October 1 2020 Board Meeting Notes
Bartlesville Astronomical Society Board Meeting Minutes
October 1, 2020
In attendance:
Craig Brockmeier, Rick Buck, Evan Zorn, Karen Cruce, Duane Perkins, Denise Gregg
Not present:
Rick Bryant, Daryl Doughty, Mike Woods, Bob Young
Election of officers for 2021:
Craig has visited with all elected Board members and they are all willing to serve another year in their current position.
Rick Buck is still interested in being AlCor, although Denise is doing most of the behind-the-scenes work, such as submitting the quarterly Club report, as that ties in nicely with being Web Wizard. Rick is more interested in the Club networking side of AlCor. We could consider listing Denise as AlCor and then she asks for assistance from Rick as needed.
How we will do elections this year:
Craig will present a proposed slate of officers at the October meeting and ask if there are any other nominations.
Craig will send an email to Club members after the meeting asking if anyone wants to nominate themselves or someone else for a Club position.
Prior to the November meeting, the final slate of officers will be sent via email to Club members. Members will be asked to vote by email if they don’t plan to attend the November Club Zoom meeting.
For those who don’t have email, we will gather votes by phone.
At the November meeting, we will conduct a vote by raising of hands of those at the November meeting, and add to that the votes that came in by email and phone.
Dues for 2021: We propose that, for current members, we won’t charge for dues for 2021, in light of COVID-19. We will charge for new members.
Volunteer grant status:
We are due to receive $1500.00 in volunteer grants shortly. This will total $2000.00 for the year.
Osage Hills State Park going to try for IDA certification as a Dark Sky Park:
John Blaesi is working with Nick Conner on this; this is something that Nick has been wanting to do.
This may entail putting in a paved road to a designated dark sky site within the park; building a structure; and buying a telescope.
If they get a larger telescope housed in an observatory, Nick or another Park Ranger would operate the telescope; if they get a smaller 4-inch type telescope, then it would be loaned out to Club visitors. Nick would like recommendations on the type of telescope to buy. Someone pointed out that at the Tulsa Club’s observatory, you have to be certified to operate their Club telescope.
They may also mount a “gun-sight” on a post—this would be focused on Polaris and then show the five polar constellations around it. It would be adjusted as needed during the year.
They may also loan out Planispheres.
The Club would work with Nick on this project.
Craig is considering talking to the loaner scope program people to see if they have ever worked on a loaner scope program for state parks.
In general, this project sounded interesting to the Board members present, although we will want to get more information about it and how much Club participation would be needed. Craig said that the intent was (for example) not to have a Club member present a talk or do a telescope demonstration every week! Our Club website, though, will be referenced at the bottom of information put out by Osage Hills.
Future Club Zoom meetings:
We decided to put on the website (and have Mike put in his newsletter) to say that the meetings will be held via Zoom and that Club members will receive a link to the meeting.
Need to upgrade our website from Classic to New Google Sites:
By end of September 2021: We will be unable to edit our Club site.
By December 2021: No one will be able to view our Club site.
We need to have our site migration done well before Sunfest, in case QR codes and website links will change; if that is the case, handouts, business cards, and banners, for example, would need to be reprinted.
We discussed paying someone to help us with this. How much? Spending up to $500.00 seemed to be an appropriate amount to the Board members present.
Denise has the name of someone at Bartlesville schools who may have experience with Google site migration. She will contact him.
Craig also suggested contacting Bartnet internet service; Denise will contact them.
Craig also suggested contacting Rogers State University.
Denise mentioned Brian Turner with OWU; she will contact him.
Someone also mentioned that David Bennett, another Club member, is retired from COP IT; we could contact him.
Review of Club Survey results:
We discussed the Club survey results briefly.
The general consensus was that we will need to look into texting for the Club. It was pointed out that for texting services, people may not be able to reply to a text, depending on the texting service used; also, there may be limitations of around 140 words in a text. Craig suggested that after we migrate to new Google Sites, that we see if there might be a capability there to text Club members using the Club Google phone number. There was general agreement, though, that the top-priority item for our Club is Google Site migration.
Denise mentioned that if, for example, we created separate Google Groups for different interests, that these would be very time-consuming to maintain. There was general agreement that we should not try to get this specific in Club communications. We also wouldn’t want Mike Woods to have to make different versions of his newsletter.
Denise mentioned that we may need a new Google Group for those who want time-sensitive communications via email; however, if replies to texting wouldn’t be possible, and if there are truly limits on text messages, then we may still text those who want texts, but send them a backup email with more information, and for which a reply would be possible. If we do that, then a separate Google Group for time-sensitive email communications wouldn’t be necessary.
We still need someone to do Facebook and Twitter for the Club.