True Frag Swap

[Tazmaniancowboy]

It seems like a lot of posts here are trying to re-invent the wheel! We as a club discussed this before the April event and the BOD Discussed it at length to come up with what we ran at the April event. We can search for that thread, but I fear it may have been lost in "the crash" Anyway, I heard MANY praises and I don't think I heard a single negative. The one thing we should improve on is the pick time. it seemed to be long and drawn out, but the video Ricwilli posted went even longer

As far as Nates suggestion, that is how we did it. You are limited to 3 donations and that gets you 3 picks...2 for 2 and 1 for 1. I don't know how they did it in NY, but outside donations would throw it off, especially since there is no ticket buying....you leave with the number you bring and there are no leftovers.

One thing we also did was to ask people not to bring "WEEDS" (I think kenya, xenia, gsp was among the few we banned, but xenia slipped in somehow!)

One thing mentioned that we (BOD) discussed already was the RANDOM delivery to a person opposed to picking themself. We felt that the "pot luck" was in the draw and that when a person picked the frag would have a better survival, meaning if someone is not into SPS or can not support SPS, they would not be forced to take it and worry about trading.

One Idea that was never discussed, but I just thought to throw out there is that maybe we have a "frag registration period" thread on here with a deadline to enter of say 2 days prior. We could then list the frags on a spreadsheet and have the frags numbered accordingly. This spreadsheet could be projected on the screen and we could make paper copies for each contributor or table. This would give everyone the opportunity to have an idea of their picks and even cross out the picked ones to keep up if you know what I mean. This would also eliminate the "weeds" and would also allow each frag to have a proper name, instead of the chaotic check-in last year where we labeled most and the names came off!

All I can think of right now

 

[mnat]

Unfortunately the april event got wiped with the site crash but I will give a refresher to how we ran the frag lotto then. I fully intend on having the same thing this year but if we want to tweak it then so be it.

Rules of the frag lotto (I am pulling these from memory so if I am a bit off don't yell at me):
Each coral you put into the lotto you get a ticket for, I think the max was three
No multiple frags of each (In other words don't throw in three kenya trees and think you are getting three tickets)
Only put in frags you would want to get, in other words no GSP or kenya tree and no booger frags (i.e. sexy corals size)
When your ticket is called you come up and pick a coral, and we did try and keep it short.
Goes on until all the coral or gone or until howze has three tickets left.

I think we could make it quicker by having them numbered and on a spreadsheet but again logistics. Each frag would have to be numbered legibly and logged and then have a print out. Also, if something is mislabeled or misnamed someone could get upset. Also, this would not guarantee quickness as some people might stare at the list for as long as they look at the coral and could go back and forth multiple times before their selection. Maybe and egg timer would have to be used to keep time.

We are open to suggestions for the frag lotto. I have also seen the idea thrown around of a true frag swap where it is much more low key and just fellow reefers. No sponsors, just reefer to reefer selling/trading. Again, we just need the time and resources to throw something like this together.

 

[ricwilli]

Unfortunately I was not able to attend the frag lotto on April of last year. Now that you've mentioned it, I'm starting to remember you guys talking about it, last year.
Please, like Taz stated; "lets not try to re-invent the wheel". For me, the way NY did it was good enough. All corals put together and 30 sec to choose. Remember we are swapping corals. You have to attend this thing with a mind-set that you might not get what you want. NY took four hours to finish. This is as long as one the meetings that we have every month. We can pick one of the months that have no scheduled meeting.
I also agree that we should not have any GSP or Kenya trees. Another thing. No sponsors. We are swapping. The only thing sponsors want to swap is frags for money. lol. (Please do not take that line out of context. Everyone should know what I mean).

I'm willing to help. I will give it my best with the busy schedule that I have.

Oh, does anyone have any pics of last years frag lotto?

 

[mnat]

I have some pictures that were posted and then lost. I still have them in photobucket and will have to see if I can pull them tonight.

 

[Jcurry@wesketch]

from NY REEF club swap:

Each frag that is brought to the frag approval table must be clearly labeled on the bottom side of the specimen container.

The frag label should include

· Frag name such as “ORA Ice Fire”.

· If the corals’ common hobby name is not known, you may simply use the colors the coral presents and coral type (i.e. red/green/pink zoas).

· Classification – LPS, SPS or Softy

· Your name

· All frags must be cut and healed to pass the frag approval, to ensure survivability.

· Kenya Tree, Toadstool, Pulsing Xenia, Clove Polyps and Button Polyps are not permitted in the swap due to the sheer abundance and vast availability of the aforementioned corals.

True Swap 2012 Procedures

·The frags will be placed in the same specimen containers.

· All the containers will placed on a table surrounded by heat pads and monitored for its temperature and be available for viewing by the participants.

· The swap will be conducted in rounds, with the order determined from names drawn randomly.

· In the first round each participant will have 30 seconds to select one frag.

· The second round will be 20 seconds, the 3rd 15 seconds with two participants and so on.

· All the containers will be mixed around randomly like dominos after each selection.

*After each round is complete, we encourage members to trade with each other. Besides satisfaction it is also well known that not everyone will have a suitable tank/equipment for the type of coral they choose (i.e. SPS frags).



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