Help me start a reef club

[Aquaph8]

OK, all you club people, help me out.

How did your club get started?

How many people did you start with?

How often do you meet?

What happens at meetings?

How do you get people into it?

That's a good start, I'll add to this along the way. Please share any and all info you can on the subject.
Thanks

 

[mallorieGgator]

I didn't start the one I am in. But I think you can start with a small group of 4 or more than gain members from there.

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[revsgirl]

Not sure how ours started, and I think, as long as you got more than you, it would be worth starting. You may want to go to some of you LFS and put your contact info for those who are interested. I was actually at the very first one in the Chattanooga area. We talked tanks of course, then we voted for president, vice president, and secretary. We met once a month, got together an annual frag swap, and shared in group buys, etc. Hope this helps

 

[revhtree Verified Admin]

Great advice so far.

I would find a couple of people and have a "reception" type meeting at one of your houses. You all would discuss putting together a club while you ate snacks and enjoyed the host aquarium.

As Tonya noted you could go to your LFS and speak with the owner and let him know the benefits of a local club and then ask if you can place a flyer in the store.

As far as meetings go we tried to meet once a month. Most of the time we just ate and had a good time talking about the hobby and enjoying the host aquarium. We also did stuff like discuss group buys, frag swaps, ways to get new members, etc. We even just had bonfires and cookouts.

 

[steamer51]

There will be money involved, dues collected, website paid for etc. and one of the first things should be to become designated as a non profit to avoid taxes.

 

[revhtree Verified Admin]

There will be money involved, dues collected, website paid for etc. and one of the first things should be to become designated as a non profit to avoid taxes.

This is true.

That being said I would start the club off with nothing to do with money. No need just getting started. You have a forum here for free so no need for a website yet IMO.

 

[cdness]

Glad to help out where I can.

How did your club get started?
Local reefers wanted to get together and form a place for people to talk about tanks, see different setups, etc. Just a few people started with common interests.

How many people did you start with?
It can start with as little as a few people who want to get together and just hang out. You don't need a large number to start a club.

How often do you meet?
We attempt to meet monthly, but summer is very difficult. We have been attempting to plan a meeting but the last two months have been too busy for the members. We are meeting on July 14th though!

What happens at meetings?
We do lots of things. We sometimes just hang out and chat about tanks and random stuff. Sometimes we do mini frag swaps. We also do DIY demonstrations and product demonstrations to educate others in the club on different products and technologies that are out there. I know the next meeting we are doing a local tank tour of different member tanks and ending at a local park to cook up some food and hang out with some beverages. Basically change it up and have fun.

How do you get people into it?
We are doing a few different membership drive items. One is member referrals. We also have vehicle stickers, fliers, and web advertisements. Honestly we have had 3 or 4 new members join a month due to the stickers alone as they are permanent traveling advertisements.

Our main issue is we don't have too much LFS support yet. We have support of the smaller one, but the main one doesn't seem to want any involvement. I would love to hear some tips in this thread on how to market the club to the LFS as well. This is where you can grow the fastest as people buying stuff will know about the club right away.

Good luck and let me know if you would like to see some of the items we designed.

 

[Aquaph8]

Wow, great info everybody. I appreciate everyone taking the time to share.

Tucson has more hobbiest than I know but there seems to be a lot of turnover also. A big part of it has to do with U of A and Davis Monthan Air Force Base. People come in, stay for a while and then move on. I think Local fish stores feel threatened by clubs and forums in a lot of ways. First, because we all trade stuff with each other, next we setup group buys for online stores and last, it's unfortunate but many of them make a living by selling new hobbiest a bunch of stuff they don't need or are almost guaranteed to kill. I talked to a guy the other day that paid thousands to have a tank set up by a LFS, in 6 weeks they have sold him almost fifty fish. He has lost over half of them up to this point and still has very little knowledge of how to keep a reef tank. I'm not even gonna comment on the corals and inverts in this guys tank. A big reason why I want to start a club is to help stop some of this irresponsible stuff and help people be successful. I would love to get to the point where we can be in sync with fish stores but not until they help keep people in the hobby instead of scarring them off.

Please keep the info coming everyone and let me know your thoughts. Thanks for listening to me vent a little too

 

[cdness]

FYI you can set up a group buy through the LFS as well if they get on board... Just get them to do an order on livestock at 10% above cost (or a different discount) where it is picked up the day it is delivered and it never has to hit his tanks. Instant profit and zero support of the fish or coral for the store. It would work as long as they are comparable in pricing to online.

 

[Aquaph8]

That's a really good point^^^

 

[BarbH]

Great info, had been wondering about the same thing myself, something I have been mulling over. Will be tagging along

 

[steamer51]

It is difficult to convince LFS to support a club because often the club wants donations for a raffle or a discount for members while competing with the LFS by trading and selling frags and don't offer anything in return. Our club has been improving our relationship with the three excellent LFS in the area by promoting them equally at meetings and on our site (I have a preference but each has different advantages and I visit them all). We started this year buying four $25 gift certificates from each to raffle off at meetings during the year. This is a guaranteed sale for the LFS plus the person that wins may have never been in that particular store due to location and could become a future new customer. One of our meetings was a water testing demonstration and we bought a different brand test kit from each of the LFS to raffle off. Some of them have sponsored a meeting after hours and 30-40 people showed up to purchase after the meeting. Some were new customers that hadn't been there before. Several years ago we organized a group buy for CUC through one of the stores as was suggested here. Communication with the stores helps a lot to find out what we can do for the store instead of just what we want from them.

 

[AHDOnline]

MASNA (Marine Aquarium Society of North America) is a good reference point for help on starting a club. Nothing can replace all the different inputs found here but there are a lot of how-to's, guides ect. The first step is to make sure another club is not in your area, and gauge how many people might be interested in being in such a club.

MASNA - Home

or email [email protected]

 

[dgiglio3087]

MASNA (Marine Aquarium Society of North America) is a good reference point for help on starting a club. Nothing can replace all the different inputs found here but there are a lot of how-to's, guides ect. The first step is to make sure another club is not in your area, and gauge how many people might be interested in being in such a club.

MASNA - Home

or email [email protected]

x2 also i know they will list your club if you do start one... So will the fish magazines...

 

[Aquaph8]

Great info everyone, Im loving it.

Anybody got any ideas for ways to keep meetings interesting and keep people coming back.

 

[cymaster007]

It takes some time to pull everything together but having some structure to meetings & events helps bring people back every month to meetings. We have the usual elected board, prez,vp,secretary,treasurer & steering committee. We meet monthly at the local IHOP because they usually have a side room that isnt used during friday nights. At the meetings we usually do- announcements then have a topic, guest speaker, open discussion, etc. Then a raffle- we usally buy 50-100$ frag packs from local coral farmers, lfs, or club member donations. A members only raffle item is chosen and all paid members get a free raffle ticket for the members only item.

We hold an event once a month also - some are members only, others are open to everyone. Our big membership push comes at the Holiday party where we have people buy into club membership. We try to make buying a membership appealing since all meetings are open to everyone. We try to keep the membership dues cheap (15$ for the year) When people buy membership they get a membership card, club t-shirt, can participate in members only events, and get the members only raffle ticket every month. With the membership card we worked out a 10% discount to the LFS when the card is shown during purchases.

Making money for the club is a time consuming task. Ways we have raised money- buying colonies from LFS or online and fragging them up and selling frags at the different shows/swaps. BBQ fundraiser at the LFS or at a local members house. Poker tournament- a small portion of the buy in goes to the club. Frag grow out competitions, equipment swapmeet ($ seller spots to non-members). This is fun but time consuming because I have to be at all of the events usually to make sure everything goes smooth. You can also get lots of donations by just checking out the aisles of your LFS and reaching out to all of the companies that supply reef related products! For example our last event had donations from Tropical Reef Fish Store, CAD lights, Advanced Acrylics, Aqua Vision, Fantastic Frags, Coral Magazine & Seachem. All we did was email them and explain our club & ask for a bit of help. We keep in touch with the sponsors and always send a follow up thank you certificate, some photos, & a letter of appreciation.

We do cheap/free stuff too, like tank-tours to see each others tanks, carpool multiple LFS shopping day, frag swaps.

PM me if you would like some of the templates/samples of meeting agendas & items we utilize at IEMAS.

 

[cymaster007]

Also with the money we raised we bought a projector and club laptop & screen so we can do slideshows and presentations at the club meetings. It also helps to have a banner made up and a snazzy logo. Tshirts help you look more legit to the LFS and donors. Members have a stronger sense of pride/ownership in the club when everyone is wearing matching shirts at an event.

 

[Aquaph8]

Thanks again for all the great info cymaster. This thread is really turning into something great.

 

[KCSUMPS]

I know this is an old one but contemplating something for KC metro. How is it going now? What would you change if you did it all over again? Any words of wisdom would be great...