The bigger an organization gets, the more likely people there will be people in it who disagree. Combine that with the fact that each member begins to feel that their contribution is not as important (or perhaps that they even don't have input) and you end up with a certain amount of apathy. Add in a little bit of economic woes (I sure don't buy/sell/trade/tinker as much as I used to in part because I can't afford to and therefore don't have a lot of new stuff to post) and the need for a lot of people to sell off their tanks, and you quickly wind up with dwindling discussion and interest in all of the things a lot of us really like about being part of this group.
My own apathy lately has been a combination of all of these factors, but above all it is simply a lack of time to keep up with everything the way I used to. As such, I don't have a lot of other input on the situation around here.
In any case, one thing I've kind of always thought would make this club a lot better (that was mentioned in this thread) is the idea of having more random social events throughout the month between meetings. I've made friends with a few people in the club, but I can't help but think I would be a lot better friends and more willing to help a lot more people if we shared some dinner and a beer over trivia at the Saucer (or some other pub-like place), had some burgers and dogs in someone's backyard without it needing to be a "meeting", or just had a few more events throughout the year (the trip to Sustainable Aquatics was a great chance to really talk to some people).
The problem is, I don't think we can hold the board responsible for not having these kinds of things arranged. They do quite enough just keeping everything going (a lot more than I think most people realize). And really, all it would take of any of us is throwing up an invite on the boards.
Being a tighter knit group off of the boards can certainly not hurt the online discussion...
