I'm pleased to announce your 2012 Regional Trustees!  Please take a moment and thank those that served in 2011 and congratulate those starting to or continuing to serve as trustees in 2012.

Waterloo / Cedar Falls
Jeremy Meyer (Waverz)
Casey Schares (ruggerkc)

Cedar Rapids / Iowa City
Andy Long (Andy the Reef Guy)
Bob Boone (bobsfish)

Des Moines
Stew Moore (stew)
Nick Ball (Nik)

Quad Cities
Joe Eckman (greenonion)
Bill Kennedy (einsteins)

We've scheduled the annual GIRS Business Meeting for Saturday, February 4th at the Coralville Country Inns and Suites.  It's just off of I-80, near Coralridge Mall.  Time is yet to be determined.

Like last year, we have some great raffle prizes for this event.  It will be worth attending even if the raffle is the only motivation for going.  Pizza and beverages will also be provided.

This years meeting will be packed and may go longer than those in the past due to the amount of material to cover.  Modifications to the club Constitution and By-Laws will be discussed and voted on.  Standard things like Member of the Year award, review of the club finances, overview of MACNA, and a recap of the year will also be done.  We'll also have a brand new group of officers to introduce, new trustees to introduce and more.

Mark the date on your calendars and we'll see you there!

Please take a moment to congratulate your new officers!  The nomination process was uncontested for all offices.

President - Mike Thompson (mthomp)
Vice President - Matt Nelsen (ninjazx777)
Treasurer - Joe Stuetelberg (flyingmorray)
Secretary - Jeanette Becker (beckerj3)

Please take a moment to congratulate each of them and thank them for being willing to volunteer their time to serve the club.

Congratulations to Jason Brunken and Joel Tesdall for being awarded the Member of the Year awards.  Since we did not have the business meeting last year, we awarded for both 2009 and 2010.  Jason won for 2009 for his hard work on both the website and Fall Fest 2009.  Joel won for 2010 for his contributions to development and documentation of club procedures and for his work on Spring Fest 2010.  Please take a moment and congratulate these guys!

On January 29th, 2011, we'll be having a business meeting in Coralville, IA.  This is the annual club meeting where we will be discussing the activities of 2010, goals for 2011, how the club is doing financially, getting an update on MACNA, among other interesting topics.  There will also be a great raffle in which all members in attendance will be recieving free tickets!  We hope to see you there.  Details about the meeting are as follows: 

Just a reminder to GIRS members that we have a Pet Store directory on the site.  It's located in the Resources menu.  This directory lists almost 30 pet stores from all across the state of Iowa that sell supplies or livestock pertaining to marine aquaria.  Included in the listing is a link to their website and a link to a map where they are located if that information was available.  We also have all of the Lincoln/Omaha stores listed in there as well for our members on the west side of the state.  If you know of a pet store that's not listed, has moved, or has closed, please let me know and I can update the directory to be as current as possible.  Click the 'Read More...' link below to visit the Pet Store Directory

You may have noticed that there have been a few changes on to our website.  If you look at your profile page, you will now see that you have some additional capabilities including the ability to create your own photo galleries inside your profile.   Please take a few minutes to update your profile and settings by clicking on "Edit Profile" and or "My Settings" from within the profile page.   You can get to the profile page by clicking on your username in the upper right hand corner of the page or by selecting "My Account/Profile" under "My GIRS" on the main menu.

We have setup "group" pages for each of the primary regions to better facilitate communication within the region.  Please consider joining one or more groups to help us improve communication between the trustees and the members in their regions.  Club membership is NOT required to join the regional groups.  To join a group, visit one of the group pages linked below and click on "Join Group".

• Cedar Rapids/Iowa City Group
• Des Moines Group
• Quad Cities Group
• Waterloo/Cedar Falls Group
   

It's friday night and several vendors & sellers are already setting up for Fall Fest tomorrow.

More Photos Here