Moving to the area-curious about the club

[EvilMel]

Hey guys,

My boyfriend and I are moving to New Haven in early August/late July and would like some info on the club.

We have a fairly active club with monthly meetings (ETRC). We have a frag saw, PAR meter, and a few other pieces of equipment that we share. We have frag swap every year too.

I'm just curious what your club is like up there.

ETRC used to post a lot on RC but then most of them migrated to another forum.

 

[tyler91913]

Hi Mel,

This is a great little club. As you can probably sus out by looking at the post counts, it's not as active as the Hartford-centric CTARS club, but there is some overlap and the smaller size means you get to know some of the people a little better.

BTW, I'm in New Haven too. Most of the ARKSC action happens west of here (Bridgeport area), but it's not too far to travel once and a while.

Tyler

 

[scolley]

I'm just curious what your club is like up there.

IMO Tyler got it pretty much on target...

We're small. And if you are moving to the New Haven area, we might be a bit of a drive. The other local club - CTARS - is HUGE, and to my understanding, holds meetings a similar distance from New Haven as ours generally are.

But we would LOVE to meet you. New people are always welcome. Our meetings are generally small, and VERY informal, really just reefers chatting with other reefers. Chips, beverages (hot dogs if we are getting fancy!) and good conversation. We're too small to afford presentation or speakers. We'll leave that to CTARS. But if you'd like to drop by, we'd love to meet you.

PS - good luck with the move.

 

[Collinrb]

IMO Tyler got it pretty much on target...

We're small. And if you are moving to the New Haven area, we might be a bit of a drive. The other local club - CTARS - is HUGE, and to my understanding, holds meetings a similar distance from New Haven as ours generally are.

But we would LOVE to meet you. New people are always welcome. Our meetings are generally small, and VERY informal, really just reefers chatting with other reefers. Chips, beverages (hot dogs if we are getting fancy!) and good conversation. We're too small to afford presentation or speakers. We'll leave that to CTARS. But if you'd like to drop by, we'd love to meet you.

PS - good luck with the move.

Being a member of both the clubs, and being in New Haven County, I'd say that these meetings tend to be a bit closer to the actual city. About 20-30min away depending on where it is, but never farther than that. The other club's meetings will be moving around locations, but is usually in Manchester, which is an equal distance, but you have to do the dreaded 91-84 merge right around 4pm

I'm sure I'll see you at one of either of the meetings! I try to make most of them

 

[EvilMel]

Awesome guys! Thanks for the heads up.

Our club started out fairly small and we couldn't much afford speakers either. We've grown in size a little bit over the years but remained relatively small compared to the clubs in larger cities. Like Nashville...they've got a huge club. I think they said they had 60-70 people at their last meeting. We may not have had 60-70 people ever even join the club! hah hah.

What are there for reef stores in the area? Do we have any good ones?

 

[tyler91913]

That's interesting to put it in those terms. I don't think ARKSC has ever hired speakers for meetings (like folks have said, these meetings are pretty casual). CTARS has on occasion had numbers like you're talking about for Nashville (60-70 people at a meeting? Probably). But I don't think they've ever hired speakers either. But they tend to have a bit more format, usually involving a volunteer or two, talking about making your own rockwork, building acrylic aquaria, QTs, DIY food, etc.

The closest fish store to you will be Exotic Coral and Fish in Milford, one of the best in CT. The other place you'll want to get to know is Puppy Center, though it is a bit further. There are half-a-dozen other places in the state, but those are the two I go to most frequently.

 

[EvilMel]

Personally, I'm not that *into* speakers but we have them at our swap each year now and people seem to really like it.

A place called Puppy Center is worth checking out? hah hah. That's a funny name. I looked online and completely dismissed it based on the name. I guess that shows me!