Gauging interest: Starting another Chicago area reef club

How do you feel about starting another Chicago reef club?

  • I think a new Chicago reef club would be cool

    Votes: 1 100.0%

  • I prefer CMAS

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • I could care less about either

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Total voters
    1
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Herbie said:
I think this is a thread about people wanting to form a new club. I'm pretty sure you're stirring the pot since the OP did not ask for anyone to defend CMAS. I've been consistently supportive of CMAS and optimistic that the relationship will improve (were all of my posts on this thread pot stirring?). My response to your post was to point out that there will be no limitation confining CR's activities to the virtual environment. That has always been and will continue to be a non-starter. If that was not what you were suggesting, my apologies and I await your clarification. However; this thread is not a negotiation between CR and CMAS. It is a member expressing a desire for change. I hope we can all continue the conversation without any more accusations or name calling. (Yes, I think saying "you are all pi$$ing and moaning" and accusations of laziness borders on name calling.)
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Yes sir, mister moderator boss sir. I will refrain from contributing any of my opinions to this thread from now on. I have a hard time remembering when these threads are legitimate and when they are not and need to be closed (kinda like the one when I politely suggested for the FS area to be reformed which was so abruptly closed from discussion in the middle of some very enthusiastic and realistic suggestions for improvement)

I am curious thou how you think working with CMAS would be limiting to the members of CR, and how it would impact any of their freedoms here? It would be no different than working along with any other physical club, they would HAVE to remain separate entities unless the owner of CR establishes and intends this new club to be another form of profit for himself. I don't think I ever tried negotiating anything, simply suggested it. Im sorry if you are too hesitant to the idea that you thought it was being forced on you like you had to choose. The member is expressing a desire for change, and suggestions are being made for ways to make those changes without starting from the ground up. He's not interested, so that ends that. He never said in the OP he was against the idea of being part of the solution to make the existing club better, so at the time it was still open for suggestion, was it not?

My apologies for suggesting people are pi$$ing and moaning, perhaps i should say complaining for the sake of complaining? And please don't transpose accusations of laziness with pointing out an unwillingness to participate. "I don't feel like going to the meeting today" would be laziness, "I don't WANT to go to the meeting today because its boring" is unwillingness to participate. HUGE DIFFERENCE.

I hope this is clarification enough to clear up your misunderstanding with my posts.
 
Joe5688 said:
i think all the cmas fighting needs to stop. George there's no need to stick up for them. I still dont get it. Are u a rep from Cmas or are u just a member? Why do u always have to fight for them. Where are the actual CMAS people fighting their own battles.


Lets keep this to what this thread was intended for. Obviously there is some butthurt about cmas/cr but who cares. It's been years since anything has had any conflict.
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Im standing up for the club, because I put a lot of my free time into helping the club lately. Im sorry if I am taking it personally when people come at the club like they are being wronged. If another option were made available, I would do what I can for BOTH clubs. I'm not taking one side or another, Im just tired of reading so much false accusation and hate against a club from members that dont want to contribute to it.
 
WTF is going on...lol!!!

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all srsness. I think CR having quarterly get togethers is really where that starts/ends. the discussion about another club is always around, but nobody ever goes through with it. double edged sword here, either you put the time into the established poorly run old dog, or start a new one that is way too much work when people actually start into it....either way it's a moot point. so start a new one. nothing stopping it.
 
cmas does suck and is complete waste of money . but I wasted more on dumber . think I have one year left wont be rejoining . do we need another club? imo nah. we have cr and we can have as many get togethers as we want to plan . I hang out with people on here alot and im sure I will be having bbqs during summer that I will be having some of yous over and im sure there will be lots of other get togethers. I think that's enough for most of us . I think most also kinda use summer as break away from hobby and do less with tanks in summer. I know I do . winter so boring that's when I hit the stores nothing else to do .
 
I am the current club president for the Rockford Reefers. We are a free club meaning no membership fees to join. I have been involved with this club since 2006 when it was founded. Even with it being free it is difficult to get people to show up to meetings. If you do not plan on having meetings and events I don't see the point of being in a club and just stick to using the forums. I am contacted by 10-15 people of year who want to join the club but never show up to a meeting or event. They would probably even pay to join and still never show up. Our events range from workshops or simply lunches or bbq's at members homes or local fish stores.

There are many challenges with starting a new club. Getting people to show up and consistantly show up is difficult. The leaders of the club spend a huge amount of time planning and working events especially if you are throwing frag swaps. There are legal issues as well that need to be addressed. When we did Midwest frag fest I spent 20-30 hours a week working on the event for the 2 months prior to doing it. The other issue is that once the club gets to a decent size 10-20 active members people never see eye to eye and problems start occurring. Eventually it falls a apart or downsizes to a manageable level.

There has been at least 4 or 5 attempts that I can remember in the last 5 years where other clubs or meet up groups in the Chicago area have tried to be formed and I don't think they have been successful.

I am just sharing my experiences. I think a new club could be cool but eventually it will run into the same issues CMAS has once money and enough people get involved. All clubs go through these issues.
 
So maybe not a club but a CR event committee? I won't say I won't attend CMAS swaps, but I'm all for additional reefers-bring-their-own-stuff old-school-swaps like we had back in the day.

I'd definitely chip in for that.
 
madjoe said:
CMAS does suck and is complete waste of money, but I wasted more on dumber. Think I have one year left [but] wont be rejoining. Do we need another club? IMO nah; we have cr and we can have as many get togethers as we want to plan.
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Hehe...edited your sh1t...but to what you said, there's a lot of planning that goes into the swaps, and while we have great support on CR, to organize something on the VFW scale is a little more than the CR Team usually tackles. I'm not saying they couldn't get it done, because I'm sure they could, but it's a much different event than calling up RW and saying we're crashing after hours. IMO, there would need to be some type of organized body to coordinate with venues and keep in constant contact with potential show vendors. Do you think that J.Fox brings in a bunch of new people to the reefing community that would otherwise stay away; I'm sure his name has sold a few swap tickets. I don't think J.Fox is going to be visiting Joedyssea's garage anytime soon (I like your garage, Joe; just making an illustration). I don't see swaps being thrown together like we do meet-ups. Organization is key to a successful event like tomorrow's hopefully will be.

And for the record, I am a paying CMAS member :)
 
I'm new here but i can say, I found CR first. The help that I have gotten from some members here and the open arms I was greeted with is what made me stay. Walt, Dan, Mai, Jeff, smitty and so many others have helped me on here, given me some great frags and priceless advice and have really made me love this hobby.

Plus, I just love the environment here. I am not sure I would care about a new club but I would care about the members on this forum. If they moved, I would have to stay a part of their community. I think that's what CR really is. It is our community and it is what we make it. There are some great people here and that is what makes CR so good.
 
There was mention of Motorcycle clubs and their patches. Can we have CR patches and cuts? Make Daisy the face of CR and let Walt design them? :a21:
 
CoralN00b said:
I'm new here but i can say, I found CR first. The help that I have gotten from some members here and the open arms I was greeted with is what made me stay. Walt, Dan, Mai, Jeff, smitty and so many others have helped me on here, given me some great frags and priceless advice and have really made me love this hobby.

Plus, I just love the environment here. I am not sure I would care about a new club but I would care about the members on this forum. If they moved, I would have to stay a part of their community. I think that's what CR really is. It is our community and it is what we make it. There are some great people here and that is what makes CR so good.
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Thanks Mike!! This is why I do what I do. I want everyone to feel welcomed and have fun on here. This is one of the nicest things anyone has said on here.

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goat585 said:
I am just sharing my experiences. I think a new club could be cool but eventually it will run into the same issues CMAS has once money and enough people get involved. All clubs go through these issues.
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I agree with this. Like I said earlier, it's impossible to keep everyone happy. Especially when there is a significant monetary cost of maintaining the hobby, competition/greed/rivalries form. Rigid structure of meetings, although they are necessary, lower the fun-factor as well. When you also consider all the controversy, "butthurt", and hard feelings, I would rather sit behind my keyboard and type than show up in person and deal with it. I have enough other drama going on in my life, and I know my way around reefkeeping pretty well by now.

Personally I think the scope of CR is right-sized. I am not cool enough (like Walt) to go to the BBQs and other CR events yet ;) but I really enjoy the forum. Sometimes simpler/smaller is better.
 
The one benefit of going for a non-profit status is you will get more donations from the larger national companies, for larger things like tanks/equipment because they can write it off. Without that status you will get some donations from the LFS we have good relations with but no large dollar items. For those of us at Joe's party one of the best times I saw was the PIF pile and how fun it was even if you didn't get what you were after to see so much sharing from the community.

I think people want to start with a clean slate because under the current bylaws of CMAS its close to impossible to get any significant changes pushed through when you do the math, and the current requirements to make those fundamental changes.
 
Thread looks like something on Facebook, drama. A new club will be the same thing, you cant please everyone. CMAS has changed a lot but I have to say that's where I learned so much about the hobby. RC is great, a lot of knowledgeable reefers who are always willing to help and are very experienced, Reef 2 Reef is also one of my favorites. If I want to read drama I go to CR or pick up the new copy of the Enquire. If just seems like CR is a big click because a a lot of the veterans in the hobby don't post on either CR or CMAS they have their own group of friends and reefers and hate the drama they ready on this site. A new club is just another club with the same issues. Work with what you have and make it better is my opinion. I'm not interested in paying to be a member of any club, mainly if its "for profit".
 
bryman said:
I agree with this. Like I said earlier, it's impossible to keep everyone happy. Especially when there is a significant monetary cost of maintaining the hobby, competition/greed/rivalries form. Rigid structure of meetings, although they are necessary, lower the fun-factor as well. When you also consider all the controversy, "butthurt", and hard feelings, I would rather sit behind my keyboard and type than show up in person and deal with it. I have enough other drama going on in my life, and I know my way around reefkeeping pretty well by now.

Personally I think the scope of CR is right-sized. I am not cool enough (like Walt) to go to the BBQs and other CR events yet ;) but I really enjoy the forum. Sometimes simpler/smaller is better.
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lol is impossible to keep any one happy
 
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