Ah ha! So, we are actually talking about bringing MACNA here? On Mr.Bean's thread sounds like he wants to start something new - or am I reading one or both of these wrong?
Not that there is anything wrong with something new, but having MACNA here sounds like it would be a much bigger event - and sure to be a success. Details, berryman, details, indeed. You have my support on whatever you need.
Indeed, Mr. Bean, that is the problem we run into at RAS - lotsa talk, but need more people raising their hands to say they will do it! Also, seems like no one around here is willing to spend the $, like Carmie said - $20 dollars too much!!! I am hoping that for RAS is sw folks don't believe there will be enough there for them, and we are working hard on changing that opinion - it isn't even true!
The bids for the 2010 MACNA end on 1/31, so I think we should start to plan for 2011. That will give us a year to gain support and develop a proposal and then another year to actually plan the event. By then hopefully we will be out of this dreaded recession and the hobby will be flourishing. I'd hate to attempt something of this scale right now anyway given the dreary economic outlook for the near future. Anyway, for starters anyone intereted should read this thread about the history of MACNA and the steps in developing the proposal.
Next, I'd like to start to form a team to develop the proposal. Even if you aren't sure you'll be able to actually help with the event, you can do your part just by helping to coordinate the effort to get the bid. If you are interested in this please PM me with your e-mail address so I can set up a distribution list and let me know how involved you are willing to be. We need leaders, but we also need people just willing to do small things here and there. Any help would be appreciated.
Ah, man, reading those lists of speakers makes me want to burst into tears of longing......
Okay, so I understand this now, and I don't know that there isn't going to be enough smaller events before then to get us ready for it. I think it'll be okay, and if you want to throw another event in there, Mr.Bean, it isn't a bad idea, but I wish you would help our club with our swap event instead, just make it even bigger and better. It is the same idea, after all.......and I sure wouldn't mind an ambitous partner!!!
I am going to go cry now, until Berry tells me what we need to do to get started. Julian Sprung, for goodness sake.........Martin Moe for crying out loud.........
That sounds like a great idea. I was going to see if I can attend the one they have this year. I wasn't able to make to the one last year, but to have it in NC was would be awesome. Not having to pay for a place to stay and transportation. Definately worth it.
LOL, that didn't take long. I'm so burnt out right now I don't know what to do. I got home last night and then had to enrich brine shrimp, acclimate new fish and corals, put off unloading everything else out of the car, catch the stupid tang that was harassing my new B&W ocellaris, feed fish, and I'm sure I'm missing something. Then today I had to pack and ship a box of corals during lunch. I need a few days of R&R.
Before we start planning anything else I want to get some suggestions from people about what it would take to actually have people show up at an event like this. I can't even begin to explain all the work that went into this workshop this past weekend, and all the promoting we did for it, and the turnout was still a lot less than I thought it should have been. It was better than last year and there were quite a few people there, but probably 75% of the people that regularly attend frag swaps did not show up. Fortunately, we did have a lot of new people just getting into the hobby attend the workshop. Are people around here really that cheap that they won't spend $20 to go to a weekend long workshop that they can get free corals at and see nationally known speakers. If that's the case, how can we expect to make a MACNA type program a success. Someone please enlighten me.
For me it wasn't money... it was simply timing. Had a ton to do with the kids and I would guess that the warm weather didn't help the workshop turnout either.
I will also say that I don't think I was as educated as I should have been on what the workshop offered. Not that the information wasn't available; I simply didn't take the time to really understand it.
I think understanding the value of MACNA might light a fire under me and many others. I've been in this hobby for almost 4 years. Just recently started participating in CFT and really getting to know the players and what's available to me, the hobbyist. Having said that; I only heard of MACNA last fall because Thomas at Aquatica said something about it.
So... I don't consider myself dumb but I would bet there are a lot of newer people to the hobby and on CFT and they may have no idea what MACNA is or what value it holds. (Or maybe I was just locked in a dark room and was the only one that never heard about it. )
So... Brandon, I will help any way I can. Just let me know what you need help with.
Cool, thanks for the input. I had wonderred about the warm weather. I can definitely say that the thought did cross my mind once or twice about how nice it would have been to be at the beach this past weekend.
For me it was driving to Raleigh after work on a Friday evening and then work conflicted on the weekend unfortunately as most weekends I don't have to work but this weekend I had some things happen and was on call. Otherwise I would have definitely been there.
Brandon - you were also battling an outbreak of the flu in the area - my family has been sick for a week and I know of about 10 families right now that have at least 1 member that has the flu.
I oculd only come Friday night but really enjoyed that. Just had some commitments the rest of the weekend.
I am also in to help with any planning for MACNA. I have never been involved with this type of thing before but can certainly take direction and do the leg work!
I will do whatever it takes for the Raleigh Aqaurium Society (RAS) or to make MACNA successful. This is something you cannot or should not have to do on your own. My suggestion would be to start a new post to see who we can get to come to next RAS meeting and do some brainstorming.
I think we would be able to gauge who is interested in joining the RAS and who would be willing to participate from the saltwater side to make this successful.
It's good to see that everyone who has responded so far pretty much had other things that kept them from coming rather than just not wanting to come due to factors we could control. Anyway, as far as MACNA goes, I've already heard that there are other clubs in the process of developing a plan to host it in 2011 as well, so 2012 would probably be a more realistic goal so that we are not already starting off behind the other clubs that have it in the works. Also, this will allow us a chance to do something like Mr. Bean mentioned earlier and have a really awesome local marine conference that maybe encompasses the Carolinas and Virginia, basically the same group that CFT targets.
So I would say we need vendor support; yes? We'd also need the support of the LFS because I would bet a lot of people don't take part in any of the forums.
I don't mean to be all business on this but does anyone have an objectives breakdown on project? What do we hope to get out of it? What benefit does it serve the Aquarist community, local 'directly' related retailers (LFS) and indirect retailers. (Hotel, food, travel, etc) if the event is big enough.
In other words. what's the goal with this? Once that's defined; we can work backwards and figure out how to motivate others to make it happen.
I know I was just master of the obvious but it would help me to know these things (and I would think others as well) in order to wrap our heads around the problem.
Having helped with a few of these here is a ruff outline of how things need to go.
It generally starts about 24 mos out.
It begins with getting the requirements from the overriding org. The next step is finding a hotel that meets the requirements and then get bids from them.
So now it is 18 mos out.
Ok so now you have a proposed group and location , now you have to start getting speakers and plan activities most workshops start on Thurs night so there need to be options from that point on for people to do. And of course this is where costs are calculated.
Ok 12 mos out. A group has to go to the orgs national convention and present to the board (generally on Thurs) what it proposes. The board then looks at all proposals and then picks the one it feels is a best fit for what it wants to do (announced at the banquet).
Now that everything is set on paper the real work begins.
Travel arrangments are made vendors are contacted. and workers are recruited. You need between 50 and 70 people to pull everything off.
did someone say calfo was going to be at a
RAS workshop when and were please.
i wanted to go to macna so bad i could not stand it. we had taken off to go but someone my husband works with took the same weeked off after my husband told them he was taking off and so he had to cover their work.
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