February 2022 Board Meeting Notes

BAS Board Meeting Minutes February 16, 2022

In attendance via Zoom:

Craig Brockmeier

Evan Zorn

Denise Gregg

Duane Perkins

John Blaesi

Not in attendance:

Rick Buck

Rick Bryant

Daryl Doughty

Bob Young

Mike Woods

First Christian Church closing update:

Craig talked to Mike Bailey at the January Bartlesville City Council meeting. Mike thought they might have an update on this in a month or so.

Need talk to Lisa Beeman, as we use telescopes stored at the FCC at public star parties.

Ongoing costs for maintaining the FCC would include insurance, taxes (but not city taxes) and maintenance.

Evan and Rick Buck will head this project.

Library display:

Work on this is in progress; meeting via Zoom every two weeks.

We have meeting room A at the library booked for May 7, which is the spring Astronomy Day. Denise has offered to do a condensed version of her presentation on meteor showers. John Blaesi brought up, though, that when we did this at the library in October 2019, we only had two visitors. We discussed doing instead a public star party at Jo Allyn Lowe, weather permitting. We could publicize in the newspaper. That night the moon would be at quarter stage, which would be good for a star party. Perhaps start the party at 6 p.m.

We decided not to cancel the meeting room A just yet, but will need to do so if we don’t plan to use it.

Set up an ongoing schedule for star parties, both members-only and public?

We talked about doing this on the second Friday or Saturday of each month, weather permitting, regardless of moon phase. The idea is to get a set schedule that people could put on their calendars.

In-person and Zoom meetings:

The March meeting will be in person and on Zoom.

We plan to continue offering a Zoom option, even when meeting in person.

We decided that Denise would set up the Zoom on a monthly basis, rather than a recurring meeting.

Sunfest:

Denise needs to get us signed up for Sunfest and request same area that we had last year.

Possibly set up a sundial on the grass?

Library telescopes:

Buy another scope for the library, or apply for one from the Astronomical League like we did in 2018?

Telescope for Osage Hills:

Get a scope for Osage Hills? Osage Hills has a binoculars-in-a bag loaner program already. Setting up a loaner scope at a state park hasn’t been done before, that we know of! Get a small refractor?

More loaner equipment for our Club:

Sky tracker/star tracker?

Camera?

Build a remote observatory? (That would be a major project with a lot of expenditure.)

Can the Club invest money to earn funds that could be used for something like this? We’re not sure.

Getting topics and speakers for Club meetings:

We discussed each Board member coming up with a presentation of their own, and getting one outside speaker.

Denise said she would contact Betty Keim, who has already indicated an interest in doing something for us this fall.

Do a presentation on SkySafari and using our Star Sense Club telescope, weather permitting?

Dues:

Denise will send email to members and to the newsletter group, including a PayPal link. Need renewals before the end of March as the April AlCor report determines who gets the Reflector for the coming year.