Someone usually takes charge,(especially if they want to host) and gets things going. Dan Ye and Jon Jennings usually have a BBQ at there place in the summer. They have lots of fish and awards to show off.
Had one at my house a couple years back, High city Rida and Pwmin have also hosted. We had the first at Mike's Killer Fish back in '07 or 08' but he closed his business.
Man, I miss Mike's
ACA convention here? Saweet!
As for LFS's, as far as the Denver area is concerned, the only one I feel the need to try and frequent is Fish Palace. Our metro area has a pretty sorry group of LFS's......although Golden Fish is great for Africans, and, as mentioned, is a good place to find small Dats and Bichirs every now and then. Fish Den and Todd's have mainly cookie cutter community fish, but both have a few tanks with large fish, which, every once in a while have some good finds.