September 2019 Board

BAS Board Meeting - September 9, 2019

Slate of candidates for officer elections for 2020:

The existing officers present at the meeting were all willing to stay in office! Craig will check with the rest of the Board to see if anyone else would like to be an elected officer, and the general membership as well. We will vote for 2020 officers in October.

Astronomy Day October 5:

We reviewed John Blaesi's press release/flyer--and in so doing realized that it had not been sent to all the Board members. Denise had some copies printed which we looked at. Denise will send the latest version to the Board members. Next step is for Denise to contact the newspaper (she knows Tim Hudson who works there) to see about putting out an article. She will also make a shorter version for the yellow sheet and Cable One. (Cable One space will be too short to advertise the star party.) We also discussed putting some of the press release/flyers at the library and possibly Jude's. (Denise had put the July star party notice both places.)

If anyone has any further suggestions or ideas for this day, contact John Blaesi.

Restrict access to minutes on Google Groups:

Denise has found that if you do a Google search for your name (first and last) that Meeting Notes from BAS meetings with your name will come up in the results. However, this won't happen if the folder a document is in has restricted viewing. (She tested this with her Tri County contact's name--it didn't come up in a writeup she has posted in a restricted-viewing folder on how to set up a star party at Tri County.)

We decided to restrict viewing of BAS Meeting Notes to members only if this is feasible, rather than drop people's last names from meeting minutes. We will have to check with Derek to see if this is feasible!

Who has access to Club email distribution lists (the one with both BAS members and non-members)?

Mike Woods is the only one who has access to this list. This group of email contacts is attached to his work email, and he is getting ready to retire. He is fully aware of this and is working on ways to back it up or have it otherwise accessible. Beyond that, though, more than one person in the Club should have access to this list. (This would have been very handy in June when we found out that the June BYA meeting was not going to be on the usual meeting date, and Mike--who could have sent out an email--was out of town, and Denise, who had the paper copies from Sunfest of who wanted to get youth emails, was also out of town!)

Understudy for Derek:

Derek will be graduating from high school next May, going to college a year from now, and next summer will likely be doing pre-college activities. Bottom line: We need to start training someone now to take his BAS Site Web Master position over before he leaves! Derek gets email addresses loaded from the online forms people submit; loads documents into various BAS online folders; and creates new folders and manages access to them. He also handles the Facebook Club posts. In other words, he does a LOT! Kristi has been very generous to back him up when he isn't available, but we should train someone to take over his multi-faceted position. We will discuss Derek's role with our Club at the next BAS meeting.

Proposed trips/programs:

Cosmosphere--

This would be most likely an overnight trip. (If a day trip, would be very, very long.) Thinking now of doing this next spring/summer. This fall would probably not be a good time to schedule the trip, as the Cosmosphere is beginning some renovations that are due to be completed by next March.

TASM Planetarium--

We think that planning this as a yearly event to take place in the spring sounds good. We like the idea of spring because spring tends to have rain which would preclude an outdoor star party event, but the Planetarium is indoors!

The BYA signed a picture recently to present to the TASM in thanks for the show they did for us earlier this year. Rick Buck will check to see if this has been sent or delivered to the TASM.

Share programs with the Astronomy Club of Tulsa?

Would we like to do things with the Astronomy Club of Tulsa? We could perhaps have a meeting or planetarium show at the Jenks Planetarium with them.

Expenditures:

Buy a telescope to loan out? The consensus seems to be yes--not right now, maybe next year. If we decide to do this, we will form a committee to make recommendations. We could even get two scopes, one of lesser price for the BYA to loan out.

Buy binoculars? We really didn't discuss this tonight--just focused on telescopes.

Buy a planetarium projector? Cost might be in the $150-200 range. This also sounds like a worthy item to get.

Club-owned assets--table, lanterns, wagon, flashlights, etc: We are well on our way to having Club-owned items that people have brought from their homes up to now for events. Besides the bins of handouts and smaller supplies, we now have a 6 ft. folding table and a folding cart, which came in very handy as we were putting telescopes into the new storage area. Yet to buy are smaller items--red-light lanterns for the 6 ft. table, and a good flashlight for packing-up time at events. We will inform the Board if an individual purchase is made for over $50.00.

Evan pointed out that annual dues will come in soon, which will raise the amount of money the Club has. We also noted that printing costs are down since we've started using the Bartlesville Print Shop. We also discussed possibly not printing pages of handouts with the Club logo in color, which would save more money. (For right now, any page with the Club logo gets printed in color.)

Loan out items to members?

Yes, we would do this if we get loaner scopes. Rick Buck and Rick Bryant are working on a loaner guide. We would have a two-step process for loaning out equipment--first, training on the telescope operation, and then the guide for describing overall safety precautions and protocols. Denise has picked up the library's "library of things" procedure for people checking out higher-end equipment but she didn't bring this tonight. Craig also said he would talk to the library about this. There could be questions about insurance for items loaned out.

Donation to Our Savior for the BYA:

Yes, we would like to do this; will bring up at the next BAS meeting. Suggest $100.00 or possibly a little more, since meetings are held at the Church once a month. Bob Young (Our Savior member) thought the Church wouldn't object to this.

At the Board meeting, Evan and Craig signed the letter to accompany the Club's $100.00 donation to the First Christian Church, which Evan has ready to send.

Inventory of items in storage:

This is ongoing. Craig will talk to John Blaesi and John Grismore about status of this.

MSRAL 2020:

Rick Buck said he participated in online meeting organized by Peggy Walker about this several weeks ago. Lashawn also participated; Abby wasn't able to. Things are still preliminary; Peggy is still assessing resources and manpower. Rick Buck offered use of our Club canopy. At this point, this is on an individual level (Rick offering this) as opposed to the Club offering to do something.

Business cards:

We approved Rick's design and will get 1000 if price is reasonable. The Bartlesville Print Shop cost would be about $85.00 but we think Staples can do for $25-$30. Craig will check and get these made before Astronomy Day.

BYA report--skipped this as Rick Bryant not able to attend

Library display next April:

Rick Buck OK'd us using some of his great images. We will see if Daryl and Bob would like to include some of theirs. We discussed putting a smaller telescope also in the window displays. If anyone has any ideas, get in touch with Abby.

Outreach programs:

Okie-Tex Sept. 21-29--about 5 youth plus parent(s) attending, along with Rick Bryant and Rick Buck.

Star parties: Denise and Craig received an invite from Cassie with the Girl Scouts in Tulsa to do a star party for an adult weekend at Camp Tallchief Sept. 20. Craig has already let Cassie know that Okie-Tex is a conflict so don't know if anyone will be able to participate or not. He will talk to John Grismore and John Blaesi; Denise will send more info on this to Bob Young.

Social time after meetings at Braums:

There was general agreement that we want to continue doing this!

Do we want to schedule Board meetings?

Every two months or quarterly? The consensus seems to be quarterly, and have it on the 4th Tuesday or Wednesday of the month. (This would give time for the Board to discuss something before the next month's BAS meeting.) Bob Young would need to book the room at Our Savior once we decide.

How is Craig doing?

He is doing great--the Club has accomplished a lot this year! Craig in turn gave credit to people in the Club who have stepped up this year to do things--such as John and John for our new storage area!

Future directions/anything else?

Nothing at this time!