skimmer, clean fish poo from their tanks, or pad my resume.

4. to educate and entertain the members, as well as provide a forum to promote a sense of comradery and community.... and allow noobs access to l33t sk1llz from h@xz0r$

5. i have 2 years' experience already on the psas bod, where i worked very closely with the president, and was involved in virtually every decision making process. i also have the ability to communicate eloquently in front of a crowd and hence was elected the club speaker at the majority of events.
i also have over 10 years' professional experience in the aquarium industry, and have many business contacts that could potentially benefit the club insofar as donations, discounts, and speakers are concerned, if we choose the non profit route.

i would also like to add, that while the president is looked to for ideas, motivation, etc...nothing, i mean NOTHING, is decided by one individual.
the board of directors must all agree for ideals to progress foreward. this is a democracy, not a dictatorship. so dont think that some crazy bald hippie's ideas will just infiltrate and take over the b.o.d. unless they want them too. ...lol

 

[ghazni]

1. What was the inspiration for you to join the PSAS?

I will start this question with my own story. 3 years back I decided to pursue my fish keeping hobby after taking a break for almost 8 years. I started doing some research and decided that I can keep a saltwater aquarium here in US with relative ease (back home in Pakistan it's nearly impossible). So, I did the due diligence i.e. bought a book, read it multiple times and ended u going to Salt Water City (someone told me about the store) who also told me about PSAS. Finally, I decided to get a 29 gallon aquarium (I thank a lot to Saltwater City for making it simple enough for me and providing guidance for the first aquarium). One week later, I went to saltwater city and got them to do water test and alkalinity came out to be lower than expected. They told me to increase the level by adding KH Buffer and I came back home and, without realizing, added the required amount directly into the aquarium (without mixing it in RO water) and slept. Next day, I saw this white coating on my aquarium and I was like "my bad, should read instructions first". So, I threw all the water, washed the aquarium, added more water and added kH buffer after couple of days (this time mixing with RO water). However, the next day there're still particles in the water and I was like what should I do next.

I am a person who is online most of the time and decided to do research about my problem. I found some articles here and there and finally hit on reeffrontiers.com website. Here, I was seeing all these posts and all the experiences from these different people about different topics and I was like "WOW, I can probably ask them what went wrong in my tank".
I still remember my first post when I asked about milky saltwater and wright4me replied back that I did not need to do anything since my aquarium was totally empty (all equipment was hooked up but no LR). He also asked me some questions about what kind of Salt I used. And upon hearing Oceanic, he replied that was half of the problem since Oceanic is high in CA and low in Alk. He then explained me the entire chemistry of Calcium and Alkalinity. Since that day, I have been hooked on to RF and always asking questions and learning new stuff.

Now coming to my inspiration, last year I decided that I had a stable enough career and I wasted a lot of my extra time just doing nothing. So, I started looking into different places where I could contribute in some way. I thought a lot about it but realized that helping in City Soup or Habitat for Humanity was not my cup of tea. Finally, it struck to me that I could probably do something in PSAS since I am actively into the hobby. One added advantage was that I would also meet people with a shared interest and learn from all the experience that they have (as well as see big tanks in person).
I am proud to say that my decision has not been wrong and I have met wonderful people because of this hobby in such a short time frame who not only taught me about reef keeping experiences but also gave me some pearls of wisdom about everything else in life along the way.

2. If you could only improve 1 thing about the club, what would it be?

I do not know for sure but I think PSAS, like any other club, was probably formed when bunch of friends with a hobby in common probably got together and started sharing their experiences about reef keeping. As the tradition follows with any club life cycle, horde of people have joined the club since then because of their shared interest and they have slowly become part of this community, where they not only share their reef keeping experiences but discuss their daily life issues and make lifelong friends.

Puget Sound, which extends north to south from Stanwood to Olympia, is a big area compromising of 2 urban cities and numerous satellite cities and towns. Provided this, the biggest challenge for this club, as it gets mature, is to keep the reefers and aquarist of this society under the common-knit bond, that we call PSAS, no matter where they're located in the Sound area. This challenge has becomes more critical when people from different areas start doing their own local events and slowly move away from the club they were once part of, due to whatever reason (convenience, high gas prices, etc).
Thanks to the internet technologies available today, we have this current infrastructure (via RF) which provides us the opportunity to be together and interact with each other regardless of wherever we live. As such, I believe that we should use this infrastructure and build our club as this online community under the banner of PSAS where members interact with each other, teach each other and learn from each other regardless of where they live.

Add our LFS and veterans speakers/mentors to this and we're on our way to build an ecosystem which rekindles the old spirit under which the club was originally formed, and which will also provides all the key players (old members, new reefers/aquarists, speakers, LFS, etc) a one stop shop for meeting all their needs of this hobby.

3. What is the driving force behind your decision to run for president of the club?

I have to admit over here that I am very much in learning mode when it comes down to the hobby. And I will be the 1st one to admit I have earned more from this club than has given. That being said, I see a lot of good things that are happening this year (thanks to our current BOD) to move the club forward as I said in my earlier post # 26 on this thread).

I firmly believe in everything that I said in that post and this is the driving force for me to run for the president of this club. I have recieved loads of support from my fellow members (even though I am relative newbie in this community) and I cannot wait to give them back what they want.

I also want to repeat here as I said earlier “I know polls will happen and only one of us will win. I assure you that my commitment to my club will not go way regardless of the results of the poll.”

4. What do you feel is the number 1 priority of the club?
I think you probably want to know "what do you feel should be the number 1 priority of the club?" So, I will answer this question .

The #1 priority of this club should be to provide its member with what they want to see in this club. I know this is a vague answer but I totally believe this club came together and grew over so many years because people got most of the things that they wanted to see out of this club, be it be speaker meetings, equipment/coral trades, the annual summer BBQ/picnic or simply interaction with each other. And we should provide all of this in an environment where members feel comfortable doing the above mentioned things so that they have positive experiences from this club.
Now, there're other things that need to happen as our club continues to grow (like making club non-profit, creating charter for the club, improving our website, etc). However, we need to keep it mind that the club has continued so far without these things and, while some of these have become necessary for the better organization of the club, they do not take priority over what members want. This club cannot survive without its members and, so, we need to continue doing the things that have built the foundation of this club.

Providing members what they want has been the business of this club and we should not deviate from it.

5. The main duty of the president is be a leader for the Board of Directors and for the club. What qualifications and experience do you have in leading groups of people?

I am going to share my small list of my accomplishments with you from present to past.

A. I have been leading a group of engineers in Microsoft China for quite some time in my professional career (which has been just 5 years).
B. I am the vice captain of a cricket team which has been playing regularly in American Recreation Cricket League for last 4 years. I was offered captaincy in the last year but declined to do because of other commitments at that time.
C. I am a board member of ARCL (American Recreation Cricket League), which manages cricket seasons across Seattle, from last 2 years. We've 73 teams in 8 different divisions. My current responsibilities over there include scheduling the games for 4 divisions and taking care of day-2-day issues as well as meeting with other board members for growing the league. When I joined ARCL, there’re only 4 divisions and now we’re up to 8 divisions.
D. I am a board member and Diversity Advisory Council Representative of Pakistanis @ Microsoft. My duties over there include arranging different activities for our Pakistanis @ Microsoft and act as a liaison between members and HR community.
E. I am part of a Microsoft Vice President's virtual team for Microsoft Annual Giving Campaign which happens in October of every year. Our goal for this year is to raise
F. $600,000, of which 80% come during this month. As you can see, we need to arrange a lot of activities to reach this goal (I cannot share a lot over here because of confidentiality issues).
G. I was the president of Pakistani Student Association in University of Texas in my senior year. I was handling this with full times course load and 20 hours work a week. In this position, I led 4 board members and we did various activities including fund raisers, dinner, cricket tournaments and Drama night. We also raised $4000 for the club during the school year.

In addition, I have recently also joined Volunteer in Bellevue Education System (VIBES) to mentor a high school student for one hour a week. You probably are thinking whether I do any work at all? Well, Duane got me right, I am a workaholic too. But hey, I am 27 right now and have the time and energy to do the things I like and want.

Thanks
Ghazni

 

[demandrid]

excellent post Ghanzi , very well thought out and gives and very detailed explanation of what was asked

skimerwhisperer also addressed the questions very well but may want to check the definition of noob before refering to new members as noobs