Speakers

[HayleYoyo]

Out of curiosity, who organizes the event?

I'm curious if we could ever try and get some of the youtubers, like King of Diy, or Aquarium Co-op

[MichelleTCM]

I would second this.

[Gilbotron]

The club as a whole submits ideas and makes suggestions. Its your club, so if you want it, we'll try to make it happen!

The Exec collectively votes on the events to proceed with based on cost, availability, scheduling, club interest, etc.

The Program Chair (me!) takes care of logistics, reaching out and getting stuff booked.

These big name speakers are generally very expensive.  Last I checked, Joey runs upwards of ~$5K for an engagement once you factor in travel costs and such (which is pretty much our entire annual budget).  In order to make these possible, we would need a method to offset the cost such as teaming up with other clubs (i.e. Montreal/Toronto), or hosting a paid dinner event. Given our community is quite small, this results in paid events being quite expensive for people to attend, which in turn means less people attending. This is a big risk for a small club like ours - if it doesn't work out, it could wipe us out financially!

FYI, at the beginning of the year the Exec did discuss the idea, but decided against it for this season. If we can get the membership base up, and get the Exec fully staffed, then it is a definite possibility for next year! 

[HayleYoyo]

Well, $5000 is 200 people at $25 each. Assuming there is no other expenses. Doesn't seem doable.

Do the nearby clubs have those kinds of numbers?

What about Cory, or Rachelle O'Leary. Maybe they are more doable?

[lucius]

Well, $5000 is 200 people at $25 each. Assuming there is no other expenses.

Two expenses that are usually forgotten are renting Tom Brown Arena for our meetings and keeping the website/forum up and running.

[HayleYoyo]

Well, I have organized a lot of events before. I'm sure if we could come to a consensus on a budget, and maybe reach out to other aquarium clubs, I could help put something together.

Maybe if we swing talk to a Toronto club, we can split the transportation costs.

I find I'm always missing the events because they aren't clearly posted on the site, or they just aren't what I was expecting.

I'm more than willing to help

[Gilbotron]

I wouldn't say its not doable.  It definitely is. With lots of advertising and planning, getting 200 people is possible (100 is probably enough) - Ottawa community is small, but if you have a paid dinner event on a weekend evening and advertise it well in advance, it becomes viable for anyone on the 401 corridor (Kingston, Belleville, etc.). It is a lot of work to setup (venue, meal, advertising, etc.) which is more the restriction given how stretched the Exec can get some years.

Toronto (GTA more specifically) has the numbers given there are 4 or 5 clubs in the area. They did Rachel last year - I think tickets were $80 to attend the dinner? Keep an eye on their events as they quite often bring in some big names, and OVAS likes to subsidize members going.

Montreal is similar size to us because their membership base is spread across 2 clubs (english/french).

Not sure about Cory, but Rachel is very expensive. Up there with Tom Barr, Dustin, Joey, etc. 

If you are interested in helping and organizing - absolutely! We're always looking for people to help out - especially with the auction coming up. Talk to any of the Exec at the next meeting and we can work something out.

[HayleYoyo]

When is the next meeting?

[HayleYoyo]

Obviously having a speaker come down with all that's going on, isn't a possibility.

However, what do you guys think about setting up a virtual speaker?

Maybe we can organize a group Skype with someone?

It would increase traffic, and help people stay sane!

[Jody]

That is always the hard part with Ottawa, we are kind of out of the way from everyone.
I was down at the CAOAC convention last year. OVAS had 5 members go down.
This event had 5 very interesting speakers, no household names, but they were all really good.
While I was down, they were talking about who would be hosting the 2020 CAOAC event, one of the clubs which put in a bid to host was the Durham region club, who eventually won the bid. People at this event in Burlington, who are from the Toronto area clubs,  were complaining that Durham was too far to go for a convention.
We might be able to get a few people that are interested in coming up, but certainly not large numbers, from Montreal I would expect the same. This makes it hard to rely on those outside the club for funds.

This year we had Jim Cummings planned to come out, who is a pretty big name speaker who has done talks around the world.
We have tried to get Oliver Lucanus, who lives about an hour away, to come out, but he is very busy and hard to pin down.

This next year could be a tough one for the club, as we will need to come up with a way to do some fundraising, as our giant auction, which brings in a large chuck of our operating budget, has been cancelled.

A virtual speaker is an interesting idea, do you know anyone that is doing that?

Jody

[HayleYoyo]

I'm very new to this community. Thankfully, I am not new to organizing events. I would be more than happy to volunteer my time, if we all agree this is something we want to do

I didn't know that about the Ottawa area, but given that fish-keeping isn't a big hobby, and Ottawa only has a population of about a million people, that makes sense


If I could get the support of the club, I feel we might be able get something done.

I can't imagine other clubs would have a problem with taking part, seeing as it doesn't involve anyone traveling. And hopefully we could make it a fund raiser to help compensate for the loss of our auction.

Covid-19 is keeping everyone at home, including a lot of the speakers who are normally Booked. I feel they might be interested in something like this.