MACNA in Tampa Bay? Why not?

C

CuzzA

New member
So it's my understanding the location of MACNA is chosen basically by the petitioning of reef clubs in that area. I'm curious why there has never been one in Tampa Bay.

Just looking at the sheer volume of activity on here for TBRC it appears as though it's one of the largest online club forums in the nation, even attracting many from across the nation. So what gives?

We all know this is a great area, with great beaches, great accommodations, great night life, great restaurants, great attractions and even if people don't own a tank there are tons of divers, anglers, etc. that I'm sure would support it and probably make it an extremely successful show. Not to mention many of the people at RAP Orlando were from Tampa Bay and the turnout was phenomenal.

Perhaps this thread should serve as "The Official, Wake Up MACNA and Come to Tampa Bay 2016!"

Maybe others can share why Tampa Bay would be the best MACNA ever.
 
I can explain all this as I have been looking into and drawing up the preliminary plans for getting a tampa macna. But I'm just getting ready to start driving and will answer when I get home
 
As a board member, I can say that we have a ton of online activity both here and on FB but that doesn't translate into folks who are actual members of the TBRC or folks who will volunteer to take on MACNA. We have had TBRC conferences(at the FL Aquarium and at a local hotel over the years) and they are a tremendous undertaking that require a lot of money and volunteers. They aren't free and yeah, you do make up that w/ admissions(or you hope you do) but you must first have the funds to secure venues, catering, hotels, pay your speakers for their travel and time, etc.
 
Ok. So heres the deal with the MACNA thing and the club and clubs and general. Yes the TBRC section of reef central does generate a ton of online traffic. Keep in mind tho, since this is a public forum there are a lot of people from around the country just popping in to see whats going on, There are also members from orlando clubs (FRAG and ORCA that I personally know of) that post and are active with the TBRC section. However. Like Mrs postal said and this is a huge downfall of most clubs, even tho there is a lot of online activity that doesn't translate into active members. Over hearing a previous conversation with the postals if I remember correctly. The TBRC club is right around 100 paid members. Now, again. Paid members and active members are 2 different things as well. Paid members are a great starting point but it cant be done with paid members alone. I am a paid member, but I regretfully can not count myself as an active member. Where the membership comes into play in big conferences like this is on 2 fronts. Money, and man power. First off when you put the bid in for a MACNA conference you need to have all your ducks in a row. everything must be planned out and when you are given the go ahead for your city, the club that is hosting the event is responsible for all the upfront costs, deposits on venues, deposits for the dinner etc etc. Now if you have a large enough club (orca for example) you obviously have enough funds from paid dues and local events etc etc that will be a good starting point to get the deposits down. granted a lot of the clubs dont have all the money up front, but they have some, and thats why the pre-sales of tickets are such a huge deal. Man power. Come game day the club hosting the event is responsible for almost all of the staff at the event. Now if you have a club with 100 paid members and you can barely get 20 of them to participate and be active in events and what not then staffing a large event that hosts 2500+ people ends up becoming an issue. You can ask other clubs to help out and what not but most of the time they expect some share of the earnings from the event (which macna has started imposing limits on from my understanding) It does take a lot of man power. From my limited involvement and reefapalooza and volunteering at space coast reef conference the more people you have the better you are. So far just the planning and contacting venues and hotels and everything involved in selling the city of tampa to the MACAN reps is turning into a pretty time consuming job. As Mrs postal stated, it all boils down to club membership, and money. I would love to see it here in Tampa. I think we have something very special we can offer the country and the hobbiests if it can be done the right way and it will leave an impression. Denver does sound like a odd place to hold a reef conference and I was shocked when I heard the news, but they obviously had the man power and the money to put such an event on and had some damn good selling points to win the judges over.
 
I don't think we can even apply to sponsor (it's a bid process like the Olympics or Superbowl) w/o having the funds and man power established first. It's not something you ask for and then when you get it, they look at the finances well in advance because it is a huge event. I remember when we discussed this before(2011/12), we had to have a certain amount of money in our bank account the year before the event. I can't remember the exact amount because it was an amount that we could not have come up with and that's not even the planning and the manpower for the event. We worked the TBRC conference at the FL Aquarium and it was a long day with only a few dedicated folks that made it all happen. At this point the Tampa Bay Reef Club does not have it in our sights.
 
Thanks for the informative answer toddmau5. I read a few reviews that the Denver MACNA, while maybe it was paid for and had the man power, lacked an overall good experience. Something you and I know Tampa could capitalize on.

So my next questions are what does it specifically take to get it here?

How many people would you estimate it would take to pull off the event? Given there are only 100 paid members and 20 active member, perhaps it's time to do some recruiting. I'll admit, I'm not a member. I've only been in the salt hobby a little over 6 months so I'm still learning new things. Maybe you can explain here the cost and benefit of becoming a member so myself and others can join.

If MACNA profits are split amongst the reef club I would think it could pay for many years of membership fees. Perhaps this would be a good incentive for more people to join. Or at the least put together a good workforce to handle the event.

Who's in charge of TBRC? Could anyone, such as myself start the planning? Obviously the more minds and bodies to help would move the process along faster. But I don't see any reason why we couldn't get this done.

We have plenty of venues. The obvious choices would be The Convention Center, The Forum, maybe even The Trop. I'm sure the Rays owners could use the extra funds. Hotels are no problem. We've got plenty to choose from. Speaking of the Trop, The Tradewinds Guy Harvey Outpost seems to pop up in my mind for hotel and dinners....

Ok so maybe I'm getting a little ahead of myself, but let's get this done. I thoroughly enjoyed Reef-a-Palozza and I think a MACNA here in Tampa would be great.
 
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That is a question that needs to be answered by the MACNA folks because I don't have updated info on financial requirements and estimated man power. There is no guarantee to make money even if it's MACNA and if there is any loss, the club would take it. Basically we would do everything and have the word MACNA on the banner w/ TBRC. as a side note, we have taken losses on local conferences before and it's not a habit we want to make. Venures, catering, hotel rooms for speakers, speakers fees, the banquet dinner, transportation for speakers, volunteers at the event, raffle items, set up, break down, etc all require more finances and manpower than the current club can commit to. Nor would be able to raise the finances quickly given our very small membership fees and actual paid membership base. I would assume that MACNA would want the board of the TBRC to inquire however you can always ask. We have talked about it as a club in te past but we simply can't get the commitment to pull it off. You are more than welcome to come to the Oct meeting and speak to us all. It'll be on the 11th at our house in Wesley Chapel and that info will go up there next weekend. Postal, my hubby Lee, is the current President, KC Gibson is the VP(kcsnook), I am the membership director, Nelson Ling(gimplar) and Zach Ostroff is our Education Director/Secretary(zachfishman). We can all be reached at bod@tampabayreefclub.org.
 
The cost for membership is $25 for individual membership and $30 for families. The benefits are that we have some club equipment that we loan to members-par meter, shipping tubs for breaking down tanks, mojano wands, a club library and we offer a $10 gift certificate to each new member from one of our 5 LFS sponsors. It's the member's choice on which one they choose and we raffle off $50 gift certs throughout the year. We meet monthly(when we have hosts that will have a meeting at their home) and the club provides all the paper supplies, sodas, water, juice for each meeting. We also have beach days for the members at Ft. Desoto. We have education topics including one on the new Guy Harvey Outpost this past July and frag auctions several times a year. We always want to do more but requires more folks willing to participate and frankly, we don't see it consistently.
 
If a place in the middle of the Rocky Mountains can do it we sure as hell can lol. Sure it seems like a lot of work but the process has to start somewhere. Possibly get in contact with folks in Miami to see how they got started as well.
 
Lining up venues and getting a solid game plan together. Almost a business plan. Submit said plan to macna. With said plan in place you should also have a decent figure on cost. Then you start trying to round up the funds
 
I've bee. Talking with the folks that got the Orlando macna underway and that's what really started getting the wheels in my head turning. Once I get enough enough from other sources and get a game plan in place then the next option was to start looking towards the club for support. But like mrs postal mentioned you need to submit financials to macna to be considered so they know you will be able to follow through. Some of the venues mentioned are awesome ideas but I don't see them as being very feasible financially. As far as dinner venues and such they closer you can have your venues to each other and hotels the better the selling point you have. But again without a club with the proper bank account the chances are pretty far fetched. We would need to start doing a ton of car washes. Most of the conferences you break even on. Reefapalooza was surprisingly a huge success. Lots of people had their doubts but frag did a great job getting it all together and won the event for next year as well (was only planed to by a one time event as a trial) macna of course makes decent money but a year or two ago macna put a cap on how much the club can actually bring in from said event. My guess is that they are trying to keep the admission prices down and keep it from being a greed fest and keep it fun which is what this hobby is about.
 
We can't submit a plan because we don't have enough reliable folks to actually make it work. We have some great TBRC club members but it takes way more than we have to pull this off. Again, we did discuss this in the past and we determined we cannot do it as a club. We can't put deposits down to secure locations now or in 2015 or submit financials to show we can handle this event and it's expenses because we cannot reliably say that. What if they say OK to the event in 2016? Then what? We have to put all that money out immediately, there is no fundraising after getting picked. At this time, this event isn't an option for the TBRC.
 
Honestly, I'm not washing cars because there would be 5 or 6 of us there actually washing them...I work for a fundraising company so I have some knowledge into this type of stuff and we can't sell enough coupon books to pull off MACNA or wash enough cars.
 
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