Mobile Bay Reef Keepers

The site may be making some changes so tell every one what your thoughts are?

IMO, that is the only way to gain membership or keep the interest of those that are already members.

Good idea Andy. Once this one has some age to it we can start new ones that are progressively more detailed so that we can decide on the path the club can take.

As much as keeping old members interested I think keeping new hobbyist interested is just as important. One problem they have is this hobby isn't easy when you start out. It can become a money pit rather quickly if you aren't patient, are given bad advice, or just don't know where to go to get good advice. I kind of think helping people in that situation benefits everyone in the hobby. Stores get return customers if their tank is doing well and they don't just take it down. The marine life we put into our tanks gets proper care if the hobbyist are informed correctly, which hopefully helps reduce loss of life. Fragging and trading coral should hopefully you would think reduce the need take as much from the wild.

So what should a club do for its members...

- keep the interest of old members.
- help new hobbyist get through the startup phase and help them understand proper care for their systems.
- educate all of us on new and old technology and the proper care of our systems.
- promote coral propagation and trade, even fish for those of us who dare try.
- Support our local stores because if they go or if we only have 1 in the area, lack of competition would really suck. (higher prices, less variety, etc)
- provide a family friendly environment for aquarium nuts to get together every few months to talk about the above and have frag swaps.

well personaly im a new member to this site lol and my roommate has also joined the site. Living in west mobile, and very addicted to this hobby. and i agree site changes might help give the old members something fresh and new to look at. and the more local reefers you have in the area the more demand for local store to keep variety of equipment live stock ect. and and at a competitive price. i do shop some online but would much rather spend my money here local. love the site looking forward to whats to come.



Oh and btw how many active members are there in the MBRK's and when is the next meeting ?

Pheonix,
Come back often and post. Even if it's just a tank update or picture of what you currently have. Have your roommate do the same. That one way to help the site.

Active members might not be the best phrase. I am pretty sure there are only a few 'active' members. We may have 20 or so that check here once or twice a week but don't post. I noticed that there were hidden members too so that number has little actual data to base it on. Maybe I can get Snoop to make a report on members or viewers. If I remember right the report will only show members that were logged on and not hidden and the IP address of guests.

As far as a meeting, I thought about that when I started posting again. A meeting with 5 reefer's and their families is still a good meeting but I bet if someone were to host a meeting with significant forewarning that members would come out of the woodwork just to get to see someone's tank or meet others with the same interest. Who wants to step up to the plate?

Scott wrote:Pheonix,
As far as a meeting, I thought about that when I started posting again. A meeting with 5 reefer's and their families is still a good meeting but I bet if someone were to host a meeting with significant forewarning that members would come out of the woodwork just to get to see someone's tank or meet others with the same interest. Who wants to step up to the plate?

All right Scott you have convinced me (it did not take much) I am going to host a meeting in March some time. I will start a new thread with some details

Guilted you into it huh. Well, if that is what it takes.

Scott wrote:Guilted you into it huh. Well, if that is what it takes.

Well I have wanted to go to another meeting lately, but the board has been dead for a while and as of lately it seams to have sparked a little more discussion. So I decided to give another meeting a shot to try and get more people talking about aquariums again.

I guess that is all it took. Maybe we should start contacting people that we know that are still into reefkeeping and let them know that we are trying to make a comeback. That might spark a little more interest. I know that Salt'n'Lime is out but other than him and the active people on this board I don't know of anyone still keeping tanks. I may have to look through my address book and at least shoot a couple of people emails.

andy and scoot,

i'll be getting on here more and more, so the meeting sounds good will be looking for the thread. and yeah guess i need to do a tank thread mines not much but i need to start one lol .

Most people start out with little or nothing. Just post a picture or two and at the least everyone can see how your tank progressed over a period of time.

I might be interested in hosting a meeting but due to an overwhelming aiptasia attach all you will see is bare rock and an 8 year old tank starting over from scratch!