Greetings Everyone! hope all is well and your tanks are thriving, As we are rounding down the month and coming up on the Annual Club elections there have been a lot of posts from the members commenting on a bunch of different things pertaining to the club as a whole, its membership, its vendors, and its influence on our states Reef Keeping Community. I wanted to take a moment to touch base on these topics and kinda polish up on a previous post regarding my reasons for wanting to be on the Board of Directors, but not only that discuss a little bit about whats going on in the club currently and what i'd like to see our club become in the future. Kinda think of it like a vision for the club
First before I talk about myself id like to bring up our clubs Mission Statement, I am not sure how many of you are aware of what a mission statement is, why its important for a club to have one, or if you do know what a mission statement is where you aware of what the mission statement of our club is?
Our Mission Statement :
"New Jersey Reefers Club is a non-profit educational society dedicated to the conservation of our ocean reefs. Through an open exchange of ideas and information we are able to expand our knowledge and ability to care for the inhabitants of our aquarium systems. By encouraging propagation we help to reduce the demand for wild caught specimens and do our part to encourage conservation and preservation of our natural reefs."
In a Nut Shell a mission statement is a the Purpose,Goal, or Core beliefs of an organization. As seen above our's is the exchange of ideas and information, expand the knowledge, and to encourage conservation by means of educations and propagation of ECO friendly Sourced coral. (i polished it up alittle for easier translation)
Pretty Awesome Mission ain't it? Basically just by being a part of this club your not only bettering your self you are helping others and being apart of something that not only makes our hobby great but has a potential to influence the world around us! That's what this Club is about, we are a community of Reef nuts that love what we do and just want to make it better for everyone!
I found this club right when i first took the leap into this hobby from fresh water to salt and set up my first ever salt water tank. New to the Hobby but not new to the concept i wanted to make sure i wasn't out of my depth (no pun intended) and began researching every aspect of the Salt water Aquarium keeping when i began to notice a common topic "REEF CLUBS" every where i looked someone was recommending joining a local aquarium or reef club so i took there advice hoped onto the Google bOx and searched reef clubs in New Jersey and google spit out at me NJ Reefers Club not gonna lie at first the clubs name made me assume that this was a cannabis club but only for a minute, After i clicked the link and read threw a few threads I immediately knew this was the place for me.
Back when i first joined i had hesitations because i had seen on alot of forum boards when people ask questions or post about something they did some armchair hero would basically bash them and make them feel stupid or unwanted and eventually they would leave. Not wanting to be the target of some closed minded troll in the begging i was cautious with every post but eventually I learned that i was welcomed with open arms by the clubs members and my questions would be treated with respect thats what i loved .. This club is a place were the people seem to genuinely want to help each other and more so treated me and others like close friends even though we had never meet.
Being a part of this club for awhile now i want to give back just as much as it has given to me. i have not a doubt in my mind that with out this club that i would most likely never come as far as i have in this hobby. I read the forums regularly so much that my wife has to remind me that she requires just as much maintenance as my tank. One of the common things i see on the forums from members especially new members is questions about what the club has to offer :frag swaps, member benifits, discounts at vendor ect.. and one of the common responses i see from older members is "we used to do that or we are working on bringing that back" Unfortunately idk what happened or when it happened during our clubs history that these things died down but i have been able to read older posts and see that these were regular parts of our club at one point and i want to help bring that back. These things arent necessary for the club but over all they do make the club more fun, and what makes the club more fun retains members and keeps them active as well as attracts new members which only expands our group and our resources.
Another Aspect currently on the forums is issues with Vendors, now it is important for the club to have a good relationship with our vendors because good relationships lead to sponsors and potential perks for our members such as discounts on purchases for paid club members. But on another aspect the vendors we advertise should be held to high standards and issues members have should be looked into and considered because since we make up a good portion of the community and even outsiders come to us for tips and help we wouldn't want to recommend a vendor or advertise for a vendor that makes are hobby look bad, or has bad business ethics. A way we can improve our hobby is to help improve our resources such as vendors, by developing strong relationships with them so when issues arise we can find mutual solutions, solve problems and make it better. Just flat out bashing a vendor with out giving any real explanation of issues or any ideas of how your experience could have been better just does not help... its easy to be negative and point out problems but it takes alittle more effort to come up with solutions.
When you bash with out constructive feed back it does two things... One if the vendor see's that they think less highly of the club as a whole and be less likely to continue any relation with the club so basically it keeps our members from having a potential future perk and two others who read about it wont know what the issue is so they may decide to look else where for something that the vendor may actually be very helpful with. basically you just kinda ruin it for every one... But i am not saying you cant have an opinion or a bad experience its going to happen its life.. How ever if you use constructive criticism for example say i had a bad experience at ___ Vendor because of a customer service, the vendor might see this and wanting to keep on good terms with the club work to fix this problem. I have experienced this first hand, it works and it helps improve our vendors, there are very few of them and wouldn't be nice if we can make them all great?
I know this post was long and i apologies for that but i got one last thing to speak about and a small wrap up so please bare with me. Remember in the begging of this post when i said i was reluctant to post because of negative feed back.. or people basically just being rude? well saddly i have seen alittle of that on here recently. I have heard from others who have told me they basically keep off the forums a lot more lately because of some people that like to post negativity or are closed minded, i have also experienced some of this but try to put it off because .. not every one on the internet is a nice person and life full of special snow flakes. To me this is a big one, we are members here because of the sense of community and friendship the help and guidance come second.. I know we wont all see eye to eye and it would be asking alot for us all to get along but if you dont have any thing nice to say dont say anything at all.. if your saying something negative with out any follow up on how it could be better .. then unfortunately your opinion doesnt count cause no one comes here for you to be rude to them and honestly no one cares.. what you dont like about them or there post. Keep the negativity to your self... Our members are family and i know alot of people on hear will feel the same way i do hearing someone say they were afraid to post cause of negative people.
Thank you all for all the support you have shown me over the last year i hope that i can earn your vote so We can continue to make this club a great place!
First before I talk about myself id like to bring up our clubs Mission Statement, I am not sure how many of you are aware of what a mission statement is, why its important for a club to have one, or if you do know what a mission statement is where you aware of what the mission statement of our club is?
Our Mission Statement :
"New Jersey Reefers Club is a non-profit educational society dedicated to the conservation of our ocean reefs. Through an open exchange of ideas and information we are able to expand our knowledge and ability to care for the inhabitants of our aquarium systems. By encouraging propagation we help to reduce the demand for wild caught specimens and do our part to encourage conservation and preservation of our natural reefs."
In a Nut Shell a mission statement is a the Purpose,Goal, or Core beliefs of an organization. As seen above our's is the exchange of ideas and information, expand the knowledge, and to encourage conservation by means of educations and propagation of ECO friendly Sourced coral. (i polished it up alittle for easier translation)
Pretty Awesome Mission ain't it? Basically just by being a part of this club your not only bettering your self you are helping others and being apart of something that not only makes our hobby great but has a potential to influence the world around us! That's what this Club is about, we are a community of Reef nuts that love what we do and just want to make it better for everyone!
I found this club right when i first took the leap into this hobby from fresh water to salt and set up my first ever salt water tank. New to the Hobby but not new to the concept i wanted to make sure i wasn't out of my depth (no pun intended) and began researching every aspect of the Salt water Aquarium keeping when i began to notice a common topic "REEF CLUBS" every where i looked someone was recommending joining a local aquarium or reef club so i took there advice hoped onto the Google bOx and searched reef clubs in New Jersey and google spit out at me NJ Reefers Club not gonna lie at first the clubs name made me assume that this was a cannabis club but only for a minute, After i clicked the link and read threw a few threads I immediately knew this was the place for me.
Back when i first joined i had hesitations because i had seen on alot of forum boards when people ask questions or post about something they did some armchair hero would basically bash them and make them feel stupid or unwanted and eventually they would leave. Not wanting to be the target of some closed minded troll in the begging i was cautious with every post but eventually I learned that i was welcomed with open arms by the clubs members and my questions would be treated with respect thats what i loved .. This club is a place were the people seem to genuinely want to help each other and more so treated me and others like close friends even though we had never meet.
Being a part of this club for awhile now i want to give back just as much as it has given to me. i have not a doubt in my mind that with out this club that i would most likely never come as far as i have in this hobby. I read the forums regularly so much that my wife has to remind me that she requires just as much maintenance as my tank. One of the common things i see on the forums from members especially new members is questions about what the club has to offer :frag swaps, member benifits, discounts at vendor ect.. and one of the common responses i see from older members is "we used to do that or we are working on bringing that back" Unfortunately idk what happened or when it happened during our clubs history that these things died down but i have been able to read older posts and see that these were regular parts of our club at one point and i want to help bring that back. These things arent necessary for the club but over all they do make the club more fun, and what makes the club more fun retains members and keeps them active as well as attracts new members which only expands our group and our resources.
Another Aspect currently on the forums is issues with Vendors, now it is important for the club to have a good relationship with our vendors because good relationships lead to sponsors and potential perks for our members such as discounts on purchases for paid club members. But on another aspect the vendors we advertise should be held to high standards and issues members have should be looked into and considered because since we make up a good portion of the community and even outsiders come to us for tips and help we wouldn't want to recommend a vendor or advertise for a vendor that makes are hobby look bad, or has bad business ethics. A way we can improve our hobby is to help improve our resources such as vendors, by developing strong relationships with them so when issues arise we can find mutual solutions, solve problems and make it better. Just flat out bashing a vendor with out giving any real explanation of issues or any ideas of how your experience could have been better just does not help... its easy to be negative and point out problems but it takes alittle more effort to come up with solutions.
When you bash with out constructive feed back it does two things... One if the vendor see's that they think less highly of the club as a whole and be less likely to continue any relation with the club so basically it keeps our members from having a potential future perk and two others who read about it wont know what the issue is so they may decide to look else where for something that the vendor may actually be very helpful with. basically you just kinda ruin it for every one... But i am not saying you cant have an opinion or a bad experience its going to happen its life.. How ever if you use constructive criticism for example say i had a bad experience at ___ Vendor because of a customer service, the vendor might see this and wanting to keep on good terms with the club work to fix this problem. I have experienced this first hand, it works and it helps improve our vendors, there are very few of them and wouldn't be nice if we can make them all great?
I know this post was long and i apologies for that but i got one last thing to speak about and a small wrap up so please bare with me. Remember in the begging of this post when i said i was reluctant to post because of negative feed back.. or people basically just being rude? well saddly i have seen alittle of that on here recently. I have heard from others who have told me they basically keep off the forums a lot more lately because of some people that like to post negativity or are closed minded, i have also experienced some of this but try to put it off because .. not every one on the internet is a nice person and life full of special snow flakes. To me this is a big one, we are members here because of the sense of community and friendship the help and guidance come second.. I know we wont all see eye to eye and it would be asking alot for us all to get along but if you dont have any thing nice to say dont say anything at all.. if your saying something negative with out any follow up on how it could be better .. then unfortunately your opinion doesnt count cause no one comes here for you to be rude to them and honestly no one cares.. what you dont like about them or there post. Keep the negativity to your self... Our members are family and i know alot of people on hear will feel the same way i do hearing someone say they were afraid to post cause of negative people.
Thank you all for all the support you have shown me over the last year i hope that i can earn your vote so We can continue to make this club a great place!
