Form a club

[chris carter]

Hi all

I note from my "all Welcome thread" that some of you would like to come to our meets but it is too far.

Have you considered starting your own club!

Invicta started 13 years ago with Tim Pudney and two mates meeting at the local pub to talk about thier spiders and swap spiderlings, i found the club at the Black lion Gillingham show in 1997 i joined with my son as the 10th & 11th members.

We now have over 50 members make an annual profit of over £3000 which is all spent on the members for summer trips, christmas dinner at a posh restaurant and the club pays the members dinner and lecture fee at the BTS lectures. We have our own breeding group and spiderlings are often for sale at meetings for very cheap prices.

If you decide to take on the task of running a club a good way to start is too look through the members list in the community section, find members in your area and send a private message asking if they are interested.

i sent a letter to the journal in 2006 (Vol 21 No 3) for our 10th anniversary on how to set up and run a club. It will give you all the information you need.

If you require any help you know where to find me, and if you do start a club and get a hall i will come and do your first lecture wherever you are in the country.

Clubs are good, nothing gives me more pleasure than to see a new member who has never kept a Tarantula before asking the first tentative questions of other members at thier first meeting, then a year later they have thier 20th Tarantula and they are answering the questions of the new member.

This hobby is infinate and you learn all the time. I have been at this a long time and and i have a fair amount of knowledge on Arachnids in general and offer advice to my members on our Forum, but i have learnt new things on this forum from members who have been keeping tarantulas for a fraction of the time i have.
That is what makes this hobby so great that however much you think you know there is always something new to learn and these animals will continue to surprise us.


Regards Chris

[chris carter]

Thought i'd post a photo of the mini-beast- roadshow team & Wilton my Carpet Python, at The Rare Breeds centre Woodchurch Kent, Halloween weekend i improved my looks with a mask.

[ralfkonen]

That is definately a good idea Chris. Looks like a big task, though, to click on each member on the members list to find out where people live. Would be great if we could filter the list for towns or at least counties. Doubt that is possible though, but maybe one of the administrators of this website has got an idea how we could do it?

[chris carter]

That is definately a good idea Chris. Looks like a big task, though, to click on each member on the members list to find out where people live. Would be great if we could filter the list for towns or at least counties. Doubt that is possible though, but maybe one of the administrators of this website has got an idea how we could do it?

I would imagine being from the Staffordshire there would be quite a few within driving distance of you, there might be someone reading this who will contact you.

Also advertise in local pet shops post office and newsagent windows in your area. You only need two or three to get a club started.

Regards Chris
,

[mary walters]

I have tried twice to get clubs gooing in Milton Keynes to no avail, even though there are lots of peeps with spids here.

[chris carter]

Hi Mary

Perhaps you are setting your sights too high, you only need two people meeting regulary to be a club. Two months later it may only be three but the club would have grown,you wont get full clubhouses straight away. Patience is the key to building a club and total commitment from the person running it, there will be plenty willing to follow but few prepared to organise everthing.
Invicta has been going for 13 years and still only has 53 members, and when i took over in the clubs third year we only had 15 members.
As more people join your club you will get more members by word of mouth.

You are a perfect candidate to start a club, you are an award winning breeder who is respected in the hobby and you have a good knowledge of the Hobby. You already have the basis of a club with your essex meets with your sister and Peter Lacey, theres a Chairman treasurer & secretary straight away.

If you Decide to try again, come down to one of our meetings and Invicta will put you up at the Premier inn across the road from the clubhouse. You will then be able to talk to members and gage for yourself what people want from a club, bring some spiderlings and you will probally sell the lot.

I will give you and anyone else who wants to start a club all the help i can, i have a vast amount of experience in running a successful club, and will happily pass it on.

Chris

[mary walters]

Chris
I regularly got 15 members at a meeting then it just dwindled to nowt. I would have loved to get guest speakers, but couldn't get them at the time (5-6 years ago). The meets take place at individual peoples homes, like ours in MK, Leannes (sis) in Newport and Peters in Hornchurch. They are not like a regular club which is what I was trying to achieve. I wish I could come to your meetings. I did consider starting one here at home to begin with, I am in a perfect position to advertise it at work.

[matthew spooner]

well good luck mary if you do decide to try again. my interest and knowledge in the hobby has all spawned from the invicta arachnid club

[chris carter]

Chris
I regularly got 15 members at a meeting then it just dwindled to nowt. I would have loved to get guest speakers, but couldn't get them at the time (5-6 years ago). The meets take place at individual peoples homes, like ours in MK, Leannes (sis) in Newport and Peters in Hornchurch. They are not like a regular club which is what I was trying to achieve. I wish I could come to your meetings. I did consider starting one here at home to begin with, I am in a perfect position to advertise it at work.

Hi Mary

Put out a thread on this forum asking for anyone who is interested in joining a midlands based club, and if any of you do join Mary she will need patience and loyalty to make the club a success.

I really think you should give it another try you wont be alone this time i will help you in every way i can.

Over 20 of our members were introduced to the hobby by the club including Matt and you wont find a keener person than Matt. If that was repeated by three or four other clubs around the country it would be good for the Hobby.

Your club had a better start than ours, but you need to maintain the interest with quality speakers and events, if not the membership dwindles away as happened to you.

We are lucky that Andrew Smith, Ray Hale, Paul Carpenter, Peter kirk, Ray Gabrial and Martin Nicholas all do talks for us and i do lectures for schools and colleges in Kent so i have 4 or 5 talks up my sleeve in case of cancellations. Andrew has done a talk for us for 11 years running and is a member of the club.

I'm Sure that any Committee members in your area will gladly do a talk for you.
I often have a breeding evening if we have a cancellation, where i bring in a pair of Ts and breed them at the meeting, it is fascinating to members who have never bred before and all members attending the meeting get some free spiderlings if the eggsac is successful.

Contact local owl rescue centres they will quite happily bring several birds of prey to a meeting for a fee.

Contact wild animal parks some of the keepers will do talks for you, Try Rob Hutton at Whipsnade.
We have Hazel Ryan from "Wildwood" in Herne Bay she is a Bat expert and went to Panama to find new species of bat and did a powerpoint talk for us about it. She likes climbing inside hollow trees.

Ask the stallholders at The BTS show and any other show you attend we have picked up several speakers this way.

We have a BBQ and Spider show each year, Ray and Paul have judged it for us in the past. (We dont BBQ the Ts)

We have an Auction evening where members bring in unwanted equipment vivs and Tarantula's and Auction them off, (club takes 15% of the takings)
One persons dont need is anothers must have.

Your speakers will need paying and a fee for your hall will be required, we cover the Hall with our raffle and our membership fees cover the speakers we pay between £35 and £50 per speaker, one of our speakers Ian Abercrombie who is the Andrew Smith of the Phasmid world is a member and does his talk for free.

At first you may have to split the fee between members attending the meeting. I can give you tips on ways to raise money for the Club.

Regards Chris

[mary walters]

Some good ideas there Chris thanks, we have a community centre on the estate so if I start here at home there is somewhere to go if it gets big enough.

Will definitely look into it.

[Ray Gabriel]

Local clubs are a great idea, I ran one in Swindon for a while, never really got more than a regualr 8 or 9 people.

If starting a club I would sugest a local pub, with car parking who will let you have a spare room, or corner of the lounge on thier quietest evenings. (believe me there are alot of pubs which would appreciate an increased trade).

In order to judge how many people there would be in an area (this kills two birds with one stone) maybe we could have a section of the website organised by county, were people can post up whether they are interested in joining a club/group and also experianced members can post up thier contact details if they are willing to help/guide new people in learning some of the tricks of the trade so to speak, How to move aggressive spids from one container to another, first matings (the spiders that is) etc.

What do you think?

Ray

[matthew spooner]

bloody good idea if you ask me

[ralfkonen]

Sounds very good, Ray. Do you think its technically possible? This website seems quite busy as it is. And who would be in charge of that? Sounds like extra work for somebody.
Would be great though to know who is in your area and then maybe meet up regularly in a pub. I dont even think it has to be a proper club with occ speakers and official memberships etc. Just a get together for a laugh and some spider talk would be great.

[Ray Gabriel]

Cheers guys,

I think it should be left open and not "moderated" if that is the right term/word/thingy.

If people post up thier details then they should expect emails phone calls etc.

if they are too stupid to post up then dont want thier details known to people then its up to them to come back and modify thier post (click on edit, clear thier post and thats it) and of problem.

With people geting to gether like this could be the start of local clubs,

Ray

[Mark Pennell]

There is no reason why the friendship forum could be modified for this

cheers
Mark