Hello All,

A club's strength depends on the membership's involvement in both online discussions and participation at monthly meetings. Unfortunately for our group, we have seen a steady decrease in interest partly due to the inability to attend meetings as a result proximity issues associated with the New England region. Although we have attempted to remedy these issues by spreading the meetings around the New England area, the attendance and involvement of the members has steadily faded.

Because of this decline in attendance, our officers are forced to reevaluate the need for our monthly meetings and would like input from both members and nonmebers for a solution to the issue that plagues this group. One suggestion has been to make the meetings quarterly and to advertise well in advance to allow adequate planning for people to attend. There are also other clubs that work strictly as an online group based on the same distance issue and our officers would welcome any feedback with regards to these groups. Until we obtain some information with which to make an informed decision, our meetings will be suspended for the time being and interactions will be limited to the website's forum at www.ne-aquaticplants.com.

Hi all,

I just wanted to remind everyone the the annual NEC Convention will be held March 16-18th, at the Marriott in Farmington, Ct. Of particular interest to aquatic gardeners is the AGA discussion on Friday for which the guest speaker is well known and highly experienced aquarist Scott Heiber. The AGA meeting is from 2-4:00pm and there is no cost to attend this event. This is certainly something not to miss.

The remaining events on Friday and Saturday require a registration fee to attend, but the money is certainly worth is as the speakers are always first class. This year has aquarium fish related speakers covering Project Piaba, Collecting in Uruguay, Discus, Cichlids, Guppies, Marine Fish, Loricarids and Killiefish. As a non-fish person I still find these talks wonderful and highly informative.