1st QTR. MAAST BOD MEETING

[leliataylor]

Marine Aquarists Association of South Texas

1st QTR. MAAST BOD MEETING
JANUARY 31,2016
AGENDA/ GOALS OUTLINE/ Minutes

PLACE: Coral Cove
TIME: 12-1:45 PM

[leliataylor]

ATTENDANCE:
Present: Zack, Justin, Sherri, Mike, Rob, Cheryl
Absent: None

CALL MEETING TO ORDER 12:11 and 2nd by Justin
I. SECRETARY Appointment
Cheryl Taylor has been appointed Secretary by Zack & Justin.

2. TREASURER Appointment.
Sherri appointed as treasurer. Proposed by Justin and 2nd by Zach.

A. SECRETARY TO READ MINUTES FROM PREVIOUS OFFICIAL BOD MEETING
1. OLD BUSINESS
Clarification vote for changes made to table fees for the swaps. 5-2 in favor of: Keep free charter
perk for those who identify as hobbyists, 30 day limit for the table fee to be applied towards a
new sponsorship.
The BOD clarified limit on table and only free to hobbyists.

I. Finances as of 1/31/16
o Checking: $1,918.46
o Savings: $2,847.32
o Paypal: $612.29
o CD: $6,887.03
o Total: $12,265.10

[leliataylor]

III. COMMITTEES
A. BYLAWS/ TOU (ALL BOD TO INCLUDE OFFICERS)
1. PER ARTICLEVIII THESE BYLAWS SHALL BE REVIEWED AT A
MINIMUM INTERVAL OF 3 YEARS OR WHEN
DEEMED NECESSARY BY THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS
a. THIS IS STILL A PRIORITY. When do we think would be the
best time to work on this?

BOD will conduct a Prelimnary review in April to first review the BOD and TOU. BOD will meet in August to discuss for 2nd Formal Meeting to finalize BOD and TOU. BOD will finalize any changes in November.


B. MEETINGS (Zack)
1. Meeting Finances:
In our Quarter 3 board meeting, we voted to have a maximum
budget of $150 for meetings held at members houses. It is my
opinion that this should also apply to any non-sponsor meetings.
I believe a $175-$200 maximum budget for sponsor meetings
(not to include door prizes/ giveaways donated by the sponsor
for dues or towards the meeting) should be applied to our future
meetings.

2. COVER SCHEDULED FUTURE MEETINGS/ EVENTS

JANUARY 31ST, 12-4PM Quarter 1 Board Meeting & Hands on
Food Making Demo @Coral Cove

FEBUARY 28th, 2-4PM Store Showcase & Tank of the Year winners
Announced @South Seas Aquatics

MARCH 27th Tank Tour from 12-4PM (need to find tanks still).
Proposed looking for tanks in the area of Marbach and 1604.

APRIL 10th LED Showcase from 2-4PM @Salty Fish Aquariums.
Possible LED door prize.

MAY 1st Quarter 2 Board meeting from 10-12

LMAR Frag Swap from 12-4PM @San Antonio Aquarium

JUNE 26th TBD.
Proposed Kid’s event to go see “Finding Dory” at Alamo Drafthouse on a Sunday afternoon for Matinee pricing.

JULY 31st Sherita’s Acrylic Demo from 2-4PM (Possibly at Alton’s
Workplace)

AUGUST 28th Quarter 3 Board meeting from 12-2 at
Whataburger across the street from Polly’s Pets
Regular Meeting from 2-4PM @ Polly’s Pets, Topic TBD.
BOD meeting changed to Bill Millers down the road from Polly's.


SEPTEMBER 25th @Coral Cove,w/ Topic TBD.
Tentative topic plumbing. Discussion was around possibly offering an M1 or some other plumbing related item as a prize

OCTOBER (16th) Location & Topic TBD and date can be changed.

NOVEMBER 6th Quarter 4 Board Meeting from 10-12
LMAR Frag Swap from 12-4PM

DECEMBER 4th Holiday Social, Location TBD, Possible option was to rent a room for the social at SeaWorld.
Possible topics: Documentary Viewing, Plumbing meeting
(Coral Cove may take this one), Ihop sit and talk/pancake
dinner, clownfish breeding, seahorse care/ breeding etc…
Let’s fill out this calendar with topics and I can then find
locations.

[leliataylor]

2. May Frag Swap:
The post for this will be going up very soon. Due to the
numerous cancellations we had with an open enrollment at
both our March 2015 swap (5) and LMAR (12), I will be
moving the initial vendor signups to invite only. This list will
include each vendor who was present at both our last swap
and those present at the recent SAOSA event.

In addition to invites, we also need to confirm our table
fees.

Should we keep these at $25?

Lastly, in 2015 we budgeted $1300 towards raffle items. I
would like to open discussion online about continuing this
amount with the possibility of increasing it to $1500. The
raffles would take place during our May & November swaps
and would be charter member only.

C. SPONSORSHIP (ZACK)
1. DISCUSS MONTHLY GOAL
2. MAINTAIN RELATIONSHIPS WITH THE SPONSORS
3. KEEP A STEADY FLOW OF DONATED GIFT CARDS AND ITEMS
FLOWING INTO THE CLUB TO PASS OUT TO
OUR MEMBERS THROUGH DOOR PRIZES AND RAFFLES WHICH
COMPLIMENT THE MEETING TOPICS
4. KEEP UP WITH SPONSORSHIP RENEWAL DATES AS TO NOT
LET THOSE DATES LAPSE.
5. Ask Robert to teach us how to operate the sponsor area,
including: removal of sub-forums and creating of new
subforums.

D. NEWSLETTER (CLOSED)

E. MARKETING (JUSTIN)
1. Lets set a budget for marketing within the next few weeks.

2. MONTHLY / REST OF THE YEAR NEW CHARTER AND WEB
MEMBER GOALS

Goal is roughly 12-15 new Charter Members a month

3. MAAST MERCHANDISING
VERY SUCCESSFUL, at the last SA event, well over a dozen
members had MAAST coolers and many non-members/members
were asking about them.

4. Reef Hobbyist Magazine.
They have agreed to carry the MAAST logo and advertise the Swaps in their magazines.

Discussion around using new updated High Res. Images for the creation of wind banners, table top covers and Banners.
Motion for a vote to update MAAST Logo to that of the new High Res. Image, 2nd by Rob
MOTION TO REPLACE MAAST LOGO (JUSTIN) Current logo can not be used on a 36” banner which would be used at events like LMAR.
Yes: 6 Votes
No: 0 Votes
Abstain: 0 Votes

F. EDUCATIONAL (TBD)
1. NEW HOBBYIST FORUM
a. POST MORE DISCUSSION THREADS IN HERE

G. TANK OF THE QUARTER (ROB)
1. Let’s get the poll up and running, also, we can ask Robert to
pin this to our home page.

Proposed that only TOTY receives a prize.

H. PHOTO OF THE MONTH (MIKE)
1. HOW CAN WE GAIN MORE INTEREST IN THIS? It costs us
about $30 to run this contest with the last few gaining almost no
entries.

Discussion came up about using each meeting theme as the theme for the Photo of the month. Discussion also centered around trying to gain more “buzz” for this contest. Talked about possibly having a grand prize for Photo of the Year winner getting a GC. Only winners of Photos of the Month would be eligible; similar to TOTQ rules

G. CONTESTS (TBD)
1. What should we do for this years contest? Last years CGOC did
not have a lot of people finish the contest and had a hard time
getting people to post. Should we do a different kind of contest?
Some I’ve seen in other groups are fantasy football league or
weight loss challenge in addition to aquarium based challenges
i.e. pico challenge/ CGOC.

It’s such a huge commitment from the club to order these frags,
have them shipped, distributed, then keep on top of everyone to
post their updates and final updates that I feel we may need to
look into other alternatives to generate interest.

Considering none aquarium related contests.
Considering none aquarium related contests. Discussion around creating a “Fat *******” contest for MAAST members to participate in to lose weight. Possible 5k running group consisting of MAAST member. Discussion was around opening up contest to benefit the group and gain more participation and grow the group dynamic



IV. ANY FURTHER BUSINESS

A. Moderation
1. Alton and his team of moderators are the only individuals who
are allowed to post in the moderator forum and move offending
threads. This does not include ‘flagging’ a post nor moving posts
for administrative things such as POTM/ forum maintenance etc.
In addition, the moderation team’s size and recruitment/ removal
of moderators will be handled by Alton.

V. MOTION TO CLOSE THE MEETING
BOD Motion: End Meeting: 2nd Justin
Ended at 1:00 PM

[Zack]

Thank you for posting this Cheryl! We appreciate you taking the time to do this :)

[leliataylor]

Thank you Zack, however I could not have done it without Justin. He is so much better at this than I am and his notes were so thorough compared to mine. Now I have to figure out how to post this with BOLD and colored text. It looks great in PDF, however it does not want to transfer that format to MAAST.

[Justin]

It looks good Cheryl. Sorry I couldn't answer some of your questions, I was out of town for work this week.