<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7446638#post7446638 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Caryliss
We have a board meeting next week (can't get everyone together before that due to the holiday), so we'll have more info for everyone then.
In regards to changing the meeting day--experience has shown us that there isn't one day of the week that is good for everyone. A few years ago we used to meet on Thursday evenings but there was a movement among the members to switch to Friday. I know we lost some members who couldn't do Fridays, and gained some who could. To some degree we may be limited by the zoo's schedule. IMO, rotating days each month would get too confusing and we'd end up having members angry when they show up to an empty room.
I'll have to check out the CORA auction, but it sounds similar in concept to the "garage sale" we had in January which was well attended and seemed popular. It was a more informal meeting that gave everyone a chance to socialize and sell off unused equipment. Should we make it an annual event?
C-SEA had not moved it's meeting date around much. That's good because when the last board of the Akron marine club decided to bounce the meeting date around each month to please everyone, attendance dropped to nothing and the club folded. I know I was angry several months that I had to drive for over an hour to find out the meeting date or location had been changed again and have to drive right back home. I don't think we can find one date everyone likes but I think except for rare instances where zoo activities or the speaker's schedule requires, we should pick one day and stick with it as much as possible. C-SEA started out (1972) meeting on the third Friday, then, because of weekend activities activities at Balwin-Wallace College where we originally met, we changed to the third Thursday. It stayed that way until we changed back to the original date 20 years later. The advantage of Friday is that we can coordinate speakers more often with marine clubs in Detroit and Pittsburgh, and that there are more speakers available then. Many cannot take two days off work for a single club presentation. When the membership was polled for it's preferences, it was a tossup between Thursday and Friday, but the speaker advantage made the difference. One other possibility is to have two meeting places, but use the same day every month. Perhaps one eastside and one westside, but the zoo is central enough I don't think it would be much advantage. Maybe have roving meetings in the summer when we usually don't meet. Perhaps Akron or Lorain area, or that direction so that new people would be brought in. Presentations could be the same at each meeting, some kind of basics about marine/reef keeping and a presentation about C-SEA, all done by club members and officers. by keeping it on third Fridays, we would draw those people who might also be able to attend regular meetings, and get some of them together so that they might come up with some car pooling systems for the regular part of the year.
Auctions serve some of the same purposes as flea market/garage sales. They require more organization and produce more potential profit for the club and sellers. C-SEA's last auction was in 1994 when we rented a building at the county fairgrounds. An auction needs advertising, auctioneers, tabulators, runners, spotters, auction rules and disclaimers, planning, tables, chairs, labels, seller and buyer forms, envelopes for the sellers to fill out if they want their money mailed to them. The auction needs computers and printers, and auction software. I'd be in favor of it, but I don't see it happening. It probably takes more volunteer hours than a NEOMAC. The garage sale could be an annual event, I think. I know I have a refugium, some skimmers, and a 120 gallon rr oceanic tank with a hm stand and a tidepool filter that are good garage sale items.
A possibility for the June meeting is what about contacting Joe and Sally Bauer, founders of C-SEA, for a talk about the club's early history, and/or something about the hsitory and development of diving. After Joe retired as a surgeon, I know he was very involved in establishing a museum of diving in Florida near where they retired to. They come back up to the Cleveland area for the summer, so if a date could be arranged, I'd think June would be ideal.
