Are reef clubs dead?

smoyer · Nov 7, 2022

billyocean said:
Looks like they have speakers pretty frequently..good stuff! Thanks for the invite.

Yes sir! We have speakers every month. The 3rd Thursday of every month at 8 PM EST.

LeannaBanana · Nov 7, 2022

smoyer said:
Yes sir! We have speakers every month. The 3rd Thursday of every month at 8 PM EST.

Hey I'd love to be included! I'm not in SC anymore but was for my undergrad degree

, and I come back home to my parent's house several times a year if you do an in-person event.

smoyer · Nov 7, 2022

Rmckoy said:
And why not skip the middle person ( reef club ) and continue trading and swapping between hobbyists
The only way to lower frag prices is to get rid of greed and focus on rebuilding reefs one frag at a time

Let me ask a question here. What about shipping costs, and importing costs? Think that has anything to do with coral costs? How about availability? if only so many of whatever coral can be exported in a year what does that do to price? How about when they close an entire fishery? What did that do? I do not think clubs have any to do with coral prices.

smoyer · Nov 7, 2022

LeannaBanana said:
Hey I'd love to be included! I'm not in SC anymore but was for my undergrad degree , and I come back home to my parent's house several times a year if you do an in-person event.

If you can join a zoom call you can join us. We also do meet ups at trade shows. This way we are already friends and can enjoy the show together. Come check us out just zoom in!

Lbrdsoxfan · Nov 7, 2022

Manny’s Reef said:
The issue that killed Reef clubs is greed. Social medial inflated coral prices. Hobbyists no longer wanted to trade or give for free their frags. Instead, they want to try and get the prices online retailers are charging. In essence, Reef clubs were replaced by hobbyists vision of getting rich quick by selling their frags.

The fad of the hour.

LeannaBanana · Nov 7, 2022

smoyer said:
If you can join a zoom call you can join us. We also do meet ups at trade shows. This way we are already friends and can enjoy the show together. Come check us out just zoom in!

Shoot me (or anyone here) your schedule and link! I'd be happy to join and listen in.

Sink_or_Swim · Nov 7, 2022

smoyer said:
Who does frag swaps anymore?

I go to at least 2 per year locally - and am a member of my local reef society. I enjoy the in person events and also (in my area anyway), no one charge ridiculous prices. To the contrary actually - I got 3 big hammers and a big frogspawn at the last swap for $100. Try finding those for $25/each from an online vendor or LFS.

fish farmer · Nov 8, 2022

smoyer said:
This was what I was referring to about struggling to stay relevant. Frag swaps are absolutely dead, your right!
The other elements of a clubs that I listed are still desirable for hobbyist. Especially new hobbyist, they still need a place to plug in and there are people that still enjoy helping others.

One of the reasons our club fizzled was distance, people didn't want to drive over an hour for a meeting. A lot of the serious tank owners that wanted the club environment actually exited the hobby or took a pause. Hobbyist turn over was pretty fast in our club, we even had a message board, but there was only a core handful of us when we disbanded.

smoyer · Nov 8, 2022

LeannaBanana said:
Shoot me (or anyone here) your schedule and link! I'd be happy to join and listen in.

Join our Cloud HD Video Meeting

Zoom is the leader in modern enterprise cloud communications.

clemson.zoom.us

Link to the zoom meeting. Thursday Nov 17 at 8 PM

smoyer · Nov 8, 2022

fish farmer said:
One of the reasons our club fizzled was distance, people didn't want to drive over an hour for a meeting. A lot of the serious tank owners that wanted the club environment actually exited the hobby or took a pause. Hobbyist turn over was pretty fast in our club, we even had a message board, but there was only a core handful of us when we disbanded.

We have meetings via zoom. No driving you can have the experience where you’re at.

smoyer · Nov 8, 2022

Sink_or_Swim said:
I go to at least 2 per year locally - and am a member of my local reef society. I enjoy the in person events and also (in my area anyway), no one charge ridiculous prices. To the contrary actually - I got 3 big hammers and a big frogspawn at the last swap for $100. Try finding those for $25/each from an online vendor or LFS.

I enjoy the in person events as well but I also enjoy our zoom meeting.

Reefer Matt · Nov 8, 2022

I think people prefer to buy coral and have it shipped. Only when a problem comes up do they want to talk, in my experience.

smoyer · Nov 8, 2022

Reefer Matt said:
I think people prefer to buy coral and have it shipped. Only when a problem comes up do they want to talk, in my experience.

I agree! Buying corals and having them shipped is probably the preferred method these days. I use to call frag swaps “pest swaps”. I do not however like “Reefing on an Island”. I enjoy socially interacting with other hobbyist and I like consuming educational content.

Bleigh · Nov 8, 2022

This is our second year running. So far, the zoom meetings seem to be a hit. My main goal is that the group is a community where we can bounce ideas off each other. We don’t have a speaker EVERY meeting, but we sure try. They normally speak for about 30-60 minutes. Sometimes it’s a more formal talk and sometimes it’s more of a Q and A. Then we stick around and brain storm different issues we’re having. Or just talk about our tanks with people who won’t glaze over. Nice thing about zoom is you can come and go throughout the meeting as needed too.

Here’s some of the posts I’ve made about some of our speakers. Some are also members, which is amazing having those resources face to face monthly.

bnord · Nov 8, 2022

smoyer said:
This was what I was referring to about struggling to stay relevant. Frag swaps are absolutely dead, your right!
The other elements of a clubs that I listed are still desirable for hobbyist. Especially new hobbyist, they still need a place to plug in and there are people that still enjoy helping others.

would love to sit in on the zoom call. Am no longer a FB member. is there a link to the seminar? thank you - and Greenville is not too far away if you all have any on person events...

ReefMasta · Nov 8, 2022

These things remind me of the progressive insurance commercial with the wanna be motorcycle gang. Ok boomers!!

smoyer · Nov 8, 2022

bnord said:
would love to sit in on the zoom call. Am no longer a FB member. is there a link to the seminar? thank you - and Greenville is not too far away if you all have any on person events...

Join our Cloud HD Video Meeting

Zoom is the leader in modern enterprise cloud communications.

clemson.zoom.us

Website: CRChub.com

LeannaBanana · Nov 8, 2022

smoyer said:
Join our Cloud HD Video Meeting

Zoom is the leader in modern enterprise cloud communications.

clemson.zoom.us

Link to the zoom meeting. Thursday Nov 17 at 8 PM

Ew sorry, never mind. It's a Clemson link, I can't join.

Carolina Grad here. I'll see y'all on the 17th!

Sink_or_Swim · Nov 8, 2022

smoyer said:
I enjoy the in person events as well but I also enjoy our zoom meeting.

Oh for sure! I wasn't knocking the zoom meeting, just explaining why I don't really think frag swaps, etc are necessarily dead. Depending on where you live, they can be a very active community.

(If my local reef society ever starts turning into a group of people trying to make a profit like online retailers however, I'd probably quit participating). I'm actually interested in the zoom meetings you hold!

biecacka · Nov 8, 2022

We have frag swaps here and very close still. However, it is the only time that I get to see some of the guys. I’m not on social media so when our club went to FB instead of a website it meant I could no longer follow it. No big deal as I know some of the guys who keep me posted on things, but even it is dwindling. It’s sad.
but I think the zoom concept could be cool! Good luck.

corey