Seeking Feedback for SCMAS Christmas party!

[ReefMeister2]

Ladies and Gentlemen,
THANK YOU SO MUCH for making this year's holiday party a complete success! It was great seeing so many wonderful people there tonight!
The dinner was delicious, the lecture was inspiring, the people delightful....and the raffle?....Yikes! even I was surprised by how LARGE the raffle grew to be!

However, our mission here is NOT to pat-ourselves-on-the-back, but rather strive for continuous improvement so as to make subsequent events EVEN BETTER! After all.....YOU are the person we are trying to reach, to inspire, and to teach. Without your mutual comradery, fellowship, and participation, we are nothing!
This organization is wholly dependent upon you.

That being said, I would like to ask you for a favor:
If you attended the Christmas party, SCMAS would like to hear your honest feedback about the event. And if you didn't attend...we want to hear "why".
Good or bad, we want to hear your ideas, concerns, suggestions, desires, etc. etc. This is the only way we will truly know what makes your clock tick. Simply put: WE WANT TO KNOW WHAT IT'LL TAKE TO MAKE YOU WANT TO COME BACK FOR MORE


While your thinking about that, please allow me to fill you in with what's coming up soon:

1) THERE IS NO DECEMBER SCMAS MEETING! The Christmas party traditionally "replaces" our December meeting every year.

2) January's meeting (Friday, 19th) will be a FRAG SWAP!
Again, this is an annual tradition with SCMAS; same/regular meeting location and time. So, bring those extra frags, equipment, accessories, and CASH!

3) February's meeting will be presented by SCMAS's own STEVE GARRETT. As many of you already know, Steve has been very successful at growing corals in a large outdoor propagation system for YEARS. And now, Steve is willing to share with us the details of his brandnew upgraded facilities.

4) REEF-A-PALOOZA 2007
is tentatively scheduled for August 18, 2007! We have not yet decided upon a venue at this time, however we wanted to get the Buzz started on the event, nonetheless. We anticipate EASILY exceeding 1,000 people in 2007 if we make it an indoor event! Stay Tuned for further details in January.

Thanks again for your continued support!
Sincerely,
Kevin T. Adams
SCMAS president

 

[vdubfiend]

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how do i get involved in these meetings? Jan 19thhh!!!! thanks!

 

[818]

Re: Seeking Feedback for SCMAS Christmas party!

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8668978#post8668978 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by ReefMeister2


4) REEF-A-PALOOZA 2007
is tentatively scheduled for August 19, 2007! We have not yet decided upon a venue at this time, however we wanted to get the Buzz started on the event, nonetheless. We anticipate EASILY exceeding 1,000 people in 2007 if we make it an indoor event! Stay Tuned for further details in January.

Thanks again for your continued support!
Sincerely,
Kevin T. Adams
SCMAS president

If you really are anticpating 1,000 people I would definatley do indoor. Alot of people were there and gone this past one. No time to hang around too long due to the hot weather. Of course I wouldnt mind a fee if its indoors. Another thing was there werent too many people selling frags. Ive seen more people selling way more frags at frag swaps in peoples homes. It was very dissapointing to see only like 5-6 hobbyist from RC selling frags while the majority were people advertising their products. Last year capped somewhere around 500 attendees throughout the day...not too many frags.... If it wasnt for Eric @ fragfarmer I can tell you it wouldnt have been a success...that guy had enough frags to fill up everyones tank!:lol:

Would also like to mention Nicole, Franky, Steve, Chris, Raskall, and scotchmaster for taking their corals and time.

The food was good, burgers and dogs ships,sodas are patented items to server on a hot sunny day to feed the masses.

Definaley a good idea to get the buzz out like you are saying now, that way we can get more people to start thinking about attending this event with sweet frags

Sam

 

[laverda]

vdubfiend: Just show up. See SCMAS website for additional information and the meeting place: http://www.scmas.org/

 

[Bebo77]

if you do have it indoors and charge a few bucks i would get more vendors to come and make it worth our while.. i would not pay for what i went to last year but if you can get at least 3 or 4 real coral vendors ie fragfarmer, reefermadness, Pacific East Aqua, etc then it would be worth it, and what about dry goods vendores like reefgeek, hellolights, marine depot.. you guys could really make this thing HUGE... imo

maybe even do it in the parking lot of one of the wholesellers by LAX and have them open to the public.. cash only...???

 

[gcarroll]

if you do have it indoors and charge a few bucks i would get more vendors to come and make it worth our while.. i would not pay for what i went to last year but if you can get at least 3 or 4 real coral vendors ie fragfarmer, reefermadness, Pacific East Aqua, etc then it would be worth it, and what about dry goods vendores like reefgeek, hellolights, marine depot.. you guys could really make this thing HUGE... imo

maybe even do it in the parking lot of one of the wholesellers by LAX and have them open to the public.. cash only...???[/B]

We are also comitted to doing everthing in our power to keep the event FREE to all the attendees. Moving the event indoors may make it harder to keep it free but manufacturers have expressed willingness to pay for their booths.

SCMAS has no plans on moving the event to LA County. There is such a high concentration of reefers locally in Orange County and since we have members as far south as San Diego, it is very important to SCMAS to keep Reef-A-Palooza in our own backyard. Also when deciding to invite different major coral vendors to RAP we must not loose focus of what RAP is all about. The event is to promote hobbiest to take up coral farming. I would think that bringing in too many large scale vendors will further isolate the little guy. That being said we do however want to promote local farming ventures like FragFarmer, Garret's Acropolis, Tropical Reef Oasis, ....ect. Who are merely hobbiest who have taken it to the next level. Reefer Maddness definitly fits this category and Pacific East Aquaculture definitly fit this category with their captive coral farming ventures and we would love to have them there (BTW: both were invited as well as many of the well known coral farmers in the Bay Area). The wholesaler's at LAX do not yet engage in coral farming.

Last years Reef-A-Palooza was organized on a very short time frame of less than 3 months. Many local coral farmers as well as major vendors were invited, but chose not to participate for a variety of reasons. Reefermadness was one of the vendors who could not come now that they have a store that is open instead of being online only. They did not have the manpower to open the store and participate at the event. I beleive Eric @ FragFarmer chose to close and attend the event. It appeared to me that many reefers seemed to be intimidated by the potential size of the event an the chose to attend the event rather than sell at the event. This created a vast shortage of available frags that are normally sold at the event. Also as we all know, this summer took it tool on many reefers tanks, and that further decreased the # of sellers. I am going to push for sellers not to have to reserve space and just have an open swap area for anyone who wishes to sell. I will also discuss the event with many of the vendors at the South Western Coral Farmers Market.

Also you can look for many more manufactures to attend Reef-A-Palooza 2007 since I have already began contacting companies and many inquired about it while I was seeking contributions for SCMAS's Christmas party!

 

[sinned]

Let's hear about the raffle - what was up for grabs?? Dennis

 

[818]

Greg!!!! Yes!! That is what I meant. We need more hobbyist that coral farm from their home tanks/work shops etc... That way more people can get hooked!!!

Dennis, there was a raffle?

 

[gcarroll]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8672318#post8672318 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by fish2223
Let's hear about the raffle - what was up for grabs?? Dennis

Dennis, were you referring to the Chrismas party raffle?

 

[plugpitch]

of course there was a raffle! I think SCMAS's raffles are the best, usually giving away skimmers at regular monthly meetings. This time, there was a Euroreef CS-80, Bermuda, Aqua C EV-240.

I thought that the Christmas party was awesome. It was great that Steve Tyree came and presented to show that hobbyist can coral farm with success. I also liked the fact that Ed (I think that is his name) from Liquid Life came and donated his product. It was inspiring to hear that a hobbyist committed himself and started his own line of coral food.

The party was awesome and many of the members are great to speak with. Everyone acts as if we are family and that is the best feeling. I'm sort of glad that not too many people came because I won some of the raffles, but everyone should come out to the monthly meetings. If not, then I'll just have to win more prizes like I did in November (tear drop maxima, nass snails, zoas, cats eye turbos, a year's membership). Tell me that is not a great raffle? Also, SCMAS has local sponsers from Aquatic Marine (Hugo - snipersps), Black Coral, Eye Candy, passion of the seas (sorry I forgot the names of our members' screennames). I believe Coralife donates skimmers and lights on a monthly basis. I don't want to sound too greedy, but the more people that come to our meetings, the better our club gets. More information is generated across many people, and we can better network our club. I am very appreciative of this club and how much I've learned from the various people I've run into, not to mention the great speakers that this club brings in.

On the down note, I wish there were more live goods at the Christmas party, but I know that our party was long and that not too many people want to acclimate at 11pm. Gift certificates were a good make up for that though.

Thanks again guys and gals. I hope to see more faces in january along with your frags. I'll try to bring some out. I know I have to limited edition chateo monster growing well, so I'll bring some out!!!

 

[plugpitch]

oh yeah, I forgot to mention that I make the drive from LA county so there shouldn't be any complaints about how far the drive is!

 

[sinned]

plugpitch-
Thanks for the info on the raffle. Since I am chairman of the MASLAC
raffle I always like to know what other clubs are offering.

 

[sharkdude]

with a few exceptions, contributors to the Holiday Part raffle can be found here:
http://www.scmas.org/vendor-friends.htm

there were nano cube tanks, skimmers, various supplements, foods, publications, nano ballasts and bulbs, gift certificates, tix to SW Coral Farmers, some live goods, etc

 

[wishntoboutside]

the Xmas party was fun. I am glad me and the gf made it. very friendly atmosphere. the room was packed full of nice people with one thing in common, this crazy hobby. The dinner was very good as well. the raffle was amazing to see the amount of things given away. hmm the 346 and 546 thing was very confusing. Steve Tyree is a great person as well as a speaker for the hobbyist but maybe a bit much for the gf/wife's.
Oh buy the way Steve thanks for telling us in your speech we can not make money in this hobby.. I hope she did not here that part. I still want to buy "LE" corals.
Kevin as a new president you and your team did a great job on the event. Greg and others nice job on the raffle. tough job and tough crowd. I think everyone enjoyed the slide show.
only suggestions is maybe next year offer a vegi offerings for some. no desert? I thing greg should be in a santa suit for the raffle. he was santa for all of our fish. Maybe next year a donate a gift option could be incorporated to help those in need like "choc hospital. i loved the event and the raffle but would be cool to see the club give back to community in holidays if possible.

 

[afelder]

I think the party was excellent. Of course I left with more stuff than I could carry from the raffle so I might be a little biased. Wishn I think your g/f was excited enough by getting her mermaid that she might have missed that we have no way to make money. Every SCMAS event that I have attended has been great and the people are always friendly. The only suggestion I have to make it better is if we go to a German restaurant we should get German food.



Ariel

 

[Melman]

i thought the party was awesome and had a great time. the first suggestion that would make the party truly amazing would be an open bar. . . but yeah, now to the real suggestions.

the highlight of the night for me was pretty much the raffle. being a poor college student in this hobby, the raffle totally helps me out. so pretty much all of my suggestions are for the raffle. one thing, which i think greg already made a note of is the ticket numbers. I got tickets early in the night and i had 4 different number ranges. both 346/546. which brings me to the next point.

for the fish bowl tickets, maybe get them from a different color. I had seperated my tickets for what i put in the fish bowl (2x346 and 1x546) and the general raffle (all 546) but when people weren't calling their tickets, i found myself going through all 4 sets of number ranges in case i had mistakenly placed numbers in the wrong bowls. if it was a different color, i could easily just pull out my yellow tickets and know for a fact those 30 were for the fish bowl instead of having to check all 70.

the other fish bowl suggestion is to do it for the other big prizes like the nano cubes (or the mermaids). I heard a lot of people wanting the nano tanks, yet someone who already has like 6 tanks in his house got two of them and might not even be able to use them =X

finally, my raffle suggestion for the gift certificates. i thought those were amazing and want to thank all the contributors that donated. those were what i had my heart set on as they easily help the poor college student afford this hobby. but, with the distribution, i think instead of designating the choices, give the people the option to choose which store they wanted. win a $25 gift cert of your choice, win a $50 gift cert of your choice etc. . . that way people aren't limited to a store that is 30 miles from their home, as i know one person from LA won a gift cert in OC so the value almost gets lost on gas alone X( so that's my suggestion for gift certs.

overall, i have to give you guys a round of applause. the party was amazing and all your hard work truly showed. i truly appreciated all the work the board did get this done and having the amazing raffle that i <3 so much. also want to thank all the sponsors of the event for all their contributions as it's those raffle prizes that keep me in the hobby, and lead me to visit your store ; )

p.s. the turkey was delicious, but tryptophan + alcohol + full stomach. . . sorry steve if you saw me with eyes were closed, i was listening, but just resting them

p.s.s. oh, and dessert next time would be icing on the cake (pun intended) =D

 

[bergzy]

i would like to give a big hand of applause to kevin, chris, greg and everyone else who pitched in to make this happen. i could tell it was a lot of work esp to the small details that can be overlooked a lot of the times (like the nice name tags instead of the usual white stick on labels).

i am looking forward to the next christmas dinner with RAP in the middle and greg's annual frag swap at his place.

i am being optimistic that with a little of our support, kevin (president of scmas) could develop this club into something a lot bigger and more visible. getting local vendors (some of them nationwide) more exposure, getting more manafactuers to sponser support along with getting excellent speakers would/should/could make this club be of the most excellent caliber!

 

[ReefMeister2]

Thanks everyone for your comments and suggestions. Believe me when I say: we are taking note of EVERY opinion and suggestion made. I completely concure with what was said about the Raffle from most of you. I prefer "free choice" in everything if you ask me. However, the main concern is two-fold: 1) we were "prize-heavy" and "time-short" (not such a bad position to be, huh)....so we had to "pool" many items together to make it run smoothly 2) and far more important: We needed to recognize EVERY contributor/supporter of the raffle by taking the time to explain each item, who donated it, brief description of the company, etc. We had decided long beforehand that this was ABSOLUTELY CRUCIAL for maintaining the symbiotic relationship between SCMAS and its sponsors. They ask very little of us for what they give; "Word-of-Mouth" is usually all our sponsors ask of us. So, we want to sweeten the deal, so to speak, to make long-term relationships more attractive.

Yea, I thought a dessert would be nice too however we were over our budget already. I was thrilled to be able to negotiate a sit-down catered dinner (with all-you-can-drink softdrinks) and private facility for only $25 a head. It was the little incidental things/costs that put us over the top, but no big deal. My wife (and her niece) volunteered to do all the decorating so that saved us a bunch. I totally forgot to thank them at the party...my bad.

As for REEF-A-PALOOZA 2007, please note that I corrected the date to read Saturday, August 18 (not the 19th)
I suspect that we will charge a nominal entrance fee for it to be in a nice indoor facility, however, I can't imagine it possibly being more than $5 a person (with children free). I'm sure that people will be willing to pay that much for a much nicer venue. Most of the costs will be subsidized by the vendors who rent booths. Small fraggers (and we'll attract ALOT of them) can pool together to share booth space. For instance, one guy selling a few dozen frags certainly won't need a 10x10 booth space all to himself. Many of the details will be hashed-out in the months to come, however one thing is certain: It will remain in Orange County; hopefully in a centralized location near freeways.

 

[gho]

Is this thread about the x-mas party or RAP?

WRT the Christmas party, I thought it was pretty cool to hang out with everyone and stuff. My kids were kinda tired and the youngest was a bit under the weather.

My sugguestion would be to have a kids ticket. They didn't really need all that food, seemed like a complete waste of $50 if you asked me, cuz they didn't even take a bite of the meal (well, my oldest had a few of the carrots, but that's it). Maybe a $10 sans meal would have been better for them. I liked the food though.

 

[sharkdude]

In addition to all the contirbuting vendors and lfs' we recognized at the party, I would like to extned a hearty shout of gratitude to ReefCentral.com !

They have allowed us a lot of lattitude in this regional forum to promote our local club to the SoCal reefer community and ask nothing from us in return.

Thanks ReefCentral! if not for you, I probably would not be a part of this fantastic hobby and great community of reefers!

Sharkdude

PS thanks for all the feedback, but keep in mind all the work and effort that went into this party. There is no pleasing everyone 100%, 100% of the time.
Did anyone buy Tyree a beer? or the SCMAS Steering Committe for that matter? I still managed to enjoy the party despite 'working' the party logistics.

Gho: the attendance fees covered room rental expense as well as meal costs. as you saw, the room was at near capacity, and a seat is a seat no matter the height of the attendee.

all proceeds from the raffle will be put back into supporting future SCMAS events.
If you patronize one or more of the contributing vendors/lfs', please mention that you heard about them through SCMAS! This helps bolster our credibility as the prmier SoCal Reef Aquarists club, and helps us to make future events even better.