Club Forum

[pogodzib]

Hi All,

I was wondering what you think of the club forum being here on TRT. Should we remain here or move to another site that has more activity, esp. now that TCMAS doesn't have their members visiting this site much anymore and the Rochester & Eau Claire clubs have become pretty much non-existent? If we want to consider changing sites, I would prefer to stay away from RC since I tried several times in the past couple years to get the WWRC forum switched over the LARK, but the staff over there are slow and always want to pass you on to somebody else, if they even respond. The site I have been thinking about is Reef Builders (http://www.reefbuilders.com). If we do move someplace else, I'd suggest leaving this club forum active here so we have another source for info and meeting new locals.

[schneijt]

Honestly, it doesn't matter much to me. Maybe others have a strong opinion either way?

-Joe

[Jrmass]

It wouldn't matter to me either as I don't typically read the topics other than here on our own forum. So, it's not like I have a tie to the site other than the rest of you all.

Jason

[carym]

I kind of like it here, I just checked out Reefbuilders and granted it looks like a nice site, but not a lot of activity, I didn't look that close though. I guess my vote would be either stay here or have our own site. Even if we move that doesn't mean that the other around us would be on the same site, as TCMAS has their own site, just like Madison. I do like it here as far a other posts, I do follow some of the others especially when they are related to a problem that I am having or have had.

If we do move I would also not want to go to RC.

Cary

[Kyuss]

I like it here and even if we moved I would continue visiting TRT, the attitude is much more about helping one another rather than flaming and copping an attitude. RC is horrible imho. I have been visiting reefbuilders for over a year also and it seems to be pretty good.

[hansmatt]

I'm pretty easy. I pretty much use our group for dialog, but not much else in the site. I don't mind RC...but I am also pretty wary of some of the attitude that some people have (though like anywhere, there are not too many bad apples, though they sure suck!) I will go with whatever others like if they have strong feelings.
matt

[Sndwave80]

I like TRT but that is because it seems like a lot of good people here. We could always post on both sites and expand our resources.

[Jrmass]

Otherwise how does TCMAS and MARS run their site? Did they buy the rights to it or how did they go about it? I know it wouldn't be possible for our club to go this route now as we as a club do not have any club funds to use towards this... But, would this be a potential long-term goal? Just wondering what everyone thought of this.

Jason

[pogodzib]

It looks like we're going to stay here. I do really like the attitude on this site compared to most of the other reef sites out there. I just thought that I'd put it out there. There are probably about double as many posts on RB per day as there are here, but there are a few people over there with an attitude. I won't even talk about RC as any site where you can't get do a search without paying really limits how easily you can get good information.

I'm not sure how TCMAS does their website, but there are plenty of places out there that host websites for free. The problems with having a our own club website is having someone that can take the time to update it continuously and it may be tougher for other locals to find us on the web.

[mtfatwork]

When you look at operating costs, you have to have a good sized club in order to absorb the cost of the website. You can go NPO, but once again, you need to have a decent sized club. You can get some free web hosting, but the bandwith needed, and vbulletin updates and such, you are not going to find that for free. Your best bet is to stay planted here. If you wanna hang out on another site, ya'll can always come visit us

[Afish4u]

Eau Claire clubs have become pretty much non-existent WHAT BRIAN.. Oh yeah but I'm not getting into that.

[schneijt]

I wouldn't say we've become "non-existent" so much as we've just sort of been doing all of our posting on the LARK forum... :-)

-Joe

[hansmatt]

though it is too bad the EC group doesn't have as much activity online, it is certainly good for everyone to have one board that even more people post on. I, for one, am glad to hear from everyone I've met (or not) from the surrounding area. I'm glad to have everyone's participation here!
Matt

[pogodzib]

When I originally began, I had to go the Dells, Madison, Rochester, Eau Claire, ... to meet up with people since I didn't know anyone locally. Then, the EC club got started and I was going to most of their meetings. Thankfully we have a nice sized club now and things are going great, IMO. I think the EC club has some of the same issues as the Rochester club right now. There are 2-3 other clubs within 1-1 1/2 hours that are doing good so people can go there and other members have become inactive or moved. I would love for someone up in Eau Claire to host a ECRC meeting up their sometime. I know that I'd try to make it up and people like Chris that live in BRF would probably try to attend as well.

BTW - Sorry if I've offended anyone with saying the ECRC has become "non-existent". I know that Chuck put in a great deal of time into the club and was going a great job and things were doing great until people started getting to busy with other things and a few of their members are still active on this board and attend our meetings. Chuck and some other fellow ECRC members helped give me the little push needed to get LARK going. What I was thinking of is that at the time of LARK's creation, Rochester, TCMAS, and EC all had strong reef clubs and their club forum was on this board so it was the obvious place to have our forum so we could easily meet up with other clubs and they could see what we were up to. Since that time, the ECRC and RMMAC forums haven't been very busy and TCMAS created their own website.

[pogodzib]

FYI - Regarding having our own web page as some point in the future, the creator of reef builders was searching through TRT and saw this post and offered to create a webpage for us like the New England Reef Aquarium site. http://www.newengland.reefbuilders.com/

I don't know that our club is really large enough to have a site like that though.