November 2013 meeting

Our November meeting was held at the home of Member and Forum Moderator Darek K. The meeting was presided over by President Jerry Smith.

In attendance were:

Khanh T	Jonathan W	Darek K	Phil H
Hank S	Paula B	Jerry S	Darin P
Pete B	Egbert A	Jay L	Frank Z
Oscar M	Jim L	Marko D	Adrian M

President Jerry Smith called the NJAGC meeting to order with a number of club items. The first was asking for volunteers to host meetings for the upcoming 2014 year. We have a thread started on the forum where members may volunteer for a specific month. Please let this be a reminder to fill in the calendar.

Next came an overview of our upcoming TANKED: Indoor Aquatic Gardening Day at the Frelinghuysen Arboretum in Morris Township on Saturday February 22, 2014. The presentations begin at 1 PM, but we need to be there earlier to set up. There will be a month long exhibition of planted tank photos and a few Nano tanks set up in the Haggerty Education Center. This show is geared for the experienced outdoor gardener that has never kept an aquarium and is not aware that Aquatic Gardening exists in aquariums. This is an excellent publicity and educational opportunity for our club. We need to continue working toward its completion and success.

Adrian M. gave an example of some photos we have printed for the exhibition already. We still need at least 20 more in at least a 5 MB file so they can be blown up to a maximum of 18” x 24”. Some are promised to us by The Aquatic Gardening Association, but we would like to have photos from our own club members. Please send them to Adrian M via email. Send him a PM and he will give you his address.

Next was discussed our need for a new club logo. Our current logo is not fully ours to use without restriction and we need to come up with one that is fully our own. Jay L. said he would contact the original creator of our present logo and see if he could get the original file so we can deconstruct it and make it over. We need a good photo of a Crypt plant that is similar to our present one. We also need a Photoshop savvy member willing to put it all together into a usable file.

Our last club business topic was concerning our new donation jar. It is an old 2.5 lb CO2 cylinder machined to allow opening the bottom. It is still not finished as it is waiting for the new club logo to be finished. It is planned to have a decal made of the logo to apply to the jar.

A final word about the donations made to the club. None of us in leadership are paid in any way out of the club donations. We volunteer our time. These donations are used to cover club expenses such as: web expenses, food reimbursement to the host, Business Cards (which were handed out to members at a few meetings to hand out to contacts we make), and most pressing now: Photograph enlargements for TANKED: Indoor Aquatic Gardening Day.

Darek’s wife made a wonderful spread of Mexican food that was devoured by all in attendance. Our thanks for this food goes out to his wife for her kindness in making it.

Darek then broke the group into two groups to show off his tanks in his basement fish room. Even Phil H. was able to visit the fish room thanks to the strong backs of a few club members and Darek’s strong hand rail on his basement steps.

Here is Darek’s 125g tank.