May 2017 Board

In attendance:

Jerry Koenig

Karen Cruce

Vicky Travelgini

Steve Plank

John Grismore

Duane Perkins

Craig Brockmeier

Mike Woods

Bob Young

Daryl Doughty

Denise Gregg

Could not attend: Rick Bryant

Discussion topics:

Club communications—

Night Sky Network is good for flash emails—i.e. there is an ISS transit tonight, or a star party is definitely cancelled due to weather—but is not good for back-and-forth emails about discussion topics as it doesn’t keep all the emails pertaining to one topic in a single chain. Dave Prosper, who works with the Nature Conservancy Tallgrass Prairie group (that Karen is part of), may be able to help with this; they use another method of communication.

Solar eclipse glasses—

Steve has a solar kit from the Night Sky Network with lots of solar sunglasses that he will give out to those who would like them for the eclipse.

Star party in Bartlesville for Solar Eclipse--

Steve is not planning to go view the solar eclipse in Missouri or elsewhere at this time. We will probably have a public star party here for people who don’t go further north.

Inviting policemen and their families to any star parties we have at the Community Center (like the one that we had to cancel in April)—

Since the police department has now moved to their new location downtown just across from the library, Denise offered to go to them whenever we plan a star party at the BCC (since it’s so close to them) and invite them to come. The Board was fine with this. The policemen have a shift change at 10 pm so that would lend itself well to officers coming off duty on a star party night when things are happening, like the star party we had last July.

Should we have a BYA youth representative on the BAS board?

The consensus was no.

However, the youth group itself is going to have elections for their own board positions, which will let Jerry and Rick step back a bit and let some of the youth grow into leadership roles.

Should we raise club dues?

There was some discussion about this. We thought it would be appropriate to raise the yearly dues for individual memberships from $20.00 to $25.00, for a family membership of two people from $30.00 to $35.00 and for a family membership of 3 or more people from $40.00 to $45.00.

It was decided that we shouldn’t raise any of the family memberships more than $5.00 even though that meant that, proportionately, the individual membership would be raised by a larger percentage. The last time dues were raised was in 2010. (Originally, a single adult membership was $10.00) We did not enact that at this time; it would be brought up at a regular club meeting.

Right now the club has six family memberships.

Event coming up May 12 at Ranch Heights elementary, 8:030 am-12:30 pm:

We agreed to donate $100.00 toward prizes for winners at the event. The event will be for third, fourth and fifth graders plus 3 kindergarten and pre-school groups. The kindergartners and pre-school kids will make comet necklaces. Abby and Derek (from our youth group) will work on the necklaces with them and Denise will be there to help “babysit”.

Jerry needs volunteers to work with the 3rd, 4th and 5th graders to explain a solar system color chart to them.

Rooster Days May 13 and 14—

Jerry and Connie will be going to this from 10 am-10 pm Saturday and 10 am-5 pm Sunday. They will have solar scopes.

Next public star party—

We discussed planning one May 19 or 20 at the BCC but that wouldn’t work due to an event on the 20th with a rehearsal on the 19th.

Steve will contact the police department about doing one at Sooner Park May 20. (May 20 rather than May 19 because there will be less moonlight.) We discussed the lack of bathroom facilities at Sooner but someone pointed out that people could drive to Casey’s General Store which is just down street on Madison.

June church event--

Connie has approached Jerry about doing something for some churches with lower-income memberships at the end of June. Details later.

Fran Stallings update—

She is going to be making some story recordings and will be going to Japan.

What do we do with all of the Club telescopes?

Form a committee to work on this?

Jerry brought up the idea of contacting Warren Neff (who has told Rick and Denise he would contact us about having speakers visit the high school STEM lab participants, but hasn’t yet) about maybe us keeping some telescopes in any store-room the STEM lab might have. These would have to be scopes that the students could easily use.

Does the high school have an astronomy club? We don’t think so. We had looked into this at the time the youth group started last year and they didn’t at that time.

The scopes that are stored in Mike Woods’ storage area are, for all intents and purposes, in climate-controlled storage. Not like being in a garage.

The scope we have from Fred is really good. Mirror mounted separately.

There is the possibility that we may get some astronomical books donated to us. Plus, we have historical club records.

Could we find a dark place to have star party nights without having to get approval each time?

By the water tanks? Questions about liability? John will go to a city council meeting to ask about this—he has a contact on the council.

Solar filters—

Should we make some?