Reef nutrition

BAR at CFM Jan 22 2022

JVU

President
BOD
We recently were able to confirm that we have a table for our club for the first time in a while at the Silicon Valley Coral Farmers Market (CFM) in one week, Jan 22, 2022. We used to be there every CFM, often helping with various jobs like setup and teardown of the whole event, running the raffle for the club and for others, helping at manning the entry door. Now that COVID has reset everything our presence there will be pared way back, we are getting back to basics and will basically just be there as outreach- to let people know that BAR exists and some of the benefits of being in the club.

For those of you who haven’t been to one before, basically it is like a 1-day mini trade show for reefkeeping, with a focus on vendors selling livestock. They rent out a conference room in a hotel, retailers and manufacturers setup booths around the edges and in the middle, and you wander around looking/learning/buying. Lots of high-end stuff you won’t find every day plus some deals. The venue this time is The Domain in Sunnyvale.


We don’t have a full booth like the retailers who are there selling, just a table. But that’s all we need! Our spot is near the exit which is a pretty good place for seeing everyone as you can see in the pic below. We have a banner for the table and some other stuff, but since this is fairly last-minute it will mostly be about our members at the table just chatting about the club.

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The event organizers do not need our help with setup/teardown or raffles for this one, which takes some pressure off of our volunteers. We will be able to setup Friday and be there for Saturday all day (11a-5p) to just man our table.

We are looking for members who are willing to volunteer to cover 1 or 2 hours of manning the table. Optimal would be 2 people per time slot, but 1 is ok and if we have no one there for some hours it’s not the end of the world. We also need a little help with setup and take-down of our table. The club will pay for volunteer’s entry tickets. I’ll update the next post with who has volunteered for each spot. It’s fine to change, but let us know here so we have some semblance of organization. It’s also completely fine to hang out at the table during times you aren’t officially covering it. Don’t plan to leave valuables or stuff to trade with others at the table since it isn’t the volunteer’s job to watch your stuff and it may not even be manned for periods of time. I can’t make it Saturday but I plan to help setup on Friday. Eric @Srt4eric has volunteered to take the lead on organizing this for the club on the day of.

We are also able to sell entry tickets to BAR members at a discounted rate of $4 for all-day Saturday. It is currently $8 if you buy online and $15 at the door. The organizers haven’t told me if we can sell Friday VIP tickets yet, so assume not unless we say otherwise here. For these discounted tickets and also volunteers I need to give them a list on Thursday so you need to sign up by then. I’ll start another thread about buying the discounted tickets:

 
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Are you sure I am a good choice for a volunteer? I have only just joined the club. I would be willing, but I have no idea what is involved. If I could hold a backup post with an experienced member, I would be willing to step in.
In years past there have been things to know and do, but this time is just to be friendly and let passers-by know about BAR. When I was new to the club I did it along with other more seasoned members and it was fun.
 
In years past there have been things to know and do, but this time is just to be friendly and let passers-by know about BAR. When I was new to the club I did it along with other more seasoned members and it was fun.

As I said, if I could share a slot with an experienced member, I am willing.

Are we going to have a tank to share frags? I have a few that do not seem to interest anyone here so far.
 
As I said, if I could share a slot with an experienced member, I am willing.

Are we going to have a tank to share frags? I have a few that do not seem to interest anyone here so far.
It’s certainly something we’ve talked about in the past, but requires a lot of effort and coordination that hasn’t been volunteered. And we are on extra-short notice this time. If our simple plan this time goes well we can certainly look at options for next time. They do this 3 times a year.
 
I can do 3 to 5pm. Do we still have materials...cards and flyers? Free entrance for volunteers right?
Yes, free entrance for volunteers.

I’m not sure if we still have materials to hand out. @Srt4eric now has whatever we have. We had some old material but went through and thinned out the older “stuff”.
 
Let me check with the boss and get back to you tomorrow...

It may be nice if we had some standard /general club info to discuss with potential future members and would assist with newer members to feel comfortable manning the table:
How many active members do we have?
What regions we cover? (SF, East bay, Gilroy...etc)
Cost & Member benefits? (DBTC, frag swaps, tours, contests, events, equipment)
 
Let me check with the boss and get back to you tomorrow...

It may be nice if we had some standard /general club info to discuss with potential future members and would assist with newer members to feel comfortable manning the table:
How many active members do we have?
What regions we cover? (SF, East bay, Gilroy...etc)
Cost & Member benefits? (DBTC, frag swaps, tours, contests, events, equipment)
We might even have a list of future events you might be privy to if you volunteer... lol
 
Let me check with the boss and get back to you tomorrow...

It may be nice if we had some standard /general club info to discuss with potential future members and would assist with newer members to feel comfortable manning the table:
How many active members do we have?
What regions we cover? (SF, East bay, Gilroy...etc)
Cost & Member benefits? (DBTC, frag swaps, tours, contests, events, equipment)
This definitely would be useful info to know, I guess I assumed it’s the sort of thing you learn after having been in the club but of course it is useful to spell it out for newer members.

First off, this is NOT a high pressure sales thing. It is literally just making it so people who are already reefing and might be interested in the club hear about us. Or maybe hear again about us. We want folks to be in the club because they like it, not because we sold them on it. We are not at all hurting for members or worried about membership, we just want have some outreach and to be welcoming. So no pressure for anyone here!

To answer some of your questions-
# of active members: 241 today :)
Regions we cover: The greater Bay Area; we don’t exclude people and we have plenty of members on what might be considered the outskirts.
Cost: $30/year
Benefits:
- Local community of like-minded hobbyists. Great advice, or at least commiseration :)
- Frag swaps approximately twice a year where you can get (and share) basically as much coral as you want at no cost.
- Periodic other events including social gatherings, behind the scenes public aquaria tours, talks from experts, workshops for example to learn how to frag/dip or make your own fish food, and others (Liz will be announcing a pretty awesome tentative lineup soon).
- Access to our DBTC program which is a remarkable system of sharing corals with friends while banking them for yourself at no cost.
- Free borrowing of club equipment including 4 PAR meters, multiple band saws for fragging coral, multiple set of suction cups for tank moves, CO2 meter, calibration thermometer, fish trap.
- Access to our Buy/Sell/Trade forum and where there are pretty amazing deals to be had, and to Pay it Forward, where people often and very generously give away livestock, tanks, and hardware to other members.
- Opportunity to hopefully advance the hobby we all love by being part of and having a say in one of the largest and most influential groups of hobbyists in the hobby.

There is an older post that discusses the benefits of membership further here (linked to from the homepage):
 
I can do 10-11am Saturday
Ken
In discussing more with the organizer today, the Sat session starts at 11a not 10a (it said both on his site). I changed it above earlier today and also told Steve about it.

Can you do 11-12?
 
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