October Meeting... FRAG-ATHON

itZme

itZme

New member
I wanted to announce things as early as possible for this awesome event. We have things all set for Friday, October 17th at 7:30pm in the Aquatics and Primates building at the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo. We will meet there to do some educational fragging. You will want to park in the EMPLOYEE PARKING on Fulton Rd. Then you walk past the Ranger station and follow the path past a playground and continue until you see the Aquatics/Primate building.

The cost is $30 per C-SEA member. Non-members can join at the event at the normal membership cost of $20/ family per year and enjoy the benefits for the entire year.

We are hoping to have some VERY nice corals of all types available for members to frag and take home. There will be several tables set up. One table will be for each coral. You get to visit EVERY table and you will have someone there who can give you pointers on how to frag that coral, mount it and care for it properly. You will not have to rush through or worry about knowing what to do.

We will have volunteers doing a walk through with each coral being fragged. There will be a demonstration right in front of you at each station and then we will open the fragging to members. Each paying participant will get to take a piece of coral from EVERY table home with them if they desire. We are expecting to have 8-10 different corals at the event. If you don't have sufficient lighting or have a brand new tank please consider avoiding the more sensitive corals. The flow and light requirements will be available at each table so you don't take any animals home that may just wither and die.

This is a great opportunity for new reef keepers to learn and get some hands-on experience while having support nearby if needed. You will also enjoy the luxury of leaving with several coral frags for the price of what one frag would cost at retail establishments.

There will be a great raffle and also our member's only raffle. We will have refreshments and snacks as usual and don't forget the friendly conversation always available at C-SEA meetings :)

We will try to get things going promptly so please try to arrive early if you have prearranged deals or if you need to fill out a membership form. There is usually a 5-10 minute line to get to the membership chairman to renew or join so consider that extra time into your schedule.

As soon as I have a confirmed list of corals I will post them here and maybe some pictures if possible. We anticipate having some Acropora (one or two specimens), zoanthids (one or two different), leathers, LPS (maybe calaustrea and frogspawn), mushrooms, gorgonians . This is just an estimate of what will be there.

The Frag-Athon should be a great time for all.
If there is anyone who will be attending and not interested in fragging but would like to help run a table please PM me your info.
This event will require a lot of set up and tear down so any volunteers for that are welcomed too :thumbsup:

Hope to see you all there!
-- Kevin
 
Sounds like a great event! ill check my calender and if i can make it id be happy to help with the set up and clean up. jeff
 
Just wanted to add that if everyone could bring an old towel ( "Fish towels" are what we call them in my house) it would help keep the mess off the Zoo's new carpeting in the Aquatics building.
They are kind enough to let us use the rooms for free every month and they even clean up after us when we are done. I would like to make it seem as if we weren't even there when we leave so we can continue to use their great facility without becoming a hindrance.

There is inevitably a spill here and there and if each person has a small towel to wipe it immediately things won't get out of hand.

Just to be clear, here is what you will need to bring with you.

(necessary)
1) $30 for a current C-SEA member.
2) $50 if you need to renew membership or join at the meeting. Check with John Janda (RC screen name= Bowman) to see if you are current if you aren't sure.
3) A good attitude and friendly disposition.

(optional but helpful)
1) A cooler to carry frags home. This will keep the corals from being unnecessarily stressed with temperature fluctuations. The small lunchbox style is usually a bit too small if you end up with 8 bags in there so something a bit bigger would be helpful. One that holds about 8-12 cans is about perfect in my opinion.
2) A "fish towel" to help with dribbles.
3) $5, $10, $20, $50 or whatever you can afford for the raffle items.
4) Some guys brought small "Tupperware" style containers for the frags so they could stack in their coolers better. The club will have bags and rubber bands available for free if needed.
5) A friend to help carry everything :)

Anyone is invited to attend the meeting and we welcome anyone who hasn't been to one yet. Just come on out and see what we have to offer in the line of learning about the hobby, making new friends that are as obsessed as you with the hobby and also some benefits you can take home and enjoy watching them grow.

You do not have to pay to get into the Zoo as long as you park at the employee lot on Fulton Rd and you do not have to pay to get into our event unless you will be taking corals home. You can come in for free and meet everyone and watch the way things go before deciding to join or not.

Less than 2 weeks away now :thumbsup:
 
I look forward to the frag-a-thon, but not to be the party pooper, but will this be a prompt start as to the usual starts. Maybe it's just the military side of me but if the meeting starts at 7:30pm but we start half to an hour later (ie: last meeting, I was sitting next to a couple who has just signed up with the group and was wondering when things were going to get rolling.) It just didn't make us look good. Hope I'm not being a downer!
 
Last meeting there was an announcement made that we are waiting for the new membership line to die down so we could have everyone's attention. The meeting will start at 7:30 but there is no strict setting as to the time business will be conducted. This is why I asked that anyone that needs to sign up or renew figure that time into their schedule so we don't have to go 20 minutes into the meeting before the signups are done.

I just wanted John (the membership chairman) and the people signing up to be able to be part of the first meeting with the new board of directors so everyone knew what was going on this year.

There is usually a 10-15 minute window where we all say "hi" and get settled before the talking happens. We still want to adhere to a schedule so to speak but we don't (at least I don't) want it to be militant in nature since we are all there for a club and to have fun.

Hope that clears it up a bit. This meeting is more of a time crunch and less laid back as there is a lot to accomplish in a few hours so it should be a bit more structured.
 
This is getting closer. For those of us with "old eyes", you might want to bring a flashlight for the walk to the building this time of year. Some sections of the walkway are hard to see.
 
Dan, that reminds me ... we will have additional lighting this month since the Aquatic building is so dimly lit. One of our members has access to some great lighting and will be loaning it to the club for the night. We have also purchased clamp on magnifier lights for each table so the fragging could be done under magnification if needed and at the very least it will be bright enough to cut the coral and not your finger :)

Hopefully we can have a smooth and safe fragging session with all the new technology.

Getting closer indeed... just nine days away.
 
That sounds good. I hope the wattage of the super lights is super efficient so we don't trip any breakers. Maybe an early test run?
 
Re meeting start times:

...........not to mention that the first order of business for 90% of the people is to visit the raffle table to view the prizes and buy tickets.
 
Been a while since I was at a meeting. Fridays are very hard for me, but I will make this one. Might have to bring my 4 kids though if that is Okay. They always loved the meetings.

Good time to renew my membership.
 
I would say kids are more than welcome. The meeting is at the aquatics building so there is more to see so it shouldn't be too boring for them.
 
Ya,

They have been there several times for other frag work shops and at least 3 christmas parties. They have been up top feeding the sharks at the Chrstmas parties and always loved that. They will be fine.

Thanks
 
I'm not sure what we've got yet as far as frags go, but I think Kevin was hoping to post any info if/when we get it from Dan....otherwise it'll be a surprise :)

As far as the "starting on time".....Theoretically we will have 2 lines going to check everyone in. We will have a line for current up-to-date members and we will have a line for new/renewing members, there will be signs. This will hopefully speed up the check-in process and lead to a smoother frag-a-thon. Also, tables will be numbered, to help keep track of where you've been, and where you still need to go.
 
As soon as we get any notification of what Dan got for is I will post the info.

Mike you don't want to wear the stinky stripe like Erik did last year after cutting acans and the blade slinging stuff all night? :lol:
 
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