Before (and even after) we meet, lets pool in some ideas around
1. Maintaining a better contact and traction for this group
2. What may be some of the individual interests in planted tanks
3. What each of us can offer to this group

Looking forward to hear from you all. I will post mine next.

Let me start with a little introduction. My name is Malay and am into the nature and planted aquarium hobby for the last 3 yrs. Still a hobbyist though and learning everyday.

Maintaining a better contact
I would vote for a monthly (or bi monthly) meet among us. I got suggestions around meeting at coffee shops, home, library. To begin with I think we should meet in a coffee shop or lib and based on comfort level, plan to meet at home going forward.

We also need to have a web presence. A facebook or yahoo group is a good place to start, but setting up our own web page would be my preference for the long run. That would mean some money pooling so that's up for debate. Just throwing out the idea.

Individual interests
As mentioned, my avid interest is in nature style aquascaping. I have high tech setup and focus a great deal of my time in researching on aquascaping styles and resources. Apart from that my 2 other areas of interest are in emersed culture, advanced tank photography and DIY related to planted tanks.

I can offer
These are some areas I think I can contribute in.
- Aquascaping styles, hardscape layouts, plant selection
- Photography (still at novice stage though)
- DIY ideas (made a set of LED hang-on fixtures, 2 rimless tanks and few stands...none in craftsman grade though )
- I have been a web programmer and can help with maintaining out site, if and when we get there.

There are a lot of free forum providers out there that would be good enough at least to start.

Can you provide a few reference? I can see if we can setup one for us. Also thinking that a blogging site might be a good idea. They are free (lot of them). What do you guys think?

It will be important to get a feel for a nice central location for all of us to meet. Once the ball starts rolling there will need to be some discussion on this matter I assume.

I will try to kick off the start up meet for the week starting 12/13. I will be back from SF and at least have a couple of items jczernia wanted. The meeting will be to hand over the items + anything else anybody might want to get as well. All depends on weather, but as far as meeting point is concerned, I need some suggestions flowing. I frequent starbucks pretty often and that is one place I can suggest. There is one in Buffalo Grove where the people know me pretty well and it is usually quiet. Another one I visit often is on Golf road in Schaumburg, near the junction of Higgins (very close to Aquarium Adventure). Those will be some of my preferences. Anything else, please chime in.

After I am back from SF, I will try to organize the meeting. Apart from the things requested from AFA, if we are interested, we can do a mini plant swap. I have several stems I can bring in.

With our conversations within and outside the meets I pooled in a bunch of ideas. Good time to put them together. In addition I took a sneak peek at sfbaaps, dfwapc and fape websites to get some ideas of what other clubs do.

So here is a list. Hate this 1000 character limit per post so I will break it down in multiple posts.

1. Meeting agenda (collected from members) for future meets (apart from swap)
- setup club tank at Jon's place (I also have a spare mini that I would be happy to setup at Glen's house since he is relatively new to planted tanks)
- diy show (bring in your diy gadgets, or pictures and we all learn)
- summer day out to collect rock/dw (tell us if you know some good trails nearby)
- light test (need a par meter)
- day trip to lego's place (3hr drive) and see his emerged setup
- with hydrophytes permission visit his place at Madison and see some live ripariums
- Tank photography (dslr/point n shoot)

2. Group buys
- plants (I can get some from sf when I visit. I will also get some plants from my friend in s'pore later in summer. Legomaniac will also group buy with me. Others interested can also join in).
- other items ( just post what you want to buy, if a few have items that can be bought from one place, just go ahead and buy it together and save on shipping)