South Shore Astronomical Society
December 3, 2003
The meeting was called to order at 7:35 p.m. There were 16 attendees.
We have a balance of $2134.30 as of October 20, 2003.
Our January meeting will be held at the Blake Planetarium at the Plymouth Community Intermediate School on January 7, 2004. The guest speaker will be Dr. Alan Hirshfield from UMass-Dartmouth. The talk will begin at 7:30 p.m., but we should be there by 7:00 p.m. We will be joining Dr. Hirshfield for dinner at the East Bay Grille in Plymouth at 5:00 p.m. If you are planning to attend the dinner please RSVP to Bill by noon on January 7. We voted that the Club should pay for Dr. Hirshfield’s dinner.
Updates to the Club’s website were discussed. The updates include: the member’s telescope section, Mal’s downloads, hints for visiting viewing sessions, and the members only page.
Paul informed us that he received e-mail from Sean. Sean is having a good time and is going to Cambodia for the holidays. The e-mail was passed around for other members to read.
Tenney received a message from Rosemary of the Norwell Council on Aging. She informed him that we need to remember to put the chairs back in order and to set the alarm.
Skip suggested that we send a fruit basket to a neighbor who owns a bright spotlight and shuts it for us on our viewing nights. There was further discussion of other things to do for this neighbor. A motion was made, seconded, and passed to give this neighbor a $40 fruit basket. Skip will take care of this.
We also talked about giving a donation to the Norwell Council on Aging for allowing us to use this facility for our meetings. A motion for a $100 donation was made, seconded, and passed.
We held elections for the full slate of officers. The officers for the next year are:
President – Tenney Doble
Vice-President – Louis Gentile
Treasurer – Charles McCarthy
Secretary – Eileen Koury
Board of Directors – Andy Anderson
Paul Grueter
Bill Luzader
There will be a Board meeting on January 31, 2004 at the Norwell Council on Aging at 5:00 p.m. prior to an observing session.
There was a brief discussion of expenses. Our expenses include insurance (which increased 50% after 9/11), Astronomy Day prizes, the website, and the donation to the Council on Aging.
Louis said that he placed announcements about Club in the local papers. The announcements listed the website and mentioned the monthly observing sessions. An ad will also be placed about viewing Saturn on January 31, 2004.
Andy offered to print up graphics for T-shirts. The patches could then be ironed onto a shirt. Maybe we should have a T-shirt committee? The Club voted to pay for the supplies for the patches.
Skip offered to make membership cards. These would include the logo, the web address, the year and space for the member’s signature.
Skip asked if anyone is contacting inactive members. Paul replied that he sends e-mails to remind them of meetings and observing sessions. A discussion of inactive members followed.
Bill is forming a Plymouth Schools Astronomy Club. He would also like to make a float for the July 4th parade. Ideas for the float will be discussed at a future meeting.
Chuck started a discussion of last month’s Nation Geographic Magazine. It showed pictures from the Hubble. This lead to a discussion of false advertising for telescopes. The ads show pictures from the Hubble and people are always disappointed that it doesn’t look that way with the telescope. This kills astronomy for many people.
Tenney gave a book report on The New Consmology by Harold Lang. He was unenthusiastic about this book. A discussion of the mathematics and science discussed in the book ensued.
The next observing sessions will be on December 20 and 27, 2003.
The meeting was adjourned at 8:40 p.m.