I'm all snowed in. I don't have to go out to work, but it still feels like a holiday. It's snowing hard and the wind is rising as the temperature falls, so pretty soon the snow will be rising up in the wind even as it keeps falling. We'll have whiteouts by lunchtime. It's already starting to turn into a temporary Sahara, with the drifts playing the role of sand dunes.
Our little fish club elected its first executive last night, to provide some structure to spread the work around. We started as 2 people, then began to average 10, and last night had 25. People like posting what they got at the auctions, and that has created a Facebook word of mouth. We're going to need a larger venue.
A local cafe donates a couple of dozen donuts and a jug of coffee for every meeting, and there are a few community groups and businesses networking with us. It's fun to see it come together. Before this group, the local scene was like this forum - we read each other but never met. Now, I notice people talking about visiting each other to look at the fish, people doing group buys on stuff they need and aquarists from nearby towns getting jealous.
We are a bit out of the mainstream as a place, and the local stores pay a premium for shipping fish in. A lot of the younger aquarists have been discussing a fish breeding co-op, where we would breed regular numbers of popular fish as a sideline, getting paid the wholesale price the warehouses charge, but with no shipping. No one has illusions about the money. It would be very little. But it could help keep the local stores alive while growing the hobby by getting back to urban type prices. I thought it was wishful talk, but last night, I realized a few were setting up, and that I was going to have to start going out and doing basic teaching about set ups and achievable goals. They haven't bred fish and I'm not sure they realize the work, but I get a sense they don't care. They want to give it a shot. The owner of the best LFS is a young guy their age, and they all like him a lot. There's a community forming.
