Blogs

As we continue to grow our club, we would like to keep everyone informed of what’s going on with Bayou Reefkeeping. In order to do so, we are introducing this quarterly newsletter via our Blogs page here. The newsletter will cover the growth of our site, the impact of our club in the reefkeeping community, past and future events, and much more over time. After this initial publication of the newsletter, it will be published on a regular schedule: April, July, October, & January.

The first topic to be discussed in this newsletter is the transition to Blogs as a replacement of our Magazine. When we first started out, we created a Magazine page with the intention of delivering articles at the beginning of each month. However, we realize that this leads to deadlines in order to publish articles on time. Rather than continuing along that path, we have decided to transition to a blogging system.

As many of you have noticed, we have a few “Content Contributors” on the site. These folks are our writers and have been responsible for writing articles for our magazine. As we transition to blogs, our content contributors will each have a blog of their own in which they write their articles. These articles will automatically be published to the News and Announcements forum. In some instances they will also be published to the portal page.

We are looking for additional writers. If you have an idea for a regular blog and/or you are a decent writer, then please let us know by contacting one of our staff members. If you are a current content contributor and wish to continue writing via a blog on here, then please let us know as well. We’ll get you setup with a blog.

In the spirit of the transition to blogging, one of our members is already on board to join us as a writer. Brandon (btingle85) presented us with an idea to interview members about their experiences with the reefkeeping hobby. He will be doing this every so often and writing an article on each member interviewed. We feel this is a great way to further involve people in the club. Thanks Brandon! Between Brandon’s new upcoming blog and the quarterly newsletter, that’s two new blogs being added to the site. We hope to hear from some of you soon with ideas on more blogs.

As we develop the website for Bayou Reefkeeping, we also have been hard at work developing the club. To date we have had eleven members and three LFS open their doors to Bayou Reefkeeping for club events. Everything from crawfish boils, to parades of tanks, to good ole frag swaps. We have also been focusing on making sure to have events in all areas of the state. Already we have had events in Lake Charles, Lafayette, Baton Rouge, & Slidell areas. That’s quite a busy schedule for a club that isn’t even a year old yet. Soon we hope to have events in Houma, New Orleans, Alexandria, and hopefully in the northern part of the state as well.

All of these events cannot happen without the hard work and dedication of our staff. They also would not happen without the support of our members. We’re excited to have so many new faces around here on a daily basis. Hopefully we’ll be meeting lots of you at our next event, the Bayou Reefkeeping Anniversary Event on Saturday March 3. This event will be a celebration of the founding of Bayou Reefkeeping and it will be an annual event. We’re having a truly great guest speaker, Mr. Bob Fenner, in for this event. His knowledge of the hobby and genuine nature will make this one a can’t miss event!

The anniversary event is a prime example of something made possible by the support of our members. To date we have thirty-five members who have supported Bayou Reefkeeping via founding and supporting member contributions. These funds are being used for a variety of things such as site upkeep, covering travel costs for Mr. Fenner, securing event locations, etc. Those are just a few examples. This monetary support literally allows us to provide just about everything the club has to offer. To say we appreciate the support would be an understatement. We are beyond thankful!

As our one year anniversary rapidly approaches, we look forward to what 2012 has in store for our club. The interaction with each and every one of you makes it all the more worthwhile. Please help us by continuing to spread the word about Bayou Reefkeeping. Not only are we here to help out our fellow reefkeeping hobbyists, we are also dedicated to furthering the hobby in our state and region. If the past year is any indicator, then the future of Bayou Reefkeeping is very bright!