8/8/2008...a collaboration of enthusiasts

[Stylopidae]

I am planning a series of educational events on this day through local petshops, schools, stores and possibly a zoo.

When the time comes, I will be contacting local newspapers and getting press coverage.

I was wondering if I could count on the support of some members of the AB community...start a grass-roots movement.

I believe if we work together on this and create a large enough movement...we could do something great.

However, we need a plan.

Any ideas?

And I am intending this to be serious...so please only post if you are capable and willing to follow through on the plans.

This would be a great day to raise awareness of invertebrate related issues such as unfair blanket bans and such...and also to get people to recognize the signifficance of tarantulas and other invertebrates as pets.

 

[bluegootty]

Your Ideas Are Great..i Would Like To Take Part..but The Problems Is Where Do We Start??? And How Many People (the Minimum People That We Need???)to Start This Movement..??the Fact Is ..there Is Still Alot Of Other People Consider Tarantula And Other Inverts As Pest Not Pet..and All That Unfair Ban Like You Said Is So True And Needed To Be Change Or Atleast Take Action By Arachno Freaks Like Us...well Let's Keep Update Each Other And See How Many People We Can Get To Be Involve....

 

[Hamburglar]

I currently involve tarantulas in the classroom as a yearly unit during the spring. However, we are not in school on August 8th. I think it is a great idea though. However, I plan on continuing the education this year and as long as possible...

 

[clearlysaid]

Hey, Cheshire... Have you by chance seen the T-day threads? A bunch of people want to make an official Worldwide Tarantula Day on Aug 8th... with this year being the first year. We have some "ghetto" forums going right now for that day: http://forums.eighteight.org/. And a few of us will be working on the actual site once we can coordinate time to discuss what needs to be done.

There is definitely a lot of interest in spreading appreciation, awareness and education on at least tarantulas...

 

[desertdweller]

Thanks bell/clearlysaid, for reminding people about our earlier jammin' on this. Would be nice if we could get the momentum going again. I'm ready with roach party favors and crixsnacks!

All kidding aside everyone, check out the new site and tell us what you want to do to get involved. At least share your opinions.

 

[cacoseraph]

i think this is something scabies could get on board with

we are planning somethings sorta like this, but on a much smaller scale. i expect we would like joining a larger movement, also

 

[sparular]

I think the hardest thing to do in this kind of a situation is to convince people that the benefits of importation and breeding of exotic species outweighs the potential risk. If we could put together a script/fact sheet/Q and A on the topics to be covered, so that everyone participating had the best information and arguments for the cause, that would be a good first step. Then anyone who went out to do demos/talks would be on the same page and have a good source of information.

 

[cacoseraph]

I think the hardest thing to do in this kind of a situation is to convince people that the benefits of importation and breeding of exotic species outweighs the potential risk. If we could put together a script/fact sheet/Q and A on the topics to be covered, so that everyone participating had the best information and arguments for the cause, that would be a good first step. Then anyone who went out to do demos/talks would be on the same page and have a good source of information.

supporting exotics in FL is going to be especially tough!



SCABIES is designed to support native species, primarily and exotics, secondarily. i think there is a certain something about showing ppl bugs from their own country, state, county, and CITY!

 

[Stylopidae]

I did see the other thread, but it focused more on 'what' and less of 'how' than I wanted.

I'll be back later tonight to explain more in detail.

 

[The Bear]

I think this is a great idea and a good point to remember is how important flashy thing such as good pictures(tarantula, scorp, exc). This would attract not only inthusiasts but would raise general awareness. Many people don't even reallize that you can buy a beautiful tarantula as a pet:wall:


Catch peoples attention and then hit'em with interesting facts then the important stuff, education.

Personally this happens to me in magazines like national geographic. If I see an article on deer I think oh just deer I really don't care. Then as I flip though I find something like 2 bucks fighting in a great detailed picture that catches my attention. That at least would raise general awareness, if thats the goal.

 

[fictitious]

Well you have Canada on board. I'm not too sure about what you intend on doing, rather, I know what but not how. I'm tied in well with the community up here and might be able to get some sponsors from major companies, exactly how big do you want this to be, I want this day to become globally recognized but where do we start?

 

[clearlysaid]

I think this is great. The people who have started the previous threads all have awesome ideas on what should be done but, like DesertDweller said, it needs to gain back the momentum to actually get the ideas done. I mean, we know what we want to do but have yet to come up with a mission statement, actions plans, etc... This is definitely an awesome idea; we just need to buckle down and make things happen!!

I'm all for doing anything that needs to be done and am 100% serious about it... right now my only task is working on the website.

Oh, and this thread kinda sums up the "what" portion of things we've already discussed on this board.

 

[7mary3]

Bell,

if it's alright with you all, I'd like to write the mission statement for 8-8-08... Just give me a yay or a nay and I'll get to work on it. I've got nothing to do for a week, so I've got plenty of time to work on it.

-Ryan

 

[IdahoBiteyThing]

On board

I present to schools regularly and it's not hard. I've got one of the local petstores on board, we're taking an environmental tack- how captive breeding benefits the hobby, and pushing captive bred T's to hobbyists as a more "green" alternative than the wild caught, mature males that BrandX pushes. They're totally on board with having demos adn displays. So, no excuses, everybody just do it! Schools, zoos, pet stores are all receptive audiences.

 

[Mrarachnid1st]

Getting US recognition will require political help. We would need to have letters drafted that highlight points of interest. These letters can then be emailed to respective state senators and representatives requesting August 8th be named National Tarantula Day or Worldwide Tarantula Day.

Here's the website to the US Senators and Representatives:

http://www.senate.gov/

http://www.house.gov/

For our Canadian friends, here's Parliaments website:

http://www.parl.gc.ca/common/index.asp?Language=E

For our UK friends, here's is England's Parliament:

http://www.parliament.uk/

 

[clearlysaid]

Bell,

if it's alright with you all, I'd like to write the mission statement for 8-8-08... Just give me a yay or a nay and I'll get to work on it. I've got nothing to do for a week, so I've got plenty of time to work on it.

-Ryan

There are a couple people on this thread that have expressed interest in collab'ing on a mission statement. I think we all agreed to get a basic statement written up and then we can all add our input as we see fit...if needed at all. I think it would be awesome if you wanted to write one up. You could even join the forums and post it on that thread for DesertDweller and Von_Z to see and add input.

 

[cacoseraph]

uh.. when you get done making mission statements and taking meeting minutes let scabies know what grunt work you need done


i think if we need flyers or anything scabies can probably get pretty good prices. especially if we make a run of 10,000 or whatever and everyone chips in for their share

 

[clearlysaid]

Haha, What special skills do you have that we could exploit?

*** Right now I'd say we need website content the most. Written material (tarantula stories, educational articles and what ever else...) and pictures... lots of pictures and preferably some of people w/ the t's so we can show they aren't so big and scary as many people think. I'd say getting the website complete would be priority #1 as a nice website w/ a lot of information would make us look put together and professional... and then we'd have something to direct people to if they had questions about us.

 

[kyrga]

I agree with getting an organized, informational website up, something that is aimed at people who are entirely ignorant to the hobby.

Second, I think we should draft up some sort of letter to the press (I'm willing to type something up, if you give me a week to finish my finals :wall: ) and then hobbyists from various areas can send the letter, along with some flashy pictures or something, to local newspapers and maybe even TV stations. I have some friends who have a decent relationship with one of the news stations, they could possibly get some short segment on or something here in NY.

Edit: and anyone with great pictures to contribute, we should definitely show off all the prettier species... though I'm thoroughly impressed with a big mean crawshayi in a threat pose, I'm thinking we'll probably get a good response from the general public with pictures of some of the cuter Ts, ie avics, c. elegans, p. metallica, etc.

 

[Rich65]

I got to be involved in some way, 08.08.08 is my birthday. That is just too coincidental. I haven't been into T's for too long, bur have 20+ yrs breeding reptiles. I would like to help!!
RICH