COMAS Meeting January 12, 2008-Minutes 

The January meeting was held at UCO and started at 7.30pm. There were over 250 people present for the meeting! This meeting is our annual membership drive and grand prize giveaway.

General Discussions:

President Paul Whitby introduced the officers and the leadership team to the general membership and to all the new people who joined at this meeting. The elected officers for the year 2008 are;

President: Paul Whitby (pwhitby)

Vice President: Adam Moore (papagimp)

Treasurer: Stephanie Kohl (mskohl)

Secretary: Ray Soutiere (2ras)

The Leadership Team (appointed by the Club President);

Public Relations: Sheryl Coley (Serra)
Social Secretaries: Wayne & Amanda Duck (sadsak)

Education Secretary: Kevin Bekkelund (krbekk)

Frag Program: Tim VanWagoner (TimV)

Librarian: Tim VanWagoner (TimV)

President Paul Whitby spoke about the various types of equipment that the club has to offer the membership. These items are loaned to members for their use and are to be returned to Paul when finished. Some of the items that the club has are; glass clamps, furniture dollies, quantum light meter, spectrometer, refractometer, and fish traps. One can go to the website www.mycomas.com  and find the link to programs. The programs section of the website contains a listing and description of the other programs offered to COMAS members. Some of these are the Frag Program and Library Program.

Another program that COMAS has to offer is “Reef Shots”. This program allows members to take photos of their tank (or another’s tank) and submit them in competition with others, each month. The membership votes on each month’s photos and the winner is announced and awarded a $25.00 gift certificate, which is redeemable to any of the local fish stores that sponsor COMAS. The photos that are submitted over the year are selected to go into the COMAS calendar.

One social aspect of being a member of COMAS; trips are sometimes planned for the general membership to travel to one or more of the aquariums in the state, one example would be the Oklahoma Aquarium located in Jenks.

Tim VanWagoner spoke about the Frag Program that COMAS offers to the membership.

This basically entails members growing corals, breaking a fragment off of the colony and gluing it onto a rock or plug. This is donated to the club to be passed on to those on a waiting list. Each member is allowed to receive a specific number and then must donate back to the club in order to receive any additional frags. This allows members to try different corals and to help save the reefs by growing them within their tanks. More information can be found in the program section on the COMAS website, along with complete list of the corals and their ecosystem requirements (lighting, water flow, feeding, etc.).

The Library Program offers members access to the COMAS library. These contain books that have been donated or purchased by the club. Members can view the library listings at the COMAS website. Books can be checked out for one month. Books checked out will be brought in by Tim VanWagoner (or an appointee) to the next meeting and given to that person, returning books can be collected by Tim VanWagoner (or an appointee) at that time as well.

Kevin Bekkelund spoke about the clubs direction concerning the upcoming meetings for 2008. The idea is to have a program called “Reef Keeping 101” and each meeting is to have a topic geared to a specific objective and culminating with a stand alone system to be raffled or auctioned off at years end. Kevin pointed out that some of the topics are still being worked on.

Please note that topics could change due to unforeseen circumstances. A brief overview of the planned topics for Reef Keeping 101:

1. Aquarium Planning and Construction

2. Stand Construction (Basic Frame Work)

3. Tank Stands and Canopy Woodworking

4. Water Flow/Plumbing

5. Substrates and Aquascaping

6. Lighting and Cooling

7. Water Quality / Accessories

Many of the LFS from the OKC area and Tulsa (!) were in attendance. They were Aquariums from Edmond, Oddball from Tulsa, Reef Shop Warehouse & Zoanuts from OKC. Paul Whitby introduced the staff/owner(s) from each of the stores present at the meeting

Topic of Meeting:

General membership drive and prize giveaway.

Due to the number of prizes, the overwhelming number of members, and the short time in which to dispense the prizes, the names of the winners were sacrificed (not written down) in order to meet the room time limit allotted to COMAS by UCO.

COMAS wishes to thank the companies which generously donated prizes for the membership and in the process made this one of the most successful prize and membership drives to date!!!

Typhoon RO/DI unit from Air Water Ice

Snapper Pump from Reeflo

8 gallon Biocube from Aquariums Tropical Fish

Livestock from Florida Pets

Live corals from Aquarium Oddballs

Lots of Foods from Aquariums Tropical Fish

Bag of Assorted Acans from Zoanuts (over $300 worth)

Mag Pumps from Danner

Gift Certificates to all local fish stores and many online stores

Calcium, Trace element and other supplements from Eco Systems 

Assorted powerheads from Aquariums Tropical Fish 

Tank Supplements from Seachem

Supplements from Marc Weiss

Hydor Koralia 2

Hydor Koralia 4

2 Sets of 32oz B-Ionic

15lb bag of Instant Ocean Salt

O.S.I. Marine Flake food

Tetra Marine Flake food

TLC NH3 & NO2 Remover

Marine S.A.T. Biological Clarifier

PURA Filtration Pad

Polyfilter Pad

Silent Air Battery Powered - Auto on Air Pump

2 x Blue Life Phosphate Control

Blue Life Aptasia Control

2 x Marineland Holdfast Epoxy

Two Little Fishies ZoPlan

Two Little Fishies PhytoPlan

Marine Reef Aquarium Handbook, by Robert Goldstein

Carib Sea Sugarfine sand

Comas Calendars

Frag Bags of Frag Rocks and Super Glue

As of January 17, 2008 COMAS has 210 paid members!

Meeting adjourned at 9:00pm