Ways to get new members?
Melissa brought this up at the meeting, but I noticed it really hasn't been discussed. I think this is a topic that needs to be brainstormed a bit, and if we get as many people as we can to jump in here and throw out an idea, we can build upon anything to eventually come up with something. I am afraid I have not come up with much at all so far, but I will keep working on it. The one thing I do think, is that we need something more public, we need to get something out there to let people know that not only this club is alive, but the hobby is awesome. My previous thoughts were towards starting a public tank somewhere. More or less, you find a popular public location that will allow us to set up a small tank, the club will be set up, stocked and maintained by the club. With a plaque on it with the club information, and website address, and maybe the information of any sponsers on the tank. First problem is finding a location for the tank, after that it wouldn't be too bad. Anyone else got any ideas?

I also think the public reef display is a great way to show people what its all about. I bet between everybody we could throw together a nice tank. if it's in a public place it would have to be cleaned at least weekly. This would require a group effort. Business cards to pass out is another great idea. You can get 1K full color cards for like 80$. We might even get them donated by Wizaed Graphics. (he has a 300 gallon reef aquarium)

That would be nice if he would donate the cards. What is his reef like? Perhaps we could persued him with a couple of nice frags for his tank? The public display is one of my favorite ideas, perhaps an area of the chico mall? I would probablly want to take the precaution of setting it up on a permanent fixture of the mall, and make the canopy lock somehow so nobdy dumps a soda or something stupid in it. Maybe setting it up inside a popular store with a wide hours of bussiness so that members can stop in after they get off work, or out of school and do a quick wipe down. I almost hate suggesting ideas that require constant work from the club when I am so far away. I will make sure to contribute one way or another. As far as a display tank, I think something easy, like a 29 biocube type set up with a single large rock with a nice colored bubble tip and a pair of clowns. Maybe some of the brighter zoanthids, and a large finger eather or kenya. Oh, some really active pulseing xenia. All very easy, and very basic corals, with low lighting needs. Low additives need, and little maintence. A lamenated sheet explaining the diffrent corals, and perhaps a small bit of information on each coral. Or index cards for each coral lamenated and hole punched, attached to a keychain, and chain attatched to the display.

I think that's a great idea. I think the downtown businesses would be the best places to try seeing as they are a little bit more community friendly so to speak and they might be willing to do something like that. I can't think of any particular ones at the moment but that might be something to look into. Certainly the mall is a good place seeing as it's temperature stable probably most of the year and we would have to worry about that piece very little. the only issue I could see there would be with people throwing stuff in the tank and what not. It could be a BAAAAADD situation if that happened. Very good idea though!

well if we could find a 29 bio cube for a good price, or something close. I am sure we can modify it for a lock. If it is in a regular business then we need to find one with a large customer base that goes through it to make it worth it. Or another idea would be to make the project mobile. Figure a bio cube could be moved from one location to the next fairly easy. So figure if we could get a 30 day location each time, and just move it every month from store to store? Keeps it worthwhile to be set up, gets new viewers every month.

I think a place where people have to sit and wait for a few minutes would be a good idea. Just thinking out loud here but maybe... (not really out loud) Jamba Juice would be sweet. Car wash/oil change place How about Wittmeier (they have a few sad looking goldfish, we could offer to upgrade) Doctor/dentist (kids pounding on glass, um...)

How about the garden walk mall downtown....

Thinking out loud is usually what stumbles on the good ideas, I always think out loud which is why sometimes my topic may wander... What kind of tank does Wittmeier have? Perhaps Jody can talk to them on a professional manner on upgrading their tank equipment wise. And then we can ask to donate corals as a club with the right to place a card holder near it, that says something like" Corals donated by the Chico Reef Club. www.chicoreefclub.org. " Then have the little business cards they are talking abut making sitting in the card holder. I think oil change places, and maybe smog check places, and stuff, where people end up waiting for 20 to 30 minutes, is a great idea, usually people are there long enough to read everything in the room, but not long enough that they will always make arrangments to be picked up rather then sit there. I;m afraid I don't know what the garden walk mall is, so I can not comment. Up here we have Turtle bay natural museum that I have been trying to get the redding club to get a tank into for awhile now,is there anything like that down there?

I don't think we have a museum that would work down here. We isn't very cultured around these parts. If I remeber correct Wittmeier is a basic 10/20 gallon with a couple of fake plants and rocks. I am sure that one of the secretaries is in charge of the tank, we would probably want to start there so that we don't step on someone's toes. (wouldn't want to remove someones pets).

Starbucks or any popular eatery would be a great idea. I have been trying to work on something similar to this for advertisment for my store. IMO the first thing that should be done is to have Flyers and posters made for all the LFS (even me the not so local one hahaha). I remember back in the day the bay area club had a tank at Tropical Paradise in San Leandro and it was a PIF type tank where all the corals were donated by members and even given away to newbies and such as they grew.

While I think it would be cool to have a public display somewhere, I don't know that this is an efficient manner for recruiting new members. I don't think the general public (i.e. people without tanks) is going to see a saltwater tank, see our card, and start showing up at our meetings. I think Rob is absolutely correct; we need cards and posters for our local fish stores. You're guaranteed to be targeting a demographic that is interested in fish, have high rates of traffic, and no stress over maintaining a tank in a public place (no locks, feeding, donations, $$$ to worry about). Imagine if stores handed out a flyer to their saltwater customers with a comment like, "Join the local reefclub and get 5% (or whatever) off at my store." It would promote interest in the hobby, exponentially increase word-of-mouth, and be generally good for stores and our club!

And it sounds like Jody might have a hook-up for cards too ;)

I would have to agree that our initial target audience should be people that already have tanks. I always see people in the LFSs that I have never seen before. What a great source of members if we could only communicate with them.