In an effort to further our goals of attracting members and ensuring MASNA's success after our initial server move which gave us more flexibility Chuck has updated our site from the old static site to a more dynamic one which greatly includes MySQL and instant updating of new members etc.

Chuck had contacted Joe a while back stating he had gotten the banner ad program working for him along with the new access to the site. With it being only months away till MACNA in Boston Chuck was sure Joe has been busy on far greater things as he stated last month.

We have received several complaints from members that the site has not been updated and meeting times are from meetings long past. This was greatly enhanced from our postponing of the meeting to this week from last week as we had several irate members. As such Chuck decided to correct this by spending some time on the site this past weekend.

With the addition of the members pages and new members sponsors being updated on the fly this will make Joe's job of keeping the site current greatly reduced. There will only be three files that need to be maintained and changed to keep things current. That is the events.php, board.php and news.php which are all in an includes directory. Chuck will work with Joe on this matter more, but it greatly decreases the workload on our overworked Webmaster.

Our Membership Chair and Chuck are also working on creating and maintaining a new National Speaker database, which will give clubs a centralized access to get speakers. Chuck contacted all of our honorary members to ask if they would like to be listed. So far Anthony Calfo and Eric

Borneman have confirmed they wish to be added. Cheri has done some club mailing asking for speaking contacts that we may not have, so we expect to have a pretty comprehensive list. It will list the speakers name, title, email presentations, club comments and their honorarium. We expect this feature to become active within the next couple weeks.

Chuck sent out the MACNA Bid email to all current clubs inviting them to bid for a chance to host MACNA.

Chuck sent out a bit early the MASNA WEBSITE AWARD email, but hopefully this time giving them a little extra time to revamp their site will ensure more of a contest to win. The actual number of clubs that can be considered is quite small, since they do not have the proper logos displayed on their site. Lee can attest to this as he helped Chuck judge the contest last year. Hopefully this extra time can assure a better run for the awards this year.

Chuck also sent out the broadcast email to all MASNA members to vote for the MASNA Award winner where we honor the Hobbyist of the Year. Last year as you remember it was Anthony Calfo.

Chuck and Cheri have also notified all clubs that they need to choose access information for our new Members Only area on the website. So far 4 out of 23 clubs have responded with userid and password and been granted access, so this is rolling along nicely.

Chuck thinks that with 5 months left till MACNA in Boston, he has sent everything he needs to with the above emails so we should be in good shape for now.

If anyone has any more ideas on how to dazzle our membership we are encouraged to let Chuck know.

2) VP Report:

Lee has been continuing to try to initiate contact with membership to brainstorm needs/ideas about what MASNA should be for its membership.

Lee posed the following questions for the Board to think about:

1) Should we be looking to make MASNA a free membership (no dues) marine society with our overhead paid by sponsor donations? Would that increase MASNA's size and enhance membership participation?

2) Should we reevaluate MASNA's role in MACNA? Should MASNA get income from the conference, as it did in the past?

3) How can MASNA help facilitate interclub frag trading (not just the normal intraclub trading already going on)?

4) How do we help promote better marine husbandry? Should MASNA have an unsuitable species list publicly posted for its membership?

5) How about sponsoring a breeder's/fragger's award program?

3) Treasury Report:

Last Month’s Balance: $3,266.48

Monies Received Since:

$075.00 1 Corporate membership(s)

$087.50 3 Club membership(s)

$070.00 6 Individual membership(s)

$050.00 1 Overpayment

$282.50

Total Income: $282.50

Expenses:

$121.93 EMS Charges (annual $75 fee included)

$ 5.00 Am. Ex. charge

$ 10.00 Bank Monthly Service Fee

(–)$136.93

Ending Balance to

Date: $3,412.05

4) Membership Report:

Current Membership:

	2002-2003	2003-2004	Change Since 03/04	Difference From 2002-2003
Individual Members	88	58	+5	-30
Club Members	20	24	+6	+4
Corporate Members	10	10	0	0

Sent out 11 welcome/renewal thank you notes. Several back/forth eMAILs with Brandon Downard of the Razorback Reefers regarding how MASNA had helped his club get started. He provided some excellent suggestions that led to Chuck creating the password protected Member’s area of the website, with our club information within it.

5) Secretary Report:

Ø March meeting minutes were completed and were mailed to bod@masna.org on 04/11/04.

Ø Sent out a MASNA Press Release from John Brandt to all members on 3/10/04

Ø Created a spreadsheet for Marc Daniels (West Coast Tropical Marine), with each club and a unique discount code, as he requested. MASNA individual member, 10% off code is “MASNA2004” which will go in the next newsletter. I clarified with Marc that the 15% off for clubs isn’t just for group buys – he’ll honor it for individual purchases as well. He knows there is a risk that the code may get shared, but he just looks at that as “more customers.”

Ø Began sketching out the idea of creating a Speaker’s database containing the “best of the best” Club speakers from solicited information from MASNA member clubs (and with permission from the speakers themselves to be listed). These should only be the ones that have a “double thumbs up” endorsement from the club. My vision is to make it viewable (by MASNA Club members and BOD only) on the website as a nice benefit to our member clubs to share this information – even possibly a selling point for clubs joining. Our brochure says that MASNA “provides members with access to speakers.” Chuck said he’d help with the constructing the database. I think the required fields are:

Speaker First Name
Speaker Last Name
Title
Permission Granted (yes/no – allowing us to store the information while awaiting the permission. Club delegates would only have access to those that have a “Y”. Permission must be in written form, eMAIL OK)
Affiliation
eMAIL address
Address (normally blank, but just in case a speaker would rather be contacted by snail mail than eMAIL.
City (normally filled in)
State (normally filled in)
Zip code (not normally filled in – there in case)
Presentation Title 1 - 3 (allow up to 3 of these)
Comments (free text area – enough for a small paragraph. These could be comments about the speaker and/or comments from the speaker)

Cheri volunteered to put this together by polling our board first (assuming we are part of a member club) then our club delegates. She created a spreadsheet to populate the initial database from. Since the Secretary has fairly light duty, she proposes the list maintenance become part of the duties of that position.

6) Editor Report:

Rob reported that the Spring newsletter still hasn’t gone out but should this week or next.

7) Webmaster Report:

No report was made

8) MAC/USCRTF Report:

John provided the BOD with a copy of the AMDA letter written by Burton Patrick posted on Reefs.org and the MAC 1^st Quarter News report.

Call to order 9:07 PM EST

9) A motion was passed to accept last month’s meeting minutes

10) Rob reported that the spring issue of the newsletter would go out that week. He confirmed that he’d received the Drs. Foster & Smith ad via a CD through the mail.

11) MACNA Update: Rob reported having just gotten back from Backer in Atlantic City and that MACNA had sold over 100 booths to date and that they’ve had over 500 registrations for MACNA. They will be announcing the keynote speaker soon. They are close to a deal to have the program printed in the October issue of Tropical Fish Hobbyist (TFH). Dr. Ron Shimek has made the list, but they aren’t yet certain if he’s coming. The aquarium vendor community is excited about this years’ MACNA plans. Scott Michael will be debuting his book and a number of manufacturers are unveiling new products. Rob also reported that financially, the Boston Reefers Society is already “in the black” with regard to the conference.

12) Kelly reminded Joe that her request for posting the LMAS July seminar/workshop on MASNA’s website still hadn’t been attended to.

13) Cheri made a motion was made to “Create a website page entitled "Industry News" or something similar. Right under the title repeat the two mission statements above then split the page into quarters or whatever with a pane for MAC News, one for AMDA News, one for USCRTF News, etc. Each pane can link (via the pane title) to the appropriate website where additional information can be found. Perhaps an "Other Initiatives" section would cover things like Eric Borneman's Elegance Coral project.” Chuck commented that this would be easy to do. Clarification was made that all of the old content would remain – just be organized into a different fashion. The motion was passed.

14) Cheri made a motion was made to “Remove the "MAC" from "MAC/USCRTF Representative" in John's BOD title - as that is a personal, not a MASNA position, and it looks like we give MAC preferential support. Perhaps “Industry/USCRTF Representative” would be a good title.” Clarification was made that John would continue reporting on MAC activities. After discussion of what a better title for John would be, the motion was to “amend John’s title which still has BOD vote to INDUSTRY/LEGISLATION/OCEAN CONSERVATION REPRESENTATIVE” This motion passed.

15) Cheri made a motion to “Remove the last bullet from the "MASNA provides its members" section of our brochure - "Member on the board of MAC (Marine Aquarium Council)" Discussion revolved around whether this was a member benefit, that MACNA appears to be a MAC puppet and whether that appearance hurts MASNA. Clarification was made that MASNA doesn’t have a representative on the MAC Board – MASNA has a Board member that happens to sit on MAC’s Board. John expressed his belief that it is a good thing that a MASNA member sits on the MAC Board to give a hobbyist perspective to their leadership. This motion failed.

16) Cheri made a motion to “change the wording to ‘liaisons to industry groups such as MAC and AMDA.’” This motion passed.

17) Cheri made a motion to “Expand John's role to include mining news from all the organizations we choose to highlight and keep it as up to date as possible – assuming John’s relationship with MAC still leaves him the ability to objectively gather the news from other industry initiatives.” John questioned what he should be providing for AMDA and pointed out that they don’t post things on their website. An example was given of the AMDA letter that John had just shared with the Board. Clarification was made that we don’t all have to agree with the content of what is being reported to report on it. Rob thought we are supposed to be educating hobbyists, so that means we should have an official stance on what AMDA and MAC say. Chuck thought we have a right to report the good, the bad – the honest truth about AMDA and MAC to our members – representing a non biased opinion and just report the news. Lee suggested that if we post the recent AMDA letter, we should also post a disclaimer. Chuck suggested a disclaimer be placed on all industry news. Cheri thought members would form their own opinions but that at least MASNA wouldn’t be giving one group preferential treatment over other groups. Cheri also hoped that things like good research being done would also be considered news worthy of reporting. Lee clarified that he thought the editorial decision about what gets posted or not on the Industry page should be within the power of “The Rep.” This motion passed.

18) Cheri made a motion to “Carefully go through website removing places that show specific partnership with MAC.” Examples were given of the “MASNA and Legislation” page having “MAC and USCRTF Representative” and the “About Us” page wording needing to change to “liaisons to industry groups such as MAC and AMDA” as was passed in a previous motion. Clarification was made that either Joe or Chuck would carefully go through the site, NOT changing past content, making wording consistent with the motions previously passed. This motion was tabled in favor of everyone browsing the site, then deciding issue by issue or making a full list of what needed changing to decide upon. Chuck made the two changes Cheri gave as examples.

19) Cheri made a motion to “Change the order and wording of our purpose statements (on the website; in our Newsletter (back cover when folded for mailing) and in our brochure) to be:

· Educate our members with quarterly newsletters, MACNA and other sanctioned conferences

· Assist in forming and promoting the growth of clubs within the hobby to for the education of their members while ensuring a sustainable future for the marine environment

· Encourage ethical growth of the marine aquarium industry

· Support efforts to eliminate abuses in collecting and transporting marine organisms

with the goal of MASNA having greater emphasis on the educational side of the MASNA purpose. The second item was the one with the wording change. Cheri said changes would need to be made on the website, in the brochure and to the back of the newsletter to support this motion. John/Lee suggested “Encourage ethical growth of the marine aquarium hobby and support captive breeding/propagation” and the motion was changed to that wording for the third bullet. This motion passed.

20) Cheri made a motion to “Create a website page entitled "Educating the Saltwater Hobbyist" and brainstorm some great things to put on that page” This motion passed.

21) Joe Wall proposed that MASNA meeting dates be listed on Reef Central or an eMAIL sent to the MASNA membership. Cheri agreed that the Secretary could take care of both a few days before each meeting.

22) Cheri inquired about whether the donation to the Borneman Elegance Coral Research Project had yet been made. Not yet. Chuck requested that Larry eMAIL him the bank account control numbers of the bottom of a check.

23) Chuck motioned to “Cut Rob a $72 check for postage from the winter newsletter.” This motion passed and Rob promised to send the receipt for the printing.

24) Chuck said that he’d sent the BOD an eMAIL requesting reimbursement for website domain registration in the amount of $34.99. None of the Board got the eMAIL from Chuck so a motion was made for Chuck to figure out what was wrong with his eMAIL program. Motion passed. Motion also passed to reimburse Chuck.

25) John reported that he was methodically going through the US Commission on Ocean Policy recommendations to Congress, stating that it is a monumental report, very broad and comprehensive and that there are several specific references to the aquarium trade. John will produce a report on it when he’s done going through it and consulting with heads in Washington to get their feelings about it. At this point, it appears there are four things that have bearing on the aquarium trade. John will try to fill in details and will send the BOD hyperlinks to the specific citations and to the full report. John reminded us that the report is copyright protected. The report is now open to public comment, since it is a draft going before Congress – so hobbyists can respond to the Commission’s report. John will send us the link to where response can be made.

a. Issues related to aquarists releasing non-native species

b. Affects of fishery harvesting on corals

c. Sustainable harvest of ornamental species from coral reefs

d. Increasing funding for aquaculture research and production

Motion to adjourn by Chuck, seconded by Rob. The motion passed at 11:45pm EST.

Contact Us

MASNA'spurpose is to:

Total Income: $282.50

Ending Balance to

Call to order 9:07 PM EST

MASNA's
purpose is to: