Why are local forums/clubs struggling?

[4FordFamily]

I love my local group, Indmas.org. I’ve supported them since I joined several years ago. Have not been to many meets, and I’m not as active as I should be. I like the fact that I can add more value here, it’s busier, so I spend most of my time here, selfishly.

Local groups are great I do visit once or twice per week!

 

[Muttley000]

corareef.org is the central Ohio club (Central Ohio Reef Aquarists). Pretty good group of people and generally active. They use their own web site way more than the large forum version.
They usually do a swap in October but I saw it got moved to December this year due to a venue conflict.
I belonged to that club before I moved from Ohio a couple of years ago.
Cleveland area also has a lot of active hobbyist, there are two clubs there. LEAR has a great swap every February.

Cora only gets a couple posts a month outside of the for sale that gets about the same. Leafs forum never really took off. Both have nice swaps though, but are unfortunatly great examples of what this thread is discussing

 

[Todvod]

corareef.org is the central Ohio club (Central Ohio Reef Aquarists). Pretty good group of people and generally active. They use their own web site way more than the large forum version.
They usually do a swap in October but I saw it got moved to December this year due to a venue conflict.
I belonged to that club before I moved from Ohio a couple of years ago.
Cleveland area also has a lot of active hobbyist, there are two clubs there. LEAR has a great swap every February.

Thanks eggs! Should be ready for coral by December.

 

[Humblefish]

Although I have no idea what Xenforo means (sounds like some sort of drug for Xenophobes ) I think you should move here to Long Island NY. I would take you out on my boat collecting and we can discuss the finer points of quarantining and how it relates to Xenfono. Then we can quarantine my fish just for fun while our wives go to Lord and Taylor to spend all our money.

We're probably gonna take another road trip before we settle down, so I'll come visit you. If you can charm my supermodel wife into moving to NY instead, I'm down with that.

@Humblefish take it from somebody who used to be in the Navy, @Paul B wants to take you out on his boat AND go to NY.


The next day: Guys there was an accident and Bobby's air line got caught in a manta ray and next thing I knew he was gone.

So, you're saying if I start hearing the theme song from The Godfather playing on Paul's boat, I'm in trouble.

 

[Averhoeven]

@hybridazn @ReefQueen @acer

So I was the last president of the Pittsburgh Marine Aquarium Society, it used to be big, even hosted MACNA. We walked away a year or two ago and formed a new club 3 Rivers Marine Aquarium Society of which I am the founding and current President of. I can only speak for myself but I have put in a ton of work. When we dissolved the old club and offered the lifetime members in the new club free lifetime memberships I had people crawling out of the wood work not wanting to mis out. Thing is most of them I have never even met and some I have only met once or twice and I make it to 95% of the meetings for the last several years. The old club in my opinion certainly had the cliquey feel to it for the first few years that I was a member I never really ever talked to anyone nor anyone talked to me. It wasn't until I put myself out there that I made friends and eventually took over the leadership. I strived to grow the club for the past few years and it is not cliquey anymore and I feel that it is welcoming to new members and guests. People no longer come to club meetings for information anymore. We all have computers in our pockets and can have the answer to any question in the matter of seconds. It has to be about a more personal experience then just an answer to a question. A few years back the only way to learn the hobby was through clubs or hanging out at the LFS, that just simply is no longer the case.

Our problem is just comes down to people helping out and time commitment. Most of our people have families and jobs and while I'm sure most have good intentions the majority of the work and effort falls on one or two peoples shoulders. As many others have mentioned in this thread those one or two people get burnt out after awhile. Lately we have struggled to get a dozen people at a meeting with cancelled meetings when there were only going to be 2 people. In order to make a meeting I have to leave work hours early and drive on a toll road so it probably costs me $50, not a lot to some, but I work for an hourly wage at a LFS so money is usually tight. It is hard for me having carried this mantel for several years to justify leaving work to have 3 people at a meeting. When we elect a new board we always get a couple new people who are eager and excited, but unfortunately most of the time they kind of fizzle out and disappear. When we do our coral fragging workshop the room is packed, just like the other experiences in other clubs in this thread. When it comes time to work for the club we might get 4 people to help.

I get it, people are busy, they have side jobs, homes to upkeep, kid's sporting events, their one day off in 3 weeks to relax, I totally get it. From this club leader I honestly do not know how much longer we can keep having a club.

I live down the road in Morgantown. I looked through your site one day considering it, but then realized I rarely make it out to Pitt when I need stuff, much less the 1.5 hrs from Cheat Lake just for a meeting or something of the like. I would definitely be interested in meeting some people and getting to know what the scene around here looks like a little better (just recently moved out here), but it's a bit of a hike.

Just my thoughts on what is already a long thread. I think it's about A) recognizing what the resource a club is offering actually is, B) that that resource has changed in the past 10-15 years and C) maximizing on it without bogging it down in obligation, irrelevance and routine. As far as the purpose of clubs, I think they have to serve a different purpose these days. Way back when I was still in school, I helped with a fledgling club in SC. Back then, a club was a good source of information. However, information is so much easier to obtain nowadays than it used to be. I can look up a question I have while waiting for the elevator. In addition, I think the kind of information we look for has changed. This forum with sections like @Humblefish disease forum, the lighting forum, etc have helped foster the concept of evidence based approaches rather than the anecdotal information that used to be passed along like verbal histories at clubs. Therefore, I think a club has to serve a different purpose today. I think that purpose is, as unfortunate as it may sound to some of you, a source of immediate help when the need arises. I think it becomes a source of someone to potentially go check on your tank while you're on vacation, but that you know can actually critically evaluate a problem and gets it. It's someone you can trust that can help you problem solve in person when visualization is often so key to solving a problem. I think this role as an in person source of help is a local club's most valuable resource, but is also the one that most leverage least. It is absolutely critical to have met people to know whether you can trust them for these sorts of things (at least, I would think so), however it also doesn't necessitate many of the other "functions" of a club. Do you need to break your back for monthly meetings? Do you need to charge people a fee to be a member or have membership requirements (eg: must make X number of meetings or perform X hours of service for the club)? Do you need picnics or other non-reef related get togethers?

Multiple people have stated things like frag swaps or hands on learning sessions are far and away the most attended events. That's because people are getting something out of it that is directly pertinent to their experience and it is also an event. People like routine in their daily lives, but they don't like it in their escapism (hobbies, vacations, etc). They want to do, see and experience something new. Clubs should focus their energy on these kinds of events. It gets people together, it gives them a focus so they don't sit around discussing things that aren't related to the club's subject matter (which most people will interpret as wasting time), it often acts as a clear ice breaker to avoid some of the introversion and cliqueness and it seems like less of an obligation. At these sorts of events you can still meet new people, find friends that you want to see more regularly than meetings, be introduced to people who may be able to help when in need and learn something. I think it allows for the true resource of a club that I discussed earlier to occur a little more organically without, again and this is important, feeling like an obligation. We all have enough of those in our lives already. Instead, it's an event because it's rare, exciting and interesting. Once every 4-6 months is probably actually enough to maintain some sense of cohesiveness to a group outside of whatever interpersonal relationships develop within it.
Someone earlier mentioned firearms which I also enjoy. When I moved to Cincinnati years ago (before Motown), I badly wanted to have an outdoor shooting range like I'd had when I was in Nashville. Every single place either had a 2 year waitlist and/or significant requirements for membership (eg: 60 hours of service as a range officer with the club per year). I don't have a lot of free time during normal hours (I sleep little to enjoy my hobbies while the family sleeps). Those things didn't make me want to buckle down and focus on the hobby, they pushed me away. I just wanted somewhere to shoot. How about instead having 2 tiers of membership? Officers/people providing some service to the club and those that just "attend" or in this case shoot with different costs associated? Perhaps that lesson might serve some purpose in a reef club given what I discussed above as well.

Sorry if this was kind of rambly. It's late (see, coming back to what I said earlier about sleep) and I'm tired!

 

[A. grandis]

In addition to being a mod here, I am also an admin for a local reefing forum/club (Louisiana). And like most local clubs nowadays, we are seeing a decline in member participation. However, local Facebook groups are on the upswing.

I get the convenience of Facebook, but it saddens me that local forums/clubs could one day be a thing of the past. Especially as I've seen a (searchable) knowledge base develop over the years, people are always willing to help one another out, and I've been a part of many great local gtgs: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/larc-shrimp-boil-march-10th.359614/

Just looking for input/opinions from the R2R community, as I try to wrap my mind around this.

I've been invited many times here by serious guys to get out of here and participate on facebook and such.
I've been thinking seriously lately about that!
There are many people here that knows what they are talking about, but there is a lot of people that like to make trouble and defend their fantasies criticizing and bulling others just because others expose truth and say what they think.
Many believe that you just can't find the good old guys in forums because the newbies are brainwashed with marketing and new futile ideas.
When you stand for something important and for true facts people come and take it personally. Very sad!
I myself have been removed from threads by mods here because of some guys bulling me and calling me names.
Those guys look into my last threads and come over to do their dirty job. I believe some mods agree with their opinion and allow them to stay in the thread making me look bad.
Sorry for venting here! Truth spoken.
Nevertheless, yet this is the finest forum I've been.

 

[TheEngineer]

I really appreciate reading everyone's insights here. I'm the current president of the Delaware Reef Club. I took over as president at the beginning of this year and I'm still working on my plan to turn the club around, but progress is really slow. Things we've done this year:

1. Focused on bringing in LOCAL sponsors. Not only do we support our local stores, but it also creates new resources for the club. LFS owners can be incredibly helpful. Local sponsors also can help drive their customers to our club.
2. Scheduling in advance. I put out meetings 3 months in advance including the location, topic, etc.
3. The meetings are all focused on things that drive "value" for members. We do multiple DIY projects (LED moonlights, look down boxes, aiptasia zappers (sorry @Paul B ), etc.) The projects are free for paid members and dirt cheap for everyone else. The club always eats part of the cost for everyone.
4. We hold one annual swap each year. (Ours is this Saturday!) This usually brings out about 100-150 people.

What's interesting to me is that most of the currently active members were not active a year ago and most of the members from a year ago are not active now. It was like a changing of the guard. I can't figure out why though.

The thing that I hear from time to time, that really bugs me, is that the meetings are too far and they need to be moved closer to "me". We've tried moving meetings and a few new people would show up, but then they wouldn't ever show up on the forum. I routinely hear that 30 minutes is too far for a meeting. That's really hard to compete with. I drive over an hour for every meeting and I spend a ton of time planning for meetings and running them.

Back to great reasons for the club...

Our active members are extremely supportive of each other. Whether it is free frags, free equipment, helping with a move, giving advice, problem solving, etc. people are just really friendly. I wish I could flip a switch and make more people become involved. We have over 300 members on our forum and over 300 members on our FB group. The crossover between the two is maybe 50%. That means we should have 450 active participants, but for the life of me I don't know why they don't.

 

[reefwiser]

That's good Adam it is not easy getting people to interact. Just look at voting most people do not vote. They find it is too hard to show up once a year and vote for people. But then they complain about who we get to run the country. But that is a topic we don't want to discuss.

 

[acer]

I live down the road in Morgantown. I looked through your site one day considering it, but then realized I rarely make it out to Pitt when I need stuff, much less the 1.5 hrs from Cheat Lake just for a meeting or something of the like. I would definitely be interested in meeting some people and getting to know what the scene around here looks like a little better (just recently moved out here), but it's a bit of a hike.

Just my thoughts on what is already a long thread. I think it's about A) recognizing what the resource a club is offering actually is, B) that that resource has changed in the past 10-15 years and C) maximizing on it without bogging it down in obligation, irrelevance and routine. As far as the purpose of clubs, I think they have to serve a different purpose these days. Way back when I was still in school, I helped with a fledgling club in SC. Back then, a club was a good source of information. However, information is so much easier to obtain nowadays than it used to be. I can look up a question I have while waiting for the elevator. In addition, I think the kind of information we look for has changed. This forum with sections like @Humblefish disease forum, the lighting forum, etc have helped foster the concept of evidence based approaches rather than the anecdotal information that used to be passed along like verbal histories at clubs. Therefore, I think a club has to serve a different purpose today. I think that purpose is, as unfortunate as it may sound to some of you, a source of immediate help when the need arises. I think it becomes a source of someone to potentially go check on your tank while you're on vacation, but that you know can actually critically evaluate a problem and gets it. It's someone you can trust that can help you problem solve in person when visualization is often so key to solving a problem. I think this role as an in person source of help is a local club's most valuable resource, but is also the one that most leverage least. It is absolutely critical to have met people to know whether you can trust them for these sorts of things (at least, I would think so), however it also doesn't necessitate many of the other "functions" of a club. Do you need to break your back for monthly meetings? Do you need to charge people a fee to be a member or have membership requirements (eg: must make X number of meetings or perform X hours of service for the club)? Do you need picnics or other non-reef related get togethers?

Multiple people have stated things like frag swaps or hands on learning sessions are far and away the most attended events. That's because people are getting something out of it that is directly pertinent to their experience and it is also an event. People like routine in their daily lives, but they don't like it in their escapism (hobbies, vacations, etc). They want to do, see and experience something new. Clubs should focus their energy on these kinds of events. It gets people together, it gives them a focus so they don't sit around discussing things that aren't related to the club's subject matter (which most people will interpret as wasting time), it often acts as a clear ice breaker to avoid some of the introversion and cliqueness and it seems like less of an obligation. At these sorts of events you can still meet new people, find friends that you want to see more regularly than meetings, be introduced to people who may be able to help when in need and learn something. I think it allows for the true resource of a club that I discussed earlier to occur a little more organically without, again and this is important, feeling like an obligation. We all have enough of those in our lives already. Instead, it's an event because it's rare, exciting and interesting. Once every 4-6 months is probably actually enough to maintain some sense of cohesiveness to a group outside of whatever interpersonal relationships develop within it.
Someone earlier mentioned firearms which I also enjoy. When I moved to Cincinnati years ago (before Motown), I badly wanted to have an outdoor shooting range like I'd had when I was in Nashville. Every single place either had a 2 year waitlist and/or significant requirements for membership (eg: 60 hours of service as a range officer with the club per year). I don't have a lot of free time during normal hours (I sleep little to enjoy my hobbies while the family sleeps). Those things didn't make me want to buckle down and focus on the hobby, they pushed me away. I just wanted somewhere to shoot. How about instead having 2 tiers of membership? Officers/people providing some service to the club and those that just "attend" or in this case shoot with different costs associated? Perhaps that lesson might serve some purpose in a reef club given what I discussed above as well.

Sorry if this was kind of rambly. It's late (see, coming back to what I said earlier about sleep) and I'm tired!

Being part of the Pittsburgh/3Rivers club for some time - there is little doubt in my mind that one of the problems is the thought process of people that they are overly busy as well as whole "whats in it for me" issue. That is why we do have a great turnout when we do a frag workshop or other club activity that people walk away with something they want for a cheap or for free - as Averhoeven posted above. He also stated, as others have, that the clubs can and do offer near immediate help to members in emergencies and for vacation help. However, the emergency/vacation help require personal relationships- which are impossible unless you actually get to know people by spending time with them - as in come to meetings. So, there we are- the "inpass" - how do you grow a club and offer amenities without people actually showing up for meetings to get to know and trust each other? Certainly, if we only have meetings that offer a freebies a few times per year - they would be well attended- but no personal relationships would be formed toward helping each other out in the future. Not to mention that its possible the clubs would be unable to get any help toward those few meetings as organizing , paying for space and materials has to be done by someone.

 

[Antics]

Already disenchanted with Florida? @Humblefish

I keep telling my wife we have to move. I work outside and every summer is hotter than the last. In three years I don't think it will be worth it LOL.

 

[Averhoeven]

Being part of the Pittsburgh/3Rivers club for some time - there is little doubt in my mind that one of the problems is the thought process of people that they are overly busy as well as whole "whats in it for me" issue. That is why we do have a great turnout when we do a frag workshop or other club activity that people walk away with something they want for a cheap or for free - as Averhoeven posted above. He also stated, as others have, that the clubs can and do offer near immediate help to members in emergencies and for vacation help. However, the emergency/vacation help require personal relationships- which are impossible unless you actually get to know people by spending time with them - as in come to meetings. So, there we are- the "inpass" - how do you grow a club and offer amenities without people actually showing up for meetings to get to know and trust each other? Certainly, if we only have meetings that offer a freebies a few times per year - they would be well attended- but no personal relationships would be formed toward helping each other out in the future. Not to mention that its possible the clubs would be unable to get any help toward those few meetings as organizing , paying for space and materials has to be done by someone.

I don't think it has to be free or cheap gifts by any means. I think it has to have "value" which is not an intrinsically financial qualification. Experience, knowledge, events, etc have value even if people are paying for it (dues, entry fees). Events need to have that value and I think the classic reef club meeting of a bunch of dudes hanging out at a table of sandwiches sharing war stories or anecdotal evidence doesn't hold as much value these days.
I wholeheartedly agree you need to meet people for the "services" part of a club. However, I don't think that needs to be nearly as frequently as most clubs/organizers think it does. If people enjoy each other's company, they will hang out outside of actual meetings. I think once every few months is enough to maintain a relationship that falls outside of those kinds of bounds.
These "event meetings" don't have to be huge ordeals that cost a lot. They just have to be focused and offer something unique. It's actually a great way to get a local sponsor involved. Talk to an LFS. Arrange for them to set up an order of unique things or something themed that members are interested in so you can all go pick up your new whatever at the same time and talk about it. Or if a member is doing something different or unique, you can all go pick up his garden eels as a group so everyone can see them and talk. It just can't be routine and it needs to have a focus or if will eventually and inevitably devolve into something that most people consider to be a "waste of time". I mean, if I just want to hang out and have a beer with friends, I have friends to do that with whether they are in a club or not. We don't need someone else to schedule that sort of thing for us.

 

[Paul B]

We do multiple DIY projects (LED moonlights, look down boxes, aiptasia zappers (sorry @Paul B ), etc.)

I'll come visit you. If you can charm my supermodel wife into moving to NY instead, I'm down with that.

My Supermodel will contact your Supermodel. They are building a few more condo's here by the sea and we have virtually no LFSs near here, so you can open one or sell corals. I will be your best customer and you can suck water right from your back yard.

 

[Humblefish]

Already disenchanted with Florida? @Humblefish

I keep telling my wife we have to move. I work outside and every summer is hotter than the last. In three years I don't think it will be worth it LOL.

$650/year to Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission just to have an online fish business has sort of soured me. Plus, did you know even hobbyists are supposed to get an Aquaculture Certificate ($100/year) in order to sell frags you propagated yourself??

 

[Amoo]

$650/year to Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission just to have an online fish business has sort of soured me. Plus, did you know even hobbyists are supposed to get an Aquaculture Certificate ($100/year) in order to sell frags you propagated yourself??

 

[dragon99]

"That's about it"

If only....

 

[Amoo]

If I recall from talking to Dave Turner @Humblefish the $100 thing allows them to come to your house randomly for a QC check.

I know you're not a fan of it, but imagine the potential health benefits if we had that in every state and distributors of things like fish were forced to actually keep up with their systems.

I'm against the whole tax thing, but I don't think thought process is that far off from trying to help as it may seem.

 

[Rick Krejci]

Yes. You can get INFORMATION from here, and other sites on the internet. There is more to a club than information.

Need a group of bigugly dudes to help you move a tank? Nope, can't get that from a website.

Need to borrow the club owned equipment like suction cup glass movers, wet band saw, PAR meter, etc? Nope, can't get that from a website.

Starting a new tank, want a cup of sand from various sources? Nope, can't get that from a website.

Looking for free coral frags to fill in your empty box 'o rocks? Nope, can't get that from a website.

https://twomenandatruck.com/
https://www.amazon.com/COSMOS-Alumi...coding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=DSC4AM8RHTYAW7FDH679
https://www.bulkreefsupply.com/gryphon-aquasaw-diamond-band-frag-saw.html
http://www.garf.org/!paypal2010/Store.html



From what I've seen, people are less prone to hand out free frags and more want to sell their "designer" Super Psychedelic Stardust Filled single zoa polyp for $200.

Seriously, I know exactly what you're saying, but I think in this Amazon era, people are more prone to hop on a website and have it a their fingertips and spend the bucks rather than driving across town to borrow it.

 

[Dr. Dendrostein]

$650/year to Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission just to have an online fish business has sort of soured me. Plus, did you know even hobbyists are supposed to get an Aquaculture Certificate ($100/year) in order to sell frags you propagated yourself??

In California, if you import corals or fish one thing needed is state permit for that import and they may come to your home/business to see how well creatures being taken care of. And permits not free.

 

[Dr. Dendrostein]

In this day and age of people wanting to text each other rather than call or visit. It’s not surprising. It’s the “all about me era” and getting together with friends/clubs is inconvenient to people. They just want answers to their problems and not bother mingling with these knowledgeable people, lol.

today's technology doesn't help, many people choose not to have or carry phones, because of that.

 

[TheEngineer]

today's technology doesn't help, many people choose not to have or carry phones, because of that.

There are approximately 328M people in the US (total population). There are approximately 238M smart phones alone in the US. That means 73% of the entire population owns a smart phone. Granted some people have more than one, but you get my point. Adjust the population number for people say over the age of 18 (23% are under 18) you are looking at ~253M people. Spreading the 238M phones across those 253M you're looking at 94% of the population.

That's a long way around of saying, most people have and carry phones. There are very few people who do not.