I've always wanted to see frag swaps across the state at different times of the year. Imagine what all you could pull in (all the different looks). Memphis, Nashville, Chattanooga, and Knoxville on three month intervals. That pulls people from everywhere. We had a decent sized showing from St. Louis this year (5 hours + away), so people are hungry for the opportunity to spend money or trade

. Organization certainly helps (this years MTRC swap was a bit easier than last years because we had more support and a number of people really step up the day of, but one person can set them up by themselves, though its not a fun task-you really have to want to make it work

-been there). The biggest obstacle is knowing what to plan for. When we did the first one in Chattanooga back in Jan 2005, we had no idea what to expect and didn't really do much planning (reewik did most of the planning there and I did a ton of promotions throughout all local club forums). It turned out great, even though it had no frills. The second one in Chattanooga left alot of people unhappy, but mainly because that time there were so many people with 3/8-1/2" frags fro $35-50. They were the ones who got upset, though. Most people that come to swaps (especially first or second time swaps) are going to be somewhat new and not want to spend a ton of money on expensive SPS. The first Chattanooga swap was such a success (IMO) because there were so many softies. I think everyone was able to offload just about everything they brought, even if only in last minute trades so they wouldn't have to take what they brought back home with them. Then when I set up the 2006 swap in Nashville, I wasn't sure what to expect (since so many seemed disappointed with the mid 2005 Chatt swap-not the fault of the Chatt club IMO). It turned out that we needed more room for last years swap, but we had no way of knowing that until it hit and had no room to expand into. We just made sure that this years swap had more room to begin with, whether we needed it or not. Getting away from a hotel conference room and finding the community center large enough to accomodate made it less likely to be a financial failure. We made more off of the 2006 swap than the 2007 swap (and even split it three ways with WTMRAC and NTRC), but the goal isn't to make the club money as much as is was to bring people together (and not lose money). Of course, the details are where you put all the time in (contacting/begging for donations, setting up the room so there is a decent flow and room for everyone (buyers and sellers) to move around, etc., and promotion). They laughed at me

when I said I draw everything up in CAD, but without it or some sort of scale drawing, it's difficult to see how to fit it all in.
Imagine an empire in the state of Tennessee of reef clubs and frag swaps (sorry, the entire run of Star Wars movies has been the only thing worth watching in the dismal DirecTV programming lately-who choses the programming???). Ohio is becoming a large center for clubs and swaps, too, so it is trending this way. Virginia has a lot of reefers with a lot of nice stuff, too. I wish I wasn't going away. This is starting to get exciting

.