Better late than never. Back in February, the GWAPA board members got together at Aaron's house to discuss the upcoming year. Below is a summary of what was discussed at that meeting:
Hosts
February 25th – Jamie - Crofton, MD – Aquascaping Techniques
March 25th - Cristy - Laurel, MD - TBD
April 22nd - Kris - Columbia, MD – Plumbing and Sumps by Sean Murphy
May 27th - Ghazanfar - Brambleton, VA – Vivarium talk
June 24th - Ivo Busko - Cockeysville, MD – Pond/Lights
July 29th - Francine - Bowie, MD – Apisto Breeding Talk
August 26th - Robert - Braddock Heights, MD - TBD
September 23rd - Aaron - Dayton, MD - TBD
October 28th – TBD
November/December (Dec. 2nd) - TBD
Workshops:
Scales – November timeframe
House of Tropicals – TBD
Tropical Fish World – TBD – Sean’s checking into
Fins/Feathers – TBD
Possible Field Trips:
Baltimore aquarium
Zoo Amazon Exhibit – Kris is waiting to hear back from volunteer president
Bay Snorkeling
Vendors:
We require a discount or some form of similar arrangement. In exchange we setup a forum category. The vendor account only has access to post in that forum, unless they purchase a regular membership.
Other:
Membership Cards – Sean’s wife is working on them.
Cafepress.com – Kris will upload logo to create shirts.
Poster for store displays – Cristy is going to send Kris info on various poster printing websites.
Mini-tank aquascaping contest – Aaron is looking into cost of tanks.
Sean is contacting Wilma about having her talk.
Detailed Notes from Aaron Parker, Secretary
7:45pm—7:50
We talked about the budget for GWAPA and found we are doing well. With the money we have, we do not need to send any tax papers to the IRS for last year. Right now we have a good sum of money in the pot and the budget is stable.
7:50pm-7:55pm
We next talked about people that wanted to host meeting for the upcoming year. At the time of this meeting there was still a vacancy for the month of March. We have also noticed that we are not getting many people from Virginia to our meetings as well as meetings being held in Virginia.
7:55pm-8:00pm
We talked about meetings in relation to possible field trip. Supposedly AGA is happening this year in San Francisco but that is not definite yet.
8:00pm-8:07pm
We talked about workshops and received an update on Andrew’s shop in Laurel. It will be several more months until the opening of his shop. There were three possible places we are considering about doing a workshop this year: House of Tropicals, Tropical Fish World and Fins and Feathers. Right now these are just speculations.
8:07pm-8:30pm
We talked about different topics that we could have at our meetings. Here are some ides that were brought up: Ponds-Discuss lighting and what the different types are, One meeting with Q&A for anyone that would like to ask questions and get answers from a person who is knowledgeable in that expertise, Talk on Apistograma.
We also talked about maybe having a plant contest within GWAPA in which the contest would be to create an Aquatic Plant Environment in a 12x12x12 tank. This also included discussing about our trip to the National Zoo and maybe a trip to the National Aquarium in Baltimore.
8:30pm-8:40pm
Talked about group orders for the group. As of this date everyone is paid up with the snail shipment and that there will be a Crypt order in the spring. We might have an order of Amano Shrimp or hard to find snails from our friend Andy in Germany.
8:40pm-8:44pm
Talked about producing Baseball caps and T-Shirts for GWAPA
8:44pm-8:53pm
We discussed the Bylaws of GWAPA as well as ideas to include Venders into our forum. For GWAPA to include Venders in our forum we set up some guidelines with which they should follow. They could post on our website in their own forum at no charge. One item that was brought up was whether to require venders to have a discount for GWAPA members. Also discussed was maybe to sponsor a fish class for PVAS by talking about plants at their next convention.
8:44pm-8:57pm
Discussed that we lost some members last year and their still being a problem with members not knowing when their membership expired. There was also talk when new membership cards were going to be handed out.
8:57pm-9:15pm
The following is a recap of what happened at the board meeting with more detail in what will be looked into until our next board meeting.
Recap on meeting
-Poster about GWAPA – to hang in Scales
-sean will talk to Wilma about an invertebrates talk
-Talked about field trips
-Zoo and Baltimore Aquarium
-Wood collecting Trip
-Group orders
-Aaron T. Will look into tank costs and update bylaws
-Workshops and setting them up
-at Scales to be done later in year
-Fins and Feathers needs to be called
-House of Tropical -also needs to be contacted
).
The fish tanks and kids take up SO much time! I'm in the processing of cleaning up the fish room enough so that I can set up a table to work on. I have pumpkins to carve for Hallowe'en and gourds to carve for friends 