January 2023 Board Meeting Notes

Bartlesville Astronomical Society Board Meeting Minutes

January 5, 2023

Present at meeting:

Craig Brockmeier

Rick Buck

Evan Zorn

Denise Gregg

John Blaesi

Not in attendance:

Duane Perkins

Bob Young

Daryl Doughty

Rick Bryant

Mike Woods

The meeting was held in person at the library prior to the January BAS meeting.  It was not hosted via Zoom.

Discussed at meeting:

First Christian Church Storage:

Craig, Evan and Gil Greenwood went to the FCC on December 29 to look at what we have in storage.

Craig and Denise went to the City Council meeting on January 3 as the status of the First Christian Church was on the agenda.  The Council approved a resolution for charging for various uses of the building.  This included a very reasonable charge of $4.00 per square foot of space per year for storage.  For the size storage room that we would need, this would be much less than Acorn Storage!  Denise and Craig told City Clerk/CFO Jason Muninger and City Manager Mike Bailey that we appreciated this low rate very much, and would like to do this.  Craig told him that we were working on donating Club telescopes to save on space needed.  Mike said there might be a downstairs room available that would be a little bigger than the one we have now.  We want to give up the upstairs room so we don’t have to haul heavy equipment upstairs.  We would like at least a 10 X 12 foot room; a 10 X 15 foot room would be better, to give us more “wiggle room” to work with equipment.

We may need to start this agreement by February 2.

John Blaesi has taken a 9 ¼ inch Evolution scope.

Evan has taken a NorthStar Bushnell Goto telescope.

We have discussed keeping one of the best other telescopes we have for the BYA. 

We could work out something with the Bartlesville History Museum where they could have something on display that we could check out if we need to, or they could store documents for us.

We could give them the E.L. Clarke “historical” telescope.

The Museum could also scan documents for us if they put them in storage.

The Board voted to pay up to $600.00/year for storage of equipment.

The Board voted to donate excess Club equipment that no one in the Club wants to the Oklahoma City club.

Buy more telescopes for Club or to donate to library:

For the library:

Get another telescope for the library, such as an Orion StarBlast?  We could buy one and seek donations to pay for it.

The Board voted to get another telescope for the library.

For the Club:

Get another Celestron StarSense for the Club?

Get a Unistellar for Electronically Assisted Astronomy or a Vespera?

Hold off buying another telescope for Club since people aren’t borrowing now what we have?

Get a star tracker mount to loan out?

Get a good Goto scope that’s not too big?

Get image stabilizer binoculars to loan out?

Get 11 X50 or 11 X 70 binoculars on a tripod to loan out?

Get night vision binoculars to loan out?

Get a collimator to loan out?

Speakers at meetings:

John Blaesi suggested that if each of the six elected Board member could be responsible for the presentation at two meetings, that would cover the whole year. A Board member could present; get another Club member to present; get an outside speaker, or some combination of these to make up two meetings.

Prior to today’s meeting, Craig asked Bob Young, our current Program Chairman, if he had any speakers lined up for 2023 and Bob said that he did not.  The Board agreed to look for a new Program Chairman.  Denise suggested Virgil Reese; Craig said that he would talk to him.  Denise suggested that we could arrange for Bob to still be on the Board as an appointed Club liaison with Our Savior Lutheran where the BYA meets (Bob is a member of that church) and the Board members present thought would be a good idea.

Sonny Manley has said he could present in March.

Other projects:

4H

Do a program for us at the Tulsa Air and Space Museum in April?  We could donate to the Museum as we did in 2019 in return for a presentation for us.  Craig can talk to the Museum.