Salties at OVAS Meetings

[Jimbo]

Since I became an OVAS member a year ago, i've attended every meeting (except one). Something that i've noticed at all the meetings is the distinct lack of salt water aquarium owners, and a lack of salt water presentations.

I'd definately like to meet more salties at the meetings with the intent to share ideas, discuss setups, and potentially trade equipment and/or livestock.

What would it take to get more salties to attend future meetings?

Some ideas I have are:
- split the meetings between fresh and salt water discussions, rather than concentrate on a single topic for an entire evening.
- provide Par readings.
- monthly, or bi-monthly frag or other livestock swaps.
- saltie-holics anonymous, a chance for like minded marine keepers to meet for a regular (or not so regular) salt water discussion, show off our own tanks, and share a drink or two.
- provide more hands on demonstrations, such as:
     - making your own overflow box
     - basic fish tank plumbing
     - making your own fish food
     - introduction to fragging
     - how to use a Par meter
     - 10 things I did wrong setting up my marine tank

I understand that there are a lot of resources available on the web that demonstrate the above, but I believe one of the key benefits of OVAS is the ability to physically ask people questions face to face, and discuss topics in more detail.

Let me know what you think. Hopefully the executives will pick up on this thread and make some changes. If not, i'll raise any feedback to them.

[charlie]

Thanks for your input Jimbo,i can tell you the club in the past made several efforts to get our saltie members to come out, the largest amount of money ever spent on a speaker was catered to our saltwater hobbyist, every year in our season we dedicate a meeting exclusively to saltwater, unfortunately the response does not merit dedicating a second one in the season, that said we have not given up on our efforts.
This year our program is more on the social aspect of getting more interaction among hobbyist & not speaker focused so that fits with your suggestion, so at our next meeting please do say hi to me & we can work on it.
Next meeting is October 22 & it`s theme is trivia & Pizza night, so despite of what you keep it`s the perfect meeting to interact with your peers ,the program chair Will be releasing the details shortly.
Jimbo you need to contact our membership chair to rectify your membership status.
Regards Charlie

[Feivel]

its not ovas apparently its us the salties. im not sure on the history behind this but we are trying on our side to help out with this issue with the members that are still in "good standigs" with the club. lots of tension there too......

i find the meetings themselves are very fresh orientated(for obvious reasons). they did put an effort to try the salty stuff again at the season launch and who showed up? Me, Phil and some shy guy that didnt even realize we were salties and introduced himself after. THANKS AGAIN RAY FOR THE KORALIA PUMP DONATION that i won in a draw WOOT WOOT

the club has tried to attract the salties atttention. apparently spent a VERY LARGE sum to get a renown guest speaker from the states and it was a major FLOP on the salty side. i can understand why they dont put effort into attracting us. but we are still paying members and have a voice hence why they tried it out again. as far as i know me and phil will be there and we should have some sort of frag tank setup but things can change. october is a busy time for me

[Nerine]

We had an awesome talk on seahorses!! I want some now....and breeding fish, wow, impressive I dont have the facilities to take on breeding saltwater fish or even seahorses!!!  I believe those were our two most recent salt water talks

The Seahorse one was verrry impressive and an eye opener!

[Feivel]

Look up kudos sea horse giving birth .... Now thats crazy. I wont spoil any surprises but go see for yourself.

[DrRockso]

Wow... I didn't know us salt-fanatics didn't attend the meetings... I must say I'm guilty as well, but it's a lack of time (Sept. 22 = out of town, Oct. 22 is a Monday = evening university class...)... ok no excuse, I know.
But I really hope to make it for November... if I manage to set aside my shyness. O_o

[76brian]

Funny, from my short time on the forum I assumed most of the active club members were SW folks. I think that's because the SW section of the forums seems to be more active. Even though the FW side has more total posts, there seems to be more consistent activity (since I've been here) in the SW section.

Anyways, maybe they don't go to meetings because they'd rather stay home and admire their beautiful tanks

[Hookup]

Saltwater = Forum members as a generalization.   No desire from 99% (100%?) of saltwater people to show up..

that said, i did get about 15 or so salties to my place for poker night... so maybe if there is gambling involved.

[Severum]

apparently spent a VERY LARGE sum to get a renown guest speaker from the states and it was a major FLOP on the salty side.

I'll strongly disagree with that statement. I was at both Anthony Calfo talks many years ago and they weren't meetings, they were events. I don't think I've ever seen more people at any OVAS event save the yearly giant auctions. Because the event was so high profile it was advertised heavily (even in person).

The subject of saltwater member participation comes up at least a couple times a year with great suggestions from the members. It usually ends with the exec thanking everyone for thier ideas and taking it from there.

Individual members have tried organizing events with various degrees of success. Hookup's poker night and Groan's frag swap come to mind.

[Fishnut]

We've had quite a few impressive SW speakers over the years.  Anthony Calfo was the BIG speaker that came a few years ago.  That was (I believe) at a $1000+ cost to OVAS, when we usually spend just a few hundred.  It was a full house.  Then there was the seahorse lady and this past year was Ret Talbot.  I might be forgetting some.  

Since I was in charge of Ret visiting, I know the details.  He has a facinating number of things to tal about and he's been all over the world working with people to conserve the natural habitat and promote better fishing and buying practices for all SW aquarium creatures.  I'm not into salt and it was fascinating to me.NOBODY showed up to the pre-meeting dinner at Swiss Challet except me.  Embarrassing!  We had a small crowd for the talk too and maybe 1/8th of those in attendance were salties.  BTW...Ret had just come from speaking at MAST, where he was surrounded by salties for his duration there, got invited over to see some amazing aquariums and had LOADS of saltie people to chat with.  OVAS...well, you got the picture.

I could never understand...if these people are being paid by the club to come to Ottawa and are looking forward to talking to people...and it's FREE to attend...assuming salt water people like to chat about their hobby, why not come to a meeting and meet these fantastic people?

The subject of saltwater member participation comes up at least a couple times a year with great suggestions from the members. It usually ends with the exec thanking everyone for thier ideas and taking it from there.

Individual members have tried organizing events with various degrees of success. Hookup's poker night and Groan's frag swap come to mind.

I also organized a frag swapping thing for our Garage sale last year because someone suggested it and it was ultimately ignored.  I had ONE registered swapper.  If you guys want to do something we not only need suggestions but we need to be able to implement successfully while considering budget, time, existing plans, etc.  It's not always possible, but we do try. 

We're going for a more social theme this year.  Hoping to get more people out from behind their computers.  SW and FW.

[bitterman]

I'll strongly disagree with that statement. I was at both Anthony Calfo talks many years ago and they weren't meetings, they were events. I don't think I've ever seen more people at any OVAS event save the yearly giant auctions. Because the event was so high profile it was advertised heavily (even in person).

The subject of saltwater member participation comes up at least a couple times a year with great suggestions from the members. It usually ends with the exec thanking everyone for thier ideas and taking it from there.

Individual members have tried organizing events with various degrees of success. Hookup's poker night and Groan's frag swap come to mind.

The Calfo meeting was a good one and did draw some people, maybe not as many as people were hoping, but a large portion of the OVAS Club Members did attend. I know I went even though I did not have SW at the time and it was very well done! There have however been several other talks that the turnout was poor a few recent ones were  the Sea Horse talk, clown breeding and also Rons talk a introduction to SW.

The season opening went very well! Myself I would have liked to see more SW guys there with stuff to sell. I was looking to purchase frags etc for my kids tanks! I did pick up a much need TDS meter for a good price and there was a person who got out of the CW hobby donate a bunch of stuff to ovas to benifit the club.

I challenge all the SW people to become "OVAS Club Members". We are tracking "OVAS Club Members" interest areas on the membership form. This information will be used to direct the limited club resources for the different meeting topics and speaker etc. I would love to see more SW talks but I also like the goal to build the social aspect of the club that is being focused on this year. Maybe some of you SW guys/gals can convert some FW guys/gals to SW.... It happened to me! I have 2 SW tanks at home as well as my Cichlid tanks.

We also need to keep things in perspective in terms of budgets and costs to the club for getting people like Anthony Calfo! Its expensive! OVAS is a non-profit organization, the more members the more the club can do for you! It starts with each and every person here becoming a  "OVAS Club Member".

Regards,
   Bruce

[xenon]

I don't attent meetings but I did attend the Calfo event years back.

It was fantastic!

[bt]

NOBODY showed up to the pre-meeting dinner at Swiss Challet except me.  Embarrassing!

I'll be honest... I considered showing up for that, but felt somewhat intimidated by the idea.  And regretted that decision after having a chance to speak with him after his talk.

[charlie]

Saltwater = Forum members as a generalization.   No desire from 99% (100%?) of saltwater people to show up..that said, i did get about 15 or so salties to my place for poker night... so maybe if there is gambling involved.

If these stats are correct, are we wasting our time?
Why is this thread even here?
Regards

[robt18]

that said, i did get about 15 or so salties to my place for poker night... so maybe if there is gambling involved.

Winning trivia team in October takes home all of the pizza that's left?

I think we have a good saltwater presentation pretty much every year. Turnouts are usually disappointing. However I still enjoy them (I play for both sides...) and would like to see them remain a part of the program to some extent. The more participation the better I think, and even I would get sick of seeing a presentation on Africans every month. Keep some variety!

[charlie]

We've had quite a few impressive SW speakers over the years.  Anthony Calfo was the BIG speaker that came a few years ago.  That was (I believe) at a $1000+ cost to OVAS, when we usually spend just a few hundred.  It was a full house.  Then there was the seahorse lady and this past year was Ret Talbot.  I might be forgetting some.  

Since I was in charge of Ret visiting, I know the details.  He has a facinating number of things to tal about and he's been all over the world working with people to conserve the natural habitat and promote better fishing and buying practices for all SW aquarium creatures.  I'm not into salt and it was fascinating to me.NOBODY showed up to the pre-meeting dinner at Swiss Challet except me.  Embarrassing!  We had a small crowd for the talk too and maybe 1/8th of those in attendance were salties.  BTW...Ret had just come from speaking at MAST, where he was surrounded by salties for his duration there, got invited over to see some amazing aquariums and had LOADS of saltie people to chat with.  OVAS...well, you got the picture.

I could never understand...if these people are being paid by the club to come to Ottawa and are looking forward to talking to people...and it's FREE to attend...assuming salt water people like to chat about their hobby, why not come to a meeting and meet these fantastic people?

I also organized a frag swapping thing for our Garage sale last year because someone suggested it and it was ultimately ignored.  I had ONE registered swapper.  If you guys want to do something we not only need suggestions but we need to be able to implement successfully while considering budget, time, existing plans, etc.  It's not always possible, but we do try. 

We're going for a more social theme this year.  Hoping to get more people out from behind their computers.  SW and FW.

There had been some talk of breaking even, i can tell you that was not the case.
About 70 people showed up for part 1 of which 90% were OVAS club members other bought membership either @ a sponsor & at the door simply because the discounted membership fee was a better rate than the door cost at the event
In terms of cost 1000.00 is not correct, as expenses go think airfare from California to Ottawa return -hotel- several meals cost to buy his books that sit in the library - Black & white don`t lie  
They were 2 main sponsors , if they like they can tell you what it cost them as a feature sponsor for such a high profilee event, you will be shocked, we even had saltwater hobbyist who love their chosen aspect of the hobby try to sabotage the event by posting else where that Calfo had canceledd because he was sick & they thought that was funny
Regards

[Jimbo]

If these stats are correct, are we wasting our time?
Why is this thread even here?
Regards

From Charlie's feedback, it appears that OVAS might be better off ditching the salt water folk and concentrating only on fresh water.

In my opinion, i'd definately like to see more salt water focus at the meetings. As I stated in my original post there are lots of simple, no/low cost ways to get salties out.

Let's see if we can raise our profile at the next meeting.

[charlie]

From Charlie's feedback, it appears that OVAS might be better off ditching the salt water folk and concentrating only on fresh water.

In my opinion, i'd definately like to see more salt water focus at the meetings. As I stated in my original post there are lots of simple, no/low cost ways to get salties out.

Let's see if we can raise our profile at the next meeting.

well if that`s your feeling you are completely wrong, the club has shown it`s interst in several ways over the years with very very limited response, imagine the club hosting a authority on breeding clown( somone who has bred thousands of various clown fish) & guess how many salties showed up? so must we consistently continue to dedicate more meetings in a season of 7 meetings to saltwater if 98% of your consistent attendence is freshwater ?
Regards

[charlie]

Jimbo, FYI do you know the day the program chair went out to include our saltie friends by having a frag swap a saltie thought it best to throw a frag swap the same day, was this helping the cause - you tell me?
At every Giant auction we beg for our saltie hobbyist to come out, if memory serves me well 3 hobbyist did once on the selling side on the buying side maybe 5 - guess what happened?
At our just concluded season launch with the free tables to members & a minimal charge for non members how many did you see selling apart from Rays ( dry goods)? .
Regards Charlie

[Nerine]

just so everyone knows...we don't have THAT many meetings...Every single meeting cannot be salt water or cichilds

Don't forget about goldfish, local fish, catfish, cichlids, saltwater, ocean stuff, catfish, tetras, catfish meetings

I personally think there has been a good selection of both salt & fresh water talks...and I'm not a salty but I love hearing about all these things! and meeting Frankie and the woman who did the sea horse talk (I can't remember her name?!) Also - dinner before the meeting - SHOW UP!! it's open to everyone We ask you RSVP just in case we have a large turnout, we want to make sure the restaurant is prepared for a group!! But it is AWESOME to be able to talk to these people before the meeting and sometimes even after the meeting!!!