You live in the middle of the state or province with probably more fish clubs than any other state or province in the world! I have actually considered moving to Michigan or Ohio to appreciate that. (There are some pretty neat fish heads in Illinois though.)
I realize that students are seldom independently wealthy. (I worked several college jobs, educational station TVcameraman, library staker, grill scraper and so on for the princely sum of $1 per hour.)
However, take a look at this site:
http://home.neo.rr.com/ohaquariumclubs/
Please understand that many clubs have a Christmas party (unless they work for Target, in that case they have a holiday party) and then they all go their own ways for a month. Shortly that site will have all sorts of info on aquatic events within a half day's drive of you. If you can get free of the land of Whoppers and find someone to share gas, there are a lot of wonderful events to attend.
Last year I assembled a list of clubs and events. It never got transfered to HTML and Guppylog. (Like any ChicagoCub fan, wait until next year!)
My list of site providing fish club information is below. Perhaps it will be of use to you, a Guppylog member or even a lurker.
If anyone has another URL of interest, I would appreciate it if you would send it my way. Last year's 30+ hours of digging around in the Net wasn't very useful to too many people. Maybe this year's list will get published and be a heck of a lot more help to a lot more people.
Thanks and all the best!
uncle scott
Club source lists
Associação Portuguesa do Guppy (APG)
www.apguppy.com.
Guppyclub Belgium
www.guppyclub.be
Guppy Club Singapore (GCS)
www.sgguppy.com.
See
http://www.world-guppy.de/forum/index.php?mode=viewthread&forum_id=1&thread=2&sid=361d35
b6179ad5e3ca70d5f79cd9ff73
If you are interested in how the judging is done.
(Great Links too)
Sources:
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/greatercity/links1.htm
About clubs no longer with us http://www.aquaristsreunited.fslife.co.uk/
http://www.aquariumhobbyist.com/
http://www.gcca.net/faas/
http://northeastcouncil.org/html/
International Fancy Guppy Association http://www.ifga.org/club_links/club_links.htm
http://home.neo.rr.com/ohaquariumclubs/fishlink.html
Canadian Association of Aquarium Clubs http://www.caoac.on.ca/FramesetMain.html
http://www.ifocas.fsworld.co.uk/
http://www.mops.ca/cgi-bin/SoftCart.exe/clubs.asp?E+scstore
http://www.fishlinkcentral.com/clubs/North_America/USA/
http://fish.designerz.com/fish-and-aquaria-clubs.php
http://www.petsforum.com/okcaa/clublinks.html?reload_coolmenus
Really dated list from FINS http://fins.actwin.com/dir/clubs.php?c=1
http://home.neo.rr.com/ohaquariumclubs/
http://www.aquariumhobbyist.com/society.html
Fishtopia http://home.rochester.rr.com/delano/societies.htm
http://home.neo.rr.com/ohaquariumclubs/
Aqualink National A.S. http://www.aqualink.com/community/national.html
TFH Hobbist Resources http://www.tfhmagazine.com/default.aspx?pageid=16
FAAS http://www.gcca.net/faas/find_club.htm
A very old list, includes many no longer active: http://home.rochester.rr.com/delano/societies.htm
From Fish Topia 1999
Federation of British Aquatic Societies http://www.fbas.co.uk/
Federation of New Zealand Societies http://www.fnzas.org.nz/
http://home.neo.rr.com/ohaquariumclubs/