well, I see my name in every single line here. I got few phone calls, emails, PM's about this thread. I try to stay clams as I'm upset the way this club has turned. In Mid 2001 I was honored to meet Larry (Tagamet) and we traded xenias and corals and once every other week we used to get together and talk about fish tanks. Then we had another reefer Joe (Snookie) who was starting a new tank and needed help. I attended URS first meetings and learned that why not to have meetings and teach at the same time. I talked to Larry and Joe and told them that I will be hosting a meeting at my house. I posted in reefcentral, reefs.org about it and was not sure where exactly to post but got enough replies from people and you can go back to my old threads and see who attended. I believe we had about 42 people. I spent $300 on just food and more on drinks. Alot of people helped and brough food, everybody was invited and it was like a family meeting. Everybody helped cleaning too. I had some stuff in the basement for people to see how to build them like wavemaker and wanted to do more but time was tight. After that meeting and meeting everybody there we started to chat and I told them about another meeting at my house. I bought some corals at cost, salt (red sea was $24 a bucket) and did that to draw people to the meeting. I hate to say how much money I lost at that meeting but at the end we had twice more people and that made me happy. Brad meeting was another educational meeting where we drilled tanks, built skimmer. It was not enough for me because I always thought that clubs should be to educate members and to educate public about ocean. After talking to few who attended the meeting they offered to help with the meetings and it was not fair that I do and take all the expense. Tagamet told me ," Mo, don't do it and you are doing fine being in control" I told him , " I think it is great and if this club is growing like this with few people working it will grow alot faster with more poeple being in charge. " and his reply was," sometimes many people involve nothing is done ". I was happy to see a man at my house and his name was Sanjay who I had no idea that he is an expert in this area. After talking to Sanjay he thought like I did and thought the club will do well with group. One meeting at Hegins we had the same amount of people we did at my house. I had a vision if this club is active, show you are active the number of attendance will double. It started to drop and did not think much of it even if it upsets me. I tried and did everything and gave full credit to NCPARS, I was called to help with school and I told them that NCPARS is helping, I went fishing and I called it NCPARS trip, I went in vacation and called it NCPARS trip. Everything I did I made sure I said NCPARS. After seeing that the club is just planning swap dates and nothing else and all was in mind was to gather money and was not spent on anything. Club did not have money to go NPO and I offered to pay for that if that's what it needs to make it move but all I heard is , " you can't do that and is not fair ". and I said i don't care if that's what it takes to keep us moving and those at the meeting can confirm that too.
Club started to have membership, raffles ( and in many cases I bought stuff for the raffle, full corals for raffles, food for the meetings and we did not have many sponsors to start with except something fishy who helped us at each meeting. Brad, Tim and Sanjay did alot of contacts and got more sponsors that we did not have first and I had to spend on them to bring more people. Club started to save money that covers NPO, meetings. I finally told the club to help (not fully sponsor) with some of the schools since I have been putting NCPARS on the name and many sponsors have donated because we have been telling them we are helping education and schools. I did not ask the club to sponsor a whole tank and asked them for some like get me some salt, get me anything so it will be fair for me to give full credit to the club. This was before NPO. I asked to go to any sponsor like TFP and get something to help me with this but for some reasons this did not go through and even with everybody's vote we ended up with one vote that ruled all votes.
Members of the club acted well and helped at the last meeting and mainly was individuals here and there and nothing yet from NCPARS. Everytime I had a suggestion to do something it never went through. Many others in the club had suggestions and nothing was done. Sanjay told the club members (just note this is before NPO) that he will arrange a speaker, have him stay at his house and all expenses that the club would spend should help a school but that did not go through. Many try to help but nothig was done. I was trying to help NCPARS name and give them credit for helping education that they have been claiming to sponsors and I did not think is right to do that. The help that I asked is not even .10 of what I have spent on the club and schools. I needed the club to be more active, more educations, more meetings, less talk, help bring new people to the hobby, help public. And for those who say that we don't need to educate public or PA I say that," you are wrong big time". we do need to educate people and in my view we need to pass our reefing experience, fraging, breeding to everybody and more we educate more we have people in our side to protect ocean. And those who say I won't help a tank that I can't see, I tell them that sorry that I can't carry that tank around to your area so you can see. Everybody is welcome to come and see those tanks. There are plenty of pictures in REEFNEST. There are thousands of kids see those tanks and they are learning. Half of those tanks don't have live rock and have rocks that we made to protect the ocean (this is education by itself). Some say that all the tanks are mine and I'm gaining from it and my answer is that you are wrong again and those tanks are given to the schools and once they are there I'm not moving them out and if I did I will do it with school permission and replace it with a bigger and better one and you guys know that I did that too. Those who say corals are mine, you are wrong and I have given them to the school so they can sell frags to cover salt, expeses. I have placed an order of $1500 last week and guess what guys most of the shippment was dead or dead and did not ask a school for a $1 for it and we have people here will tell you about it since they work in that area and they helped me put them away. Last week I gave a whole nano setup to a student for free and I paid for it total cost $110 and you can call Montoursville High School and ask Mr Huff if they paid $1 for that. I have good hearted people support me, help me, and some who have seen what I have done don't mind making any contact for me to get me through any school and trust me thier voice is heard. When i get any help, donation I make sure I show the donnor sooner or later where his stuff went and most of the time with pictures to show everybody. REEFNEST started few months ago and you can go to our
forum
and see what have we accomplished in the last few month with only few people working hard and we are doing it because we hear good stuff from people, kids ask questions, they tell us what they learned and maybe someday one of these kids take this to a bigger level and help protect ocean. We have monthly meetings, we are working to set next year fras swap date (looking forward to see everybody and your being there is a support itself), going to All Ohio Frag Swap to set a table to teach stuff, having May 6 frag swap.
We finally got teachers, students in Montoursville High School feed fish and working to teach them more about it. Everyday we see more interest in the tank and they always like to say, " I love ocean and this tank reminds me of ocean ",
Cousteau once said, "People only protect what they love, but they can only love what they know ." so there goes few who started to learn about the ocean. I really appreciate those who support us with all they can and we need every support.
I can talk all night about stuff we have done but you will see the info in REEFNEST forum.
guys I did not mean to offend anybody and sorry if I did and nobody offended me but the only offend I get is when somebody thinks that public education, schools, club education is not important.
