cortez marine":1qlm2px2 said:
Jim,
I sure don't remember you guys being so eager to contribute at all.
If you were....why not still be then?
At one single meeting over a year agowe discussed this and never again.
And to be fair, that's really your fault. You asked to come to a BOD meeting after posting on the club forum* and to tell the club about Les and how much money you were looking for and what that money was to be used for. You didn't even talk about Les despite being asked point blank several times. You talked about how NGO's had messed up in the past despite the fact that you had already given your talk to the club. We all knew your story already, told you so, but you told us again anyway without one word about Les or how we could help. We may have seemed like we weren't eager to contribute because you never told us about something we could contribute to even though that was what you were supposed to be talking about. At the end of the meeting you were asked to send us something in writing about what we could contribute to, and that never happened.
Is the club still eager to contribute? Depends. What are we contributing to?
You took off for Tonga, there were BOD elections and I thought BAR was far more passionate about frag swaps then serious reform.
The meeting was in May 2005. And even when Jim went to Tonga in November 2005 the rest of the club was still around.
Gresham followed up w/ the quiery to Les Village which was the place where a few thousand could make the most immediate impact. That was where I wanted the contribution to go.
Les didn't respond which surprised me and its a shame.
It would have been nice if we had been told that. Instead, we heard about it via the rumor mill.
I do know that they have gone thru a lot of turmoil this past year and you guys should take that into account.
What does that mean? How should we take it into account?
Ruwi stepped down as Les director and his second doesn't communicate well or often. Since you wrote them off [ and me as well] from a single effort one might question your commitment as well.
You contacted us and then didn't tell us anything that we could take to the club membership for buy in for donations. And you were talked to about it, several times and you told me that it would be great if the club donated, but never told us what we should donate to. You said that you would let us know. You never did.
You guys may have let me in on the need to contribute a little more clearly and especially after Les didn't answer.
Need to contribute? You came to us asking us to contribute. I know I told you point blank we could come up with money and that we prolly could group more clubs together to come up with more money and that the online forums would prolly get behind it too - we just needed something to show people they were giving money to. You and I and others talked online and in person for hours both after and before the meeting about how the net fund had tanked and that people were a little gun shy of just giving money and would need something more than someone's word and that you had that something. To claim you didn't know we wanted to contribute is either disingenuous or you simply didn't hear what people said to you. I think it is the latter because I think you are so focused on what YOU think that what others say sometimes doesn't get in.
I have talked to you all since and you don't ever bring it up.
That is simply not true.
I thought it was you who didn't care that much and I never pressured you again.
You never pressured us in the first place.
Now you suddenly front-load it again?....fine.
Who is front loading it? This is a discussion and it came up.
Do you still want to help somewhere?
On what scale?
Since you are not into the training thing that I do, you need to develop more of your own ways to contribute and not blame my agenda for the lack of your own.
You guys could also lead and generate initiatives as well. Why don't you?
What have you done since our non-connection?
What have we done? Organized the largest reef club in the Bay Area into a group focused on propagating corals. Distributed several thousand home grown corals to members as well as information on how to keep them healthy. Hosted talks by Steve Tyree about how to successfully coral farm, meetings by CORL about conversation, meetings about how to slow the spread of coral parasites. Negotiated a program to get captive raised coral to the Stienhardt Aquarium for their new giant exhibit opening in 2008. Worked with a sister club in PI. The club has done a lot.
I don't understand why you are now saying that we are not 'into the training thing that you do'. We really are into the training, but you know we can throw money at something that has no structure. We haven't given to MAC in the past primarily due to what you have said about them - perhaps it is time to reexamine that position.
We are still looking for other ideas to contribute to.
Many of your surprising [ to me] concerns could easily be handled in pms or in person as we're all here in the Bay area....
I know I talked to you about it on three occasions all of which yielded no fruit. As a club BOD member, it seemed the best use of time to pursue other projects. Then we started hearing how Les was doing terrible business, so we stopped thinking about it.
*This is what you posted on April 29, 2005
he demand side of this thing has always been the problem.
It appears that John Tullock was right when he said that for every 100 hobbyists who care, only 2-3 will ACT on it.
I have found that to be true with retailers and dealers as well.
The dis-connect between stated philosophy and actual behavior is amazing.
Earth Day just came and went and was hardly noticed.
Every ones FOR clean air, water, rainforests, coral reefs etc. but its is exceptional if one actually alters consumer behavior based on claimed philosophy. This fact keeps me from giving the knee-jerk recipe for "action" but I must agree that I am impressed with something about the BAR group.
I think that a single hobby group with the right gumption and attention span can make a serious difference.
In a small model, you could sponsor the genuine package of the right netting materials to a village for example and show how the mega groups should have done it.
A netting fund with both barrier netting and hand netting can outfit one village after another.
You could 'ADOPT' a village and make it into a shining example.
Such village exist in several areas that would love to have the right stuff but can never get it from MAC or the so-called certified dealers.
A bit more investment could make a genuine training project happen on video which would futher show how its done.
A successful grant proposal sponsored by the club would make the club a big player immediately. Grants are raised on bogus things all the time yet here is an opportunity to do one for maximum mileage for the money as there is no top-heavy administration to grab it all for themselves, as is usualy the case.
These are just a few ideas...that come to mind at the moment.
