| Owner | Item | |
| Stephen VanRompaey | 2004 Calendar |
Minutes
The meeting started at 7:00 pm.
Printing the newsletter, and mailing it, costs around $225 per month.
We suggested moving to an "opt-in" plan, whereby we would stick with a purely electronic
newsletter, but members could ask for a hard copy to be mailed to them, at an extra cost
to their membership.
We decided to keep printing the newsletter in the short term (next few months at least)
until all of the membership was aware of the change, and had indicated their preferences.
There were a few other issues:
Various options have been considered. There are cheap leases available from
the Department of Natural Resources. 100x200 plots can be had for as little
as $30 per month. There have been some problems with vandalism at previous
sites.
There may have been other attempts before, and we even had some land at one
point. We should check with previous board members to find out what options
have been tried before.
There was some discussion as to how we would use this, and whether or
not we had the bandwidth, given the club's other commitments.
For now, Mike Langley, Mary Ingersoll, and Janice Edwards have volunteered
to take the toolkit and see if any of the outreach activities would work
for the club.
8:20 - Meeting Ends
2004 Calendar
We need a 2004 Calendar for the new member brochure. Steve to follow up.
Newsletter Options
At the December club meeting, there was some resistance to the idea of raising dues. Instead,
members suggested that we switch to an all-electronic newsletter instead. This would save us
a lot of printing costs.
Dues
The board voted to maintain dues at $25. We will cut costs by switching to an
electronic newsletter. Members who want a hard copy of the newsletter can pay an
extra $5 per year.
Dark Sky Sites
Thomas Vaughan, Mark de Regt, and Rick Libsack have nominated themselves to
take a look at options for dark sky sites for the club. At this point, they
are just gathering information.
South End Sites
Janice Edwards may live near Van Doren park. Thomas Vaughan will hand
over the existing information to her. It may be possible to set up a
viewing night at Van Doren (at the same time as the Greenlake and Paramount
Park star parties), with the permission of the Kent Parks Department.
Night Sky Network
There was a discussion of the Night Sky Network, a program being offered by
NASA. It includes a toolkit for astronomy outreach, often centered on
various NASA initiatives and programs. If you complete 5 items in the
toolkit, the Night Sky Network will send you another toolkit.