After going through some of the responses of several threads, I think it wise to clarify just what Pond Boss is...
First, Pond Boss, Inc. is a for-profit business owned by Mike Otto & Bob Lusk. Mike is a premier pond and lake builder, with an earthmoving company. Bob (me) is a long-time private sector fisheries biologist, traveling the nation helping individuals design, build, and manage private fishing lakes. I also own Bob Lusk Outdoors, a small lake and pond management company that does the grass-roots pond management work, from stocking fish to water quality management, lake mapping, electrofishing surveys... to all things about managing healthy ponds and lakes.
That's how we make our livings.
But, What is Pond Boss?
5-10 years ago, my answer would have been, "Pond Boss is a bi-monthly magazine that helps people become better stewards of their land and water".
Now, my answer is different. Pond Boss is a big family of people striving to become better stewards of their land and water. Pond Boss is small groups of people meeting at properties across the nation to exchange information and build relationships and long time friendships. Pond Boss is a member-driven forum of healthy discussion about all things pond, lakes, and land management. Pond Boss is a conference every year and a half to three years. Pond Boss is a long-lasting entity of idea-sharing and friendships that are standing the test of time. Many people don't truly know the effects of relationships started through some part of Pond Boss. Some of those are jaw-dropping amazing. Pond Boss is a series of social media, not only the website forum, but also FaceBook, Instagram and Twitter. Pond Boss is a website, chock full of articles, videos, and information for people to glean and learn. Pond Boss is a group of faithful vendors and advertisers, quick to help people. And, yes, Pond Boss IS a magazine that comes out every other month.
While I've read a few opinions about the status of Pond Boss, the truth is Pond Boss is a healthy, thriving business that employs people, helps all our vendors and readers...for a fee. The social media stuff is free to consumers to build the community. The conferences have been offered for much better learning opportunities, to spend time as a Pond Boss family, and to increase people's level's of knowledge, services, and products for better stewardship.
So, to further the understanding of "What is Pond Boss", now you hopefully have a much better understanding of what we are. None of these diverse segments of Pond Boss stand on their own merits without considering the whole. What started as a newsletter/magazine 26 years ago has expanded into what we are today.
To further squelch any wayward opinions, we don't intend to "require" anyone to "pay to play" in the forum or any social media we use. We don't expect anyone to pay for "free" articles and videos at
www.pondboss.com. We do expect everyone on the forum to have a better understanding of all things Pond Boss. And, we want everyone to understand that the economy of Pond Boss is fueled by paying subscribers and advertisers in the magazine. Banner ads you see on the forum are typically part of a bundling program to entice advertisers in the magazine and to give them something value-added.
So, when we ask people to buy a subscription the magazine, don't be offended by that. It isn't a requirement for any of this resource called the forum. If we don't ask you to subscribe, or members of the forum don't ask you to subscribe, we are doing a disservice both to you and to ourselves.
Once you've spent time on the forum, read the volumes of outstanding information and waded through some of the personalities and the rules, we expect you'll be excited to support all things Pond Boss with a subscription to the magazine. If not, you can contribute to the costs of the forum via the "donate" button in the top right corner of the screen. Any donation puts you into the Pond Boss Hall of Fame.
This should clear any muddy waters of thought about what Pond Boss truly is...we are a diverse group of people, afforded diverse selections of vehicles to get to our stewardship destinations.
