MASC is taken to task

[Bajamike]

Ok first and for most this is not head hunting and this is not about who said what. This was Presented to me and I want to put this out here for people to think over and respond in a non aggressive conversation. If you can not bash and offer a positive (weather it be criticism or support) conversation, I for one would like to hear both sides on this very topic. Stay on the key points in this article what does MASC do well and what do we need to improve. This needs to stay on topic and let's challenge this club to do better! Remember this club is not BOD members, it is about you, you make this club what it is!

Back ground on how this was presented to me.

So as most know I have been putting a group buy together. During my shopping one of our sponsors said "why does masc not try to do a group buy through a local fish store? Give them the chance to make a few bucks." I was already on this path but it made me say ok let me talk to a few more stores.

Then while I was at one of my stops to gauge interest I was meet with reluctance to do a group buy. I was then given an article and it was suggested that MASC needed to be improved. It was suggested the club follow the guidelines laid out in this article. Pages 20-23

http://www.reefhobbyistmagazine.com/archives/vol_7/issue27/pages/20.htm

I for one think we do a good job at most of the points in this article. It was handed to me in frustration by a LFS owner and sponsor. That is too bad, because I think in general MASC does a heck of a job promoting LFS as laid out in this article. I have often thought that we need to do a mobile meeting for stores or a tank tour. But in today's times I am unsure if it is even possible.

I think this club is rock solid in public outreach. We have donated, funded, and help/helped with many community tanks in schools.

Giving back to the community.....I think MASC may be the best at this hands down. We are unable to host a beach clean up but I know when I go to the beach I pick up trash.

There are a few areas we need to work on, too.

We need to get back to the studies (science fair).

That's my quick overview let's hear yours.


Please keep it constructive!

 

[Dr.DiSilicate]

Haven't read the article but think we always have room to improve! That said, celebrating the community and what we do well is also important. Feedback about strengths is as important as weaknesses. The fact that the BOD is asking for feedback is a sign of confidence and should be considered a strength.

 

[SLewis]

is there a designation for the roles of each bod member? maybe setup/create a "P.R." position on the bod. that could be usefull to help promote stuff like reef ed and other functions

 

[SLewis]

heck maybe even do a "comity" led by 1 bod member asigned and have volunteers on the comity...

 

[Bajamike]

is there a designation for the roles of each bod member? maybe setup/create a "P.R." position on the bod. that could be usefull to help promote stuff like reef ed and other functions

Each member does have a role of sorts. We always talk and appoint one (or more) member for a task. No there is not a P.R. position so to speak. I know It is hard to see from the member side but each and every BOD member is active in that role. Chad does an amazing job on the P.R. side. I am not sure how he holds a full time job a family and a full time board member job. But thank you Chad!

 

[Bajamike]

Haven't read the article but think we always have room to improve! That said, celebrating the community and what we do well is also important. Feedback about strengths is as important as weaknesses. The fact that the BOD is asking for feedback is a sign of confidence and should be considered a strength.

I might have went on a limb here this was tasked to me and I never talked it over with other BOD members. Though I do think each and everyone would like to hear what we are doing right and areas we need to improve without feeling attacked. The vibe is good in the club right now and I feel we can have an adult conversation as long as we stick to what's laid out in the article.

 

[FinsUp]

After hearing the concerns expressed and reading the article yesterday, I was saddened, frustrated and disappointed at what happened. I'm not sure whether the sponsor in question is as aware as they could be of the club's (and individual members') focus on, and actions to achieve, the various goals outlined in the article. Perhaps that is where we are failing, as we don't beat our own chest and announce our good deeds. We sponsor local school tanks as a club, individual members conduct studies to the best of their ability on the efficacy and quality of various pieces of equipment and share that information publicly, we promote LFS that show best husbandry practices and customer service, we have held meetings at sponsor locations, individual members have mentored students of various ages who are conducting studies into marine biology, just last month we had our annual fundraiser to help a fellow member get through a hard time.
To say that the clubs are sitting on an excess of funds instead of using them to promote the club or the hobby, well, that's just ridiculous. Nobody in this hobby is sitting on an excess of funds.
I don't agree at all with the idea of providing a few pages of instruction on how to keep a reef tank, because there is almost zero agreement within the hobby about that very topic. What works for one person doesn't work for another, and to issue such a document would surely alienate more people than it would help. Far better is the constant back & forth discussion between members on what works for them and what doesn't. In short, there is no 'right way' to participate in this hobby.
As for the negative attitude about group buys... I think that's an issue of perspective. ALL of us have only a certain amount of money to spend on our tanks, and we're trying to spend it wisely. We usually do group buys for equipment and dry goods, things that multiple store owners have told me that they make almost no profit on. Saving money on those things allows us all to spend more on livestock, which most store owners say is their most profitable area of the store. So if you really think it through, doing group buys is actually helping the local stores make more profit.
As for the upcoming frag swap, and how those types of activities affect the LFS community, all I can say is "I'm sorry if you aren't selling as many corals as you'd like to." I have traded frags to local stores for credit, traded them to fellow members through DBTC, and sold them. I buy corals from local vendors, other hobbyists, and received frags in trade and as gifts. My advice for a LFS is to have great corals in stock, so that hobbyists are willing to spend money in your store rather than somewhere else. This is basic market-driven economics. Hobbyists spend their money as wisely as they are able, and our end goal is to have a healthy, beautiful tank to enjoy.
Partnering with the local aquarium is something that has come up before. I believe that there are members who volunteer and work with the aquarium to help them keep their livestock healthy. I'm not sure how much more could be done in that area, but would definitely support that kind of activity.

Yes, I know it was long-winded. Sorry for that. Those are my thoughts on the topic. Overall, I think our local club is doing very well in most areas mentioned in the article, but we're apparently not doing very well at promoting our activities to members or sponsors, if a club sponsor is so frustrated with us that attempts to engage them in a cooperative activity like a group buy is met with such irritation and frustration that they thrust a negative article about local clubs at a board member and suggest he use it to improve the club, rather than hearing him out on his proposal.

 

[sethsolomon]

I would like to see as they said in the article is work out something with the Denver Aquarium.

 

[Bajamike]

I would like to see as they said in the article is work out something with the Denver Aquarium.

What would you like to see? what activity? Like a group clean up? or?

 

[SLewis]

Each member does have a role of sorts. We always talk and appoint one (or more) member for a task. No there is not a P.R. position so to speak. I know It is hard to see from the member side but each and every BOD member is active in that role. Chad does an amazing job on the P.R. side. I am not sure how he holds a full time job a family and a full time board member job. But thank you Chad!

i can understand how busy it probably is on the bod, and how every one fills in each role from time to time. but wouldnt specific roles for each bod be better than a hodge podge of who does what? i mean sure other bod members can take over for absence of another or what not but why not give specific roles and to each and then ask for voulenteers to comity the bods role.

for example Bod member A is asigned to gather information on project x. you could then get voulenteers to help (grab a beer and brainstorm, designate, and follow up with said members)

This could be used used to help keep the bods time free to "Direct" and also includes members and helps the members feel like they have a little stake in the club other than posting knowledge and feedback on the forum.

just my thoughts, as i am having brain to finger diarrhea and it may be coming out as such....

 

[Munch]

I have no insight, but I suspect that the reservation by any local shop (not selected to participate/supply the group buy materials) is simply a $$ issue.

It's going to hurt their bottom line. Instead of each of us buying salt at retail from them, we're bypassing that.

It's a fine line. Unless we support them, they cannot exist. However, if I had to pay retail for everything in this hobby, I wouldn't be in it.

I'm not sure there's an answer that will satisfy both sides.

With that said, I'm all for group-buys. It would be great if one of our sponsoring vendors was the supplier.

On a side note, had I not bought this salt in the GB, I would have purchased it online. Comes down to dollars and cents to me...

 

[Haulin Oates]

While I do think this club has some huge strengths, I do believe it also has huge weaknesses. We have completely shunned the science fair. We have no involvement in MASNA currently. Bringing MACNA to Denver with our club sponsorship could be one of the best thinks we could ever do, and i think we should have someone dedicated to just making this happen!!!!!! While its true we don't have a beach, "all water leads to the ocean." we could be doing our part to make sure the freshwater top off of the ocean stays clean on its way down!
I've watched as BOD and member have been repeatedly attacked over minor issues to the point of leaving, and we've lost some awesome (and some powerful, intelligent) people.
I would like to see this club expand both online and in person. I could easily see this becoming a regional website with multiple monthly meetings in multiple states. Making a road trip to Texas or Montana to have a meeting at a monster tank or on the beach in the gulf over a long weekend would be awesome. Welcoming a few from another club and hosting them on a tank tour as well would be awesome. Also, regional frag swaps once a year... imagine the amount of frags!! i would love to see online membership skyrocket! I think the article was right in that most elder members do get tired of the same ole same ole. And while they've been around the block and can setup a successful tank over night, I think there also needs to be more open mindedness towards innovative ideas to move the hobby forward! Fresh blood would do us some good!!
I think we do a great job with our vendors and LFS. We've hosted several meeting at several of them and they've made huge profits from our meeting! In return they advertise and help us through monetary donation on the site. I think if any vendor isn't making money off MASC they need to speak up and ask why.
I've been in this club going on 3 years and have been lurking for over 4. I've seen several ups and downs in this club. I have used this website as my #1 source for viable info concerning reefing and marine tanks since I started the hobby. I think it's a great club and a great online resource, and I'd love to push it as far as we can!!




"This one time, at band camp..."

 

[Bajamike]

. We have completely shunned the science fair.

In all fairness this was assigned and we had a BOD member leave that was assigned to this and we where unable to save it this year.

 

[Haulin Oates]

In all fairness this was assigned and we had a BOD member leave that was assigned to this and we where unable to save it this year.

I repeatedly asked while I was on the BOD if I could start it, pretty much when I joined the BOD around February. I finally got the OK in June. After posting a thread I had almost no member interest. I was not attacking any group of people with that post, more just making a statement of fact.


"This one time, at band camp..."

 

[jda123]

I don't know anything about any of this, but how would you rate this on the "is this really a problem" meter? ...or was this a distraction to other issues. Was this just a "suckers argument?" Was the phantom LFS willing to do anything about this as well?

FWIW - when you do group buys from LFS, spread them around and have the hobbyists pick the items up at the store (if the store is willing) so that the stores can get some add-on sales. It sounds like you try to spread them around, but make it a requirement that the store get an increase in traffic. We used to do IO salt this way and the LFS would also have some nice specials that week during salt pickup week.

 

[Andrew_bram]

Ok time for me to say something I guess even though usually I try not to.

1. Pricing- it is hard for me to shop at stores when a yellow tang goes for 69 dollars. I can buy one online for 18. I understand needing to make profits however I find it hard to justify that much unless the fish was qt to some extent. This isn't all stores or the same store every time. But when you walk in and prices are so high it's a detourent. Which leads to my next point.

2. Customer service- most of the people in this hobby provide a decent level of service. I want exceptional. I don't like when I walk into a store and feel like I am wasting there time because I may or may not buy something. We have some stores that do provide this so when I am in need or have extra funds to support them that's where I go. There are stores that know your looking for something and will give you a call or email and say hey I got this item would you like it before its put in a tank. I respect this looking out for me.

3. The community- even though I mainly keep to myself and don't know a ton of members. I feel we have one heck of a club. We do events at local stores the last one was at great white and even though there wasn't a huge turn out I think it was because of Summer time blues. Sometimes the meeting turn from meetings to just people buying stuff so I am all for it as long as there is a little more structure to these events. Sure I want to buy stuff too but it doesn't need to Ailey be that. Also we have dealt with school tanks to help educate and heal. Columbine for one and mural reef for two. We also have generous members who donate time and money to raffles for fellow reefers or donate equipment they could easily sell instead of donate.

4.What we can do better- I don't know much about the science fair however I think this would be good as long as there was enough interest. I would like to see us have maybe some sort of mobile tank and once a month take it to a school or daycare and educate children. I understand we have jobs and maybe very tough but I know I have time to help facilitate this. Maybe get our sponsers help make this happen. What would it take to go to a classroom for an hour and talk to kids about sustainable reef keeping. And just have them get interested.

5. Dbtc/frag swaps- this is what allows us to not take so much from the wild. It allows us to give back expand our collections and not go broke. I understand it take from your bottom dollar but this allows us to interact and spend more dollars at your stores. It also slows us a safety net for when our tanks crash to try and recover some of our prized species that we had. Case in point mike lemke I have a frag for you of that tort when your dream system is set up.

Bottom line we are a good club and I know for one I buy online a lot because I am a broke as a joke. Although I love this hobby and love this club. I would like to see us work together more. And get along better. End of rant
Thank you,
Andrew

 

[jahmic]

My quick take...

- We're only as strong as our collective membership, so please chime in if you have ideas on what you want us to be doing as a club.

- There is a lot going on behind the scenes, and I won't/can't spill the beans on anything, but there will be some excitement to be had shortly with both contests and fun events.

- Where we wall short...
1. Well I think it'd be great if MASC sponsored a tank, but the one huge complication that comes out of that is insurance/liability. What happens when something goes wrong and a tank floods?
2. Awareness/Education of responsible reef keeping. I read article constantly...I need to share them more. Also, it'd be nice to see some experienced members contribute to creating stickied articles or DIY projects that are generated by and for MASC. How to go about getting people interested in this is something I've been trying to figure out...if you have ideas I'm all ears.

As for the issue at hand as expressed by the LFS. I will preface this by saying I don't know any details as far as who was involved. That being said, there are stores I used to frequent that I stopped going to for multiple reasons...less attractive coral selection is one...but the bigger issue was a lack of hard goods. Equipment and chemicals may not be the bread and butter...but it gets people in the door. I've called a particular LFS at least 4 times over the past 2 months to see if they had hard goods in stock that I've seen there in the past...and each time the answer is no. If I don't have a reason to go...then chances are I won't casually stop in and walk out with more than I had planned. If I have one shop on the other side of town that will order in livestock for me, text me on arrival, and followup with me days after to check in...then I'll gladly make the drive. If another shop has essentially the same stock whenever I go and can't entice me to visit by keeping products on the shelf to save me a 4 day wait to order online...then they lose my business.

Sorry you had to get an earful Mike. I think you did the right thing in approaching the store and I don't think we fall too short of things in that article. I think it's simply a case of a frustrated LFS not thinking outside the box in attempting to generate business...brining people in to pick up salt is still bringing people in.

Maybe it's not explicitly stated...but I feel like a goal we have focused on and done well with is providing a community for local hobbyists. Is there room to grow and improve? Always!

 

[FinsUp]

My quick take...

- We're only as strong as our collective membership, so please chime in if you have ideas on what you want us to be doing as a club.

- There is a lot going on behind the scenes, and I won't/can't spill the beans on anything, but there will be some excitement to be had shortly with both contests and fun events.

- Where we wall short...
1. Well I think it'd be great if MASC sponsored a tank, but the one huge complication that comes out of that is insurance/liability. What happens when something goes wrong and a tank floods?
2. Awareness/Education of responsible reef keeping. I read article constantly...I need to share them more. Also, it'd be nice to see some experienced members contribute to creating stickied articles or DIY projects that are generated by and for MASC. How to go about getting people interested in this is something I've been trying to figure out...if you have ideas I'm all ears.

As for the issue at hand as expressed by the LFS. I will preface this by saying I don't know any details as far as who was involved. That being said, there are stores I used to frequent that I stopped going to for multiple reasons...less attractive coral selection is one...but the bigger issue was a lack of hard goods. Equipment and chemicals may not be the bread and butter...but it gets people in the door. I've called a particular LFS at least 4 times over the past 2 months to see if they had hard goods in stock that I've seen there in the past...and each time the answer is no. If I don't have a reason to go...then chances are I won't casually stop in and walk out with more than I had planned. If I have one shop on the other side of town that will order in livestock for me, text me on arrival, and followup with me days after to check in...then I'll gladly make the drive. If another shop has essentially the same stock whenever I go and can't entice me to visit by keeping products on the shelf to save me a 4 day wait to order online...then they lose my business.

Sorry you had to get an earful Mike. I think you did the right thing in approaching the store and I don't think we fall too short of things in that article. I think it's simply a case of a frustrated LFS not thinking outside the box in attempting to generate business...brining people in to pick up salt is still bringing people in.

Maybe it's not explicitly stated...but I feel like a goal we have focused on and done well with is providing a community for local hobbyists. Is there room to grow and improve? Always!

+1000

 

[ReefCheif]

I would like to see as they said in the article is work out something with the Denver Aquarium.

The aquarium is extremly hard to work with because of Landry's. Ive tried on multiple occassions to set up events for my boy scout troop as well as for my little league baseball amd football teams. Landry's does not like to do anything that doesn't directly benefit them, thats been my experience

 

[Shaunv]

I know that I am new to this club and relatively new to the hobby. I would still like to voice my opinion on this topic. From my experience, it seems that this club does a great job with providing information to those who ask for it with anything related to aquariums. I like seeing what is done for the community in regards to members getting together to help schools and fellow members with projects. It also seems that the group buy is a good thing. It allows us to save some money to put towards live stock. If the LFS wanted us to purchase through them, they should at least match what we could get through on line purchases so that we are at least not paying 10-20% more than we should. If they can't offer those prices, then maybe they should offer a discount on livestock if we were to purchase dry goods from them to off set their above average cost of the dry goods. I understand that the LFS needs to make money because they have overhead and I want to support local businesses. So hopefully the LFS can do something to work with this club instead of just handing off an article the generalizes local clubs.

One of the things I would like to see improvement on is more discussion on the impacts to the oceans. I know I have seen a couple of people raise some interesting topics that didn't get much response that affect the hobby/ocean environment as a whole (such as ocean acidification) but I have also seen some spoken about quite a bit such as what the show Tanked does and represents. I know we don't live near the ocean, but I would love to see more information written and discussed in regards to how we can help reduce the negative impact of our hobby on the oceans, how to practice good husbandry, continue the DBTC, and perhaps other ways we can help improve the oceans/reefs through education. I know that I have personally read many articles and a few books on the subject and would be willing to write an article/blog and share some books/links to some great info. I think it would also be great if we could educate the LFS a little as well. How many of the LFS in this area have hundreds of fish/corals/inverts die every year either through shipping or poor husbandry? Think about how many stores across the country and world have the same problem and then you start to realize that there are thousands and thousands of animals that die every year just because someone wants it in their tank. I personally strive to have only tank bred items in my tank. I know it is hard because there are not that many items available yet that are only tank bred, but that is what I chose to do because I wanted to be in this hobby but not have a huge impact on the oceans. I also try to shop at stores that strive to do the same.

I love the idea of working with the Denver Aquarium. They are always looking for volunteers. If you are a Rescue Diver with at least 50 logged dives, you can help clean the insides of the tanks and give information to the public while you are in the tank. If you aren't a diver, they are still looking for volunteers to help in a variety of ways. Here is the contact info for the volunteer coordinator-
Jackie Eisenbaum- 303-561-4474
JEisenbaum@ldry.com

If I can think of anything else, I will. Thanks again for providing such a great club/community. I hope to be a part of making it an even better one.