July 2020 Board Meeting Notes

BAS Board Meeting July 30 2020

In attendance:

Craig Brockmeier, Evan Zorn, Mike Woods, Karen Cruce, Denise Gregg

John Blaesi (using his Zoom account for the virtual meeting; he also participated in the discussions!)

Not present:

Rick Buck, Rick Bryant, Duane Perkins, Daryl Doughty, Bob Young

BYA Report:

Bylaws - Have they been approved?

Funding and Expenditures

Above items tabled for future Board meeting as Rick Bryant not in attendance. Need to get the latest draft of the BYA Bylaws before the next meeting, so we can review them in advance.

Loaner telescope:

Celestron Starsense Explorer DX 102AZ, and Craig has an iPhone 7 to use with it. (Such a scope can be used by up to five phones.) There was agreement that we should get this type of telescope when it becomes available again on the market. Craig has been discussing this type of scope with Mike at Astronomics and Craig will bring it up at the Club meeting Aug 3.

Other suggestions? Craig mentioned some 4-inch refractor and 5-inch reflector scopes. Decided to get a refractor scope as a second scope as it has fewer knobs to turn and is easier to collimate.

Nick and Kyle at Osage Hills State Park are also interested in scopes. We could get at least one loaner scope dedicated to Osage Hills. (See discussion later on backpack scopes.)

Policy? We would need a checkout system for any scopes we get—whether kept by the Club or at Osage Hills--and a simple loaner policy.

In-person meetings or Zoom:

Should we cancel in-person meetings for the rest of the year? Yes. Mike Woods pointed out that we should only be having gatherings now of 10 people or fewer, so we decided to cancel for the rest of the year.

Should we start inviting the newsletter distribution to our Club meetings also? We decided to continue having meetings be for members only at least through September, and then re-evaluate. Denise mentioned that the Night Sky Network calendar has a meeting category now called “virtual”, which can be used for public events that anyone could attend from around the country. There seemed to be hesitation at the meeting for putting a Zoom meeting link on the BAS home page and on the NSN calendar.

Zoom account: Get an official account and buy 1 year? Yes, the Board decided to do this. This will run about $100.00 or so for a year.

PO Box for the club? Yes, the Board decided to do this. Craig and Denise have researched this. We will get a “business-type” P.O box at the downtown post office, one that is big enough to hold an 8 ½ X 11 manila envelope without bending. A size 3 box which will hold a manila envelope costs $254.00/year. At the time we reserve one, Craig will bring a sample manila envelope mailing he gets and see if a smaller box would work. Denise will check to see if auto-payment can be arranged through the Club bank account rather than a debit card, although the intent is to get a debit card. We will get several keys for Evan, Craig and Denise. We will have to check mail once a week; large packages are held by the post office only 10-14 days.

Debit/Credit card for continuing expenses? We discussed this. There are pros and cons to both debit and credit cards, but we decided to get one debit card that Evan would hold, from Arvest. This would be used for administrative purchases like a P.O. box and Zoom account, not for carrying to stores to buy supplies. (We chose not to get 2-3 debit cards—for Club officers to use to buy supplies--which would minimize the risk of the card being stolen, or otherwise have fraudulent charges.) Credit cards are covered for fraudulent expenses over $50.00, but there isn’t a fraudulent expense coverage for debit cards. Debit cards can be used for purchases up to $2500.00 in a single day, if there is that much money in the account.

Budget for next fiscal year: We haven’t had one for the past couple of years, but we agreed that Evan should come up with a simple, straightforward one for next year, including ongoing expenses such as insurance; annual Club registration fees; Astronomy League dues; and donations to First Christian Church for use of two storage rooms and to Our Savior Lutheran for BYA and other meetings. (We haven’t yet made a donation to Our Savior Lutheran.) We could also put in an allocation for expected expenses such as some funds for BYA supplies, and for other supplies and printing costs. We wouldn’t put volunteer grant money into the budget as expected incoming funds, as grant money is not a “given” from year to year. John Blaesi said that, at least from a Phillips 66 perspective, we don’t have to keep grant money in a separate bank account.

Star Parties:

Try to have a members-only event? Maybe. Would have to limit to 10 people or less and we would have to state that we aren’t responsible if someone contracts COVID-19 at the event. Would we require masks? And how would we enforce distancing?

We also discussed having virtual star parties. Craig, Denise John Grismore and John Blaesi tried one a month or so ago. It worked, although we noted that it would work best if limited to about half a dozen people. That might mean having a series of virtual star parties.

Proposal by John Grismore and John Blaesi on Natural Sky Park

Do we want a single site? No, more than one. Probably use Osage Hills but continue to use locations in-town, such as Tri County Tech, Sooner Park or the new Unity Square (where we had a star party a few years ago that attracted the Pokemon-Go street walkers.) Craig mentioned that people new to star parties might be more likely to attend a first event in town rather than out at Osage Hills.

Possibly have a permanent building? Need to look into this as time goes on. John Blaesi said that Nick told him they had 30-40 people at Osage Hills looking for Comet Neowise on one night alone! Nick also told Blaesi that visitation to Osage Hills is up by 150-200% this year!

Loaner backpack scopes there? Craig discussed getting these. There are several models we could choose from.

Parking fees at Osage Hills? Yes, these are in effect now (unless age 62 and up, and there are some other exceptions.) However, Nick would work with us on this, and if we’re not going to pay, we’d need to call Ed at the park to set this up in advance so cars wouldn’t be stopped at the entrance for not paying a fee.

Effective communications during the shelter-in-place?

John is doing the shut-in news. Craig said that John Grismore will continue to do this as long as there is positive feedback about the Supplement.

Phone survey? Email? We think people wouldn’t be likely to respond to an email. Phone surveys would be better, but we would need a script. We could send an email to those we couldn’t reach by phone. John Grismore will work on a script.

Should we adjust dues price for the upcoming year? We discussed this, and decided to leave dues as they are. If anyone does mention financial hardship in light of COVID-19, we will work with them on a case-by-case basis; we could extend current membership for those needing it for another year, for example.

Library display window - April 2021: Craig has secured April 2021 as our month next year with Denise Goff at the library. Denise Gregg has submitted the official form for this, and gave her own email address (plus the Club’s) for an ongoing Club contact as April gets closer. Abby has said that she will be able to work on setting up the display next April, but that could change with her starting college this year.

Replacement for Derek Web Wizard

Need someone to handle Facebook and Twitter. Suggestions? Karen offered to help with Facebook—thanks very much, Karen! Denise will get with Karen to do very basic Facebook messaging—such as to simply refer people to the BAS website for current information. Denise said that John Grismore has told her that the Club Twitter feeds are set up to follow what is on Facebook at least to some extent, so this may help with Twitter as well.

Need to upgrade to newest Google site---Classic Google sites will be sunset some time next year. Denise thinks it would be wise to have a backup for each page—or, at least, know what pages have links and where they go, and make sure that any documents on the website are backed up in our Google Drive. (Many meeting minutes are on the website only.)

Meeting minutes:

Restrict access to minutes on Google groups Was this done? No, because at a previous Board meeting someone mentioned that as a non-profit, we are supposed to keep minutes viewable by the public.

Last names in minutes if minutes are public-accessible? Yes.

Newsletter distribution lists: Who has access to club email distribution lists?

Adult group: Right now, only Mike Woods does. Denise will put the newsletter list into a Google Group next week. Mike said that some more people asked to be taken off this week, so Denise will wait until next week’s Supplement comes out to start working on this. Then, everyone in the Club will be able to send an email to the distribution. The Google Group itself will be visible by anyone to whom Denise grants viewership. Denise will also create a separate Excel file with email addresses (and names, if known) of people on the newsletter list—and keep people in this list going forward, even if people ask to be removed. This will serve as an ongoing historical reference for matching names with email addresses, especially for non-Club members. Going forward, the Web Wizard will maintain the adult distribution list. Many, many thanks to Mike for keeping this list up all these years!

BYA: Denise has seen what looks like the BYA newsletter mailing list in the BYA Google Drive folder in the Admin subfolder.

Replace Abby with Virgil Reese for Astronomy News

Do we need to approve? No; this was done at an earlier Board meeting. As far as we know, Virgil is planning to do the Astronomy News once Abby leaves for college.

Proposed trips/programs

Cosmosphere—Craig has talked with them; as of now, only small groups of 1-3 people per party are admitted; no large groups. We will keep this on the Board agenda for the future.

Speaker from NW Arkansas

Expenses - Do we cover? We didn’t discuss this item.

TASM planetarium—Again, a future item.

Share programs with Astronomy Club of Tulsa??

The Tulsa club did do a public star party this June, with a loaner scope available for guests. Otherwise, everyone brought their own scopes.

Jenks planetarium—A future item.

Speaker mugs?—Didn’t discuss this; keep on agenda

Inventory of items in storage—keep on Board agenda for future as need do social distancing now

Outreach programs

Star parties and other programs

Do we want a guidelines handout? Denise came up with a draft for this last November and we reviewed it at the January Board meeting. There is no imminent need for a full-fledged handout right now as we’re not having public star parties but we need to start thinking about this—if we do choose to have them down the road, should we put a liability statement in event publicity saying that we aren’t liable if someone contracts COVID-19 and contact tracing places it back to the star party?

How am I doing? Great!

Future directions? No specific discussion on this

Anything else? No

In attendance:

Craig Brockmeier, Evan Zorn, Mike Woods, Karen Cruce, Denise Gregg

John Blaesi (using his Zoom account for the virtual meeting; he also participated in the discussions!)

Not present:

Rick Buck, Rick Bryant, Duane Perkins, Daryl Doughty, Bob Young

BYA Report:

Bylaws - Have they been approved?

Funding and Expenditures

Above items tabled for future Board meeting as Rick Bryant not in attendance. Need to get the latest draft of the BYA Bylaws before the next meeting, so we can review them in advance.

Loaner telescope:

Celestron Starsense Explorer DX 102AZ, and Craig has an iPhone 7 to use with it. (Such a scope can be used by up to five phones.) There was agreement that we should get this type of telescope when it becomes available again on the market. Craig has been discussing this type of scope with Mike at Astronomics and Craig will bring it up at the Club meeting Aug 3.

Other suggestions? Craig mentioned some 4-inch refractor and 5-inch reflector scopes. Decided to get a refractor scope as a second scope as it has fewer knobs to turn and is easier to collimate.

Nick and Kyle at Osage Hills State Park are also interested in scopes. We could get at least one loaner scope dedicated to Osage Hills. (See discussion later on backpack scopes.)

Policy? We would need a checkout system for any scopes we get—whether kept by the Club or at Osage Hills--and a simple loaner policy.

In-person meetings or Zoom:

Should we cancel in-person meetings for the rest of the year? Yes. Mike Woods pointed out that we should only be having gatherings now of 10 people or fewer, so we decided to cancel for the rest of the year.

Should we start inviting the newsletter distribution to our Club meetings also? We decided to continue having meetings be for members only at least through September, and then re-evaluate. Denise mentioned that the Night Sky Network calendar has a meeting category now called “virtual”, which can be used for public events that anyone could attend from around the country. There seemed to be hesitation at the meeting for putting a Zoom meeting link on the BAS home page and on the NSN calendar.

Zoom account: Get an official account and buy 1 year? Yes, the Board decided to do this. This will run about $100.00 or so for a year.

PO Box for the club? Yes, the Board decided to do this. Craig and Denise have researched this. We will get a “business-type” P.O box at the downtown post office, one that is big enough to hold an 8 ½ X 11 manila envelope without bending. A size 3 box which will hold a manila envelope costs $254.00/year. At the time we reserve one, Craig will bring a sample manila envelope mailing he gets and see if a smaller box would work. Denise will check to see if auto-payment can be arranged through the Club bank account rather than a debit card, although the intent is to get a debit card. We will get several keys for Evan, Craig and Denise. We will have to check mail once a week; large packages are held by the post office only 10-14 days.

Debit/Credit card for continuing expenses? We discussed this. There are pros and cons to both debit and credit cards, but we decided to get one debit card that Evan would hold, from Arvest. This would be used for administrative purchases like a P.O. box and Zoom account, not for carrying to stores to buy supplies. (We chose not to get 2-3 debit cards—for Club officers to use to buy supplies--which would minimize the risk of the card being stolen, or otherwise have fraudulent charges.) Credit cards are covered for fraudulent expenses over $50.00, but there isn’t a fraudulent expense coverage for debit cards. Debit cards can be used for purchases up to $2500.00 in a single day, if there is that much money in the account.

Budget for next fiscal year: We haven’t had one for the past couple of years, but we agreed that Evan should come up with a simple, straightforward one for next year, including ongoing expenses such as insurance; annual Club registration fees; Astronomy League dues; and donations to First Christian Church for use of two storage rooms and to Our Savior Lutheran for BYA and other meetings. (We haven’t yet made a donation to Our Savior Lutheran.) We could also put in an allocation for expected expenses such as some funds for BYA supplies, and for other supplies and printing costs. We wouldn’t put volunteer grant money into the budget as expected incoming funds, as grant money is not a “given” from year to year. John Blaesi said that, at least from a Phillips 66 perspective, we don’t have to keep grant money in a separate bank account.

Star Parties:

Try to have a members-only event? Maybe. Would have to limit to 10 people or less and we would have to state that we aren’t responsible if someone contracts COVID-19 at the event. Would we require masks? And how would we enforce distancing?

We also discussed having virtual star parties. Craig, Denise John Grismore and John Blaesi tried one a month or so ago. It worked, although we noted that it would work best if limited to about half a dozen people. That might mean having a series of virtual star parties.

Proposal by John Grismore and John Blaesi on Natural Sky Park

Do we want a single site? No, more than one. Probably use Osage Hills but continue to use locations in-town, such as Tri County Tech, Sooner Park or the new Unity Square (where we had a star party a few years ago that attracted the Pokemon-Go street walkers.) Craig mentioned that people new to star parties might be more likely to attend a first event in town rather than out at Osage Hills.

Possibly have a permanent building? Need to look into this as time goes on. John Blaesi said that Nick told him they had 30-40 people at Osage Hills looking for Comet Neowise on one night alone! Nick also told Blaesi that visitation to Osage Hills is up by 150-200% this year!

Loaner backpack scopes there? Craig discussed getting these. There are several models we could choose from.

Parking fees at Osage Hills? Yes, these are in effect now (unless age 62 and up, and there are some other exceptions.) However, Nick would work with us on this, and if we’re not going to pay, we’d need to call Ed at the park to set this up in advance so cars wouldn’t be stopped at the entrance for not paying a fee.

Effective communications during the shelter-in-place?

John is doing the shut-in news. Craig said that John Grismore will continue to do this as long as there is positive feedback about the Supplement.

Phone survey? Email? We think people wouldn’t be likely to respond to an email. Phone surveys would be better, but we would need a script. We could send an email to those we couldn’t reach by phone. John Grismore will work on a script.

Should we adjust dues price for the upcoming year? We discussed this, and decided to leave dues as they are. If anyone does mention financial hardship in light of COVID-19, we will work with them on a case-by-case basis; we could extend current membership for those needing it for another year, for example.

Library display window - April 2021: Craig has secured April 2021 as our month next year with Denise Goff at the library. Denise Gregg has submitted the official form for this, and gave her own email address (plus the Club’s) for an ongoing Club contact as April gets closer. Abby has said that she will be able to work on setting up the display next April, but that could change with her starting college this year.

Replacement for Derek Web Wizard

Need someone to handle Facebook and Twitter. Suggestions? Karen offered to help with Facebook—thanks very much, Karen! Denise will get with Karen to do very basic Facebook messaging—such as to simply refer people to the BAS website for current information. Denise said that John Grismore has told her that the Club Twitter feeds are set up to follow what is on Facebook at least to some extent, so this may help with Twitter as well.

Need to upgrade to newest Google site---Classic Google sites will be sunset some time next year. Denise thinks it would be wise to have a backup for each page—or, at least, know what pages have links and where they go, and make sure that any documents on the website are backed up in our Google Drive. (Many meeting minutes are on the website only.)

Meeting minutes:

Restrict access to minutes on Google groups Was this done? No, because at a previous Board meeting someone mentioned that as a non-profit, we are supposed to keep minutes viewable by the public.

Last names in minutes if minutes are public-accessible? Yes.

Newsletter distribution lists: Who has access to club email distribution lists?

Adult group: Right now, only Mike Woods does. Denise will put the newsletter list into a Google Group next week. Mike said that some more people asked to be taken off this week, so Denise will wait until next week’s Supplement comes out to start working on this. Then, everyone in the Club will be able to send an email to the distribution. The Google Group itself will be visible by anyone to whom Denise grants viewership. Denise will also create a separate Excel file with email addresses (and names, if known) of people on the newsletter list—and keep people in this list going forward, even if people ask to be removed. This will serve as an ongoing historical reference for matching names with email addresses, especially for non-Club members. Going forward, the Web Wizard will maintain the adult distribution list. Many, many thanks to Mike for keeping this list up all these years!

BYA: Denise has seen what looks like the BYA newsletter mailing list in the BYA Google Drive folder in the Admin subfolder.

Replace Abby with Virgil Reese for Astronomy News

Do we need to approve? No; this was done at an earlier Board meeting. As far as we know, Virgil is planning to do the Astronomy News once Abby leaves for college.

Proposed trips/programs

Cosmosphere—Craig has talked with them; as of now, only small groups of 1-3 people per party are admitted; no large groups. We will keep this on the Board agenda for the future.

Speaker from NW Arkansas

Expenses - Do we cover? We didn’t discuss this item.

TASM planetarium—Again, a future item.

Share programs with Astronomy Club of Tulsa??

The Tulsa club did do a public star party this June, with a loaner scope available for guests. Otherwise, everyone brought their own scopes.

Jenks planetarium—A future item.

Speaker mugs?—Didn’t discuss this; keep on agenda

Inventory of items in storage—keep on Board agenda for future as need do social distancing now

Outreach programs

Star parties and other programs

Do we want a guidelines handout? Denise came up with a draft for this last November and we reviewed it at the January Board meeting. There is no imminent need for a full-fledged handout right now as we’re not having public star parties but we need to start thinking about this—if we do choose to have them down the road, should we put a liability statement in event publicity saying that we aren’t liable if someone contracts COVID-19 and contact tracing places it back to the star party?

How am I doing? Great!

Future directions? No specific discussion on this

Anything else? No