Need suggestions about starting an Aquarium Club

[ktk4beees]

Yes I'm the one with the recent aquarium crash that killed fish. Prior to that incident I was planning of beginning an aquarium club in my area.

I know of a few individuals that either have an aquarium or would like to and I thought I could help in some ways. After all, I know both how to do it wrong and how to do it right and have the 15 year old fish to prove it.

My zip codes area is 2,232.83 square miles in size with 3.35 square miles of that being water. We have 1021 occupied homes and nobody got the count but about 3,500 cows. We are 56 miles from the nearest town big enough to have a Safeway and 125 miles from the nearest true big city of Idaho Falls which has 3 fish stores (2 are Petco and Pet Smart).

I want to start the itch here in our town. I know I can answer a lot of questions and if I don't have the answers, I know who all to ask :} What I am looking for is suggestions on Topics I should bring up, Topics not to bring up, and generally how to run a club session to make it fun for everyone. Any help would be appreciated.

[johnnyxxl]

I would cover topics like substrate, how's and why's, benefits for the various filter styles, DIY topic's and things related to the fish that the group keeps.  Do club swap meets and club auctions to share plants and fish being bred by the group.

  Will watch for progress.

[Rube_Goldfish]

On 3/19/2024 at 9:59 PM, ktk4beees said:

Yes I'm the one with the recent aquarium crash that killed fish. Prior to that incident I was planning of beginning an aquarium club in my area.

I know of a few individuals that either have an aquarium or would like to and I thought I could help in some ways. After all, I know both how to do it wrong and how to do it right and have the 15 year old fish to prove it.

My zip codes area is 2,232.83 square miles in size with 3.35 square miles of that being water. We have 1021 occupied homes and nobody got the count but about 3,500 cows. We are 56 miles from the nearest town big enough to have a Safeway and 125 miles from the nearest true big city of Idaho Falls which has 3 fish stores (2 are Petco and Pet Smart).

I want to start the itch here in our town. I know I can answer a lot of questions and if I don't have the answers, I know who all to ask :} What I am looking for is suggestions on Topics I should bring up, Topics not to bring up, and generally how to run a club session to make it fun for everyone. Any help would be appreciated.

More experienced folks here than me will likely have more insight, but you'll want to think about, then secure access to, a suitable venue. Even if you start off mostly online, you'll eventually want some place to physically meet for auctions and trading, and in-person socializing. I know dues for membership can seem off-putting to prospective new people, but you might need at least some revenue for the venue space, a website, speaker's fees, maybe eventually merchandise. I'm lucky enough to have a local, long-running club, and in addition to annual dues, they sell merchandise, have sponsorships with local (and some national!) brands, and split auction revenue. After that, you'd need to start spreading the word: social media would be the first place to start, but also see if any of those three stores would let you put up fliers (and see if any of them will donate money, plants, fish, or equipment).

@Simi had a thread from 2021 about starting a new club from scratch, so maybe there's some insight there:

Good luck! I'm really rooting for you because clubs are an awesome experience, and I know how lucky I am to have mine and want that experience for everyone else in the hobby, too.

[johnnyxxl]

On 3/20/2024 at 2:43 PM, Rube_Goldfish said:

More experienced folks here than me will likely have more insight, but you'll want to think about, then secure access to, a suitable venue. Even if you start off mostly online, you'll eventually want some place to physically meet for auctions and trading, and in-person socializing. I know dues for membership can seem off-putting to prospective new people, but you might need at least some revenue for the venue space, a website, speaker's fees, maybe eventually merchandise. I'm lucky enough to have a local, long-running club, and in addition to annual dues, they sell merchandise, have sponsorships with local (and some national!) brands, and split auction revenue. After that, you'd need to start spreading the word: social media would be the first place to start, but also see if any of those three stores would let you put up fliers (and see if any of them will donate money, plants, fish, or equipment).

@Simi had a thread from 2021 about starting a new club from scratch, so maybe there's some insight there:

Good luck! I'm really rooting for you because clubs are an awesome experience, and I know how lucky I am to have mine and want that experience for everyone else in the hobby, too.

To start you can visit in a restaurant then try to get a store maybe to let you use space my model club used the model store.  That's if there's a large enough store.

[Rube_Goldfish]

On 3/20/2024 at 3:40 PM, johnnyxxl said:

To start you can visit in a restaurant then try to get a store maybe to let you use space my model club used the model store.  That's if there's a large enough store.

That's a great idea, and could be part of the relationship of the store and club, too. I forgot to add, my LFS has a discount for club members, too. Between that and meetings and events hosted at the LFS, you'd ideally have a symbiotic relationship.

[ktk4beees]

For an Update on this topic...I went to Facebook to see if there were folks in the area that might be interested and got 10 replies. I have contacted them back and the first to message me was an individual that works at non less that our local fish hatchery. We will see where this goes but 2 of the others work at a vets office, one is one of my neighbors and the another volunteers at our animal shelter.  I was a bit surprised at the response. Now I guess I really do need to get to planning things out. I was going to approach the schools and see if there is interest there and if I could possible get access to an auditorium. This is going to be a journey as usually I am in the position of being an attendee at these types of things and not the planner of such events.