OK Lee, I've heard this opinion before: Members dissatisfied with the
affiliate club program.
Let me add my two cents.
As an organizer of a "remote" (geographically) affiliate club. I'm more
than satisfied with what the AKA does for us. First, each club member
gets all the basic services that any AKA member receives, and that's
really the important part: the BNL. JAKA, F&EL, N$RSC and so forth. We
have a source of fish to keep us interested and active. Basic AKA
services are all we really need.
So what does AKA do for the clubs themselves? They give us a forum to
communicate with each other. We can publicize our meetings and shows in
BNL or killietalk and the rest of the AKA can become aware of them. We
can arrange box trades with other clubs. We can support each other in
our shows. We become aware of new AKA members in our area though the
roster and BNL. The AKA stimulates interest in the hobby and the AKA
website has led many new members to our little club.
Do I want money and financial advantage ("giveaways") from the AKA? Why?
What do we need it for? I'd rather our club do whatever it can to help
the AKA out rather than ask them for handouts to us. I always wonder
about this "get rich: mentality of some affiliate clubs. We've been in
existence for about 20 years now and frankly get by on budget of maybe
+/- $200 bucks a year. We run a mini-auction at each meeting. The
members donate their fish 100% and the treasury grows maybe a couple
hundred bucks each year due to that. When we have shows we shoot to
break even and have fun. We keep expenses to a bare minimum and just
have fun with our hobby. The interpersonal communication, we call it
"fish talk" at our meetings is the most valuable thing about our CKC.
Like the VISA commercial. We consider it "priceless".
To join the AKA see http://www.aka.org/pages/join.html
Archives are at http://fins.actwin.com/killietalk/