Annual Report 2006
No, this isn't a long, boring or conventional report as we
have found over the years these drive most fishkeepers back to their
fishhouses without being read. Its mainly a directional document with a
batch of facts attached.
1. 2006 has probably seen IFOCAS membership peak from its
staggering growth rates of earlier years. We now have just under 10,000
members but the vast majority of these (9,100) joined before
mid 2005.This may allow more time to handle registrations more speedily
than at our busiest period when machinery kept faultering
2.We will shortly be publishing a breakdown of members by
category but the fastest growing area is certainly our commercial members
and the slowest areas being the local clubs. Many clubs and societies are
still closing down at an alarming rate
3. Unlike many fish bodies we publish membership data
unless requested not to do so, so members can communicate with each other
and potential new members almost immediately and its free.
4. We have been very misfortunate in web servers - both
natural and terrorist disasters causing us to lose our US server facility
twice. Our main server is now in Wales. A back-up is in place.
5. People are still failing to notify us of events and
shows - not surprisingly many are also complaining of lower attendance
figures. We would remind everybody that this site is linked to all the
major aquarium groups worldwide and receives an average of over 12.000
'hits' online per 12 month period.
6. Lastly a reminder - Affiliate membership is the only
category that is not free and many new applicants are not completing
application forms fully. We cannot process data if information or
membership fees are missing.
A sad note: We regret to announce the death of Howard
Norfolk, the founder of Aquarticles.com but on an uplifiting note
Aquarticles will continue and has also been "Mirrored" by
Calypso.org.uk at Aquarticles.org, so Howard's superb legacy will not be
lost.
