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CFAS Monthly Board Meeting Minutes

CFAS Monthly Board Meeting Minutes

November 17, 2005


Attendees:

Paul Kronenwetter

Larry Lurie

Derek Demeter

Ray Jones

Walt Hamler

Tony Urzi

Francisco Gonzalez

David Furrow

Tom Chitty


Guests: (None)


  1. President's Call to order. Welcoming remarks.

The meeting was called to order at 7:00pm


  1. Secretary's Report

A request was made for comments and changes to the September board meeting minutes. Ray and Alan suggested changes to the original minutes which have been incorporated. Ray made a motion to approve the minutes as amended via email & Francisco seconded. The minutes were approved unanimously. The secretary asked if the December board meeting will be held on the 15th or the 22nd. The board agreed the meeting should be held on the 15th to better avoid the holidays.


  1. Treasurer's Report

No report was submitted this month.


  1. Agenda Items

    1. Christmas Party Planning was finalized.

      1. A cleaning party will be held at the observatory on December 10th at Noon with pizza provided for workers.

    2. Budget submissions from the board were reviewed and will be submitted to Alan.


  1. Committee Reports

    1. Membership -

      1. No New Members for November:

      2. Review new member package

        • Frank G. will deliver the current package to Walt this week and Walt will send it to Francisco.


    1. Programs

      1. December (Robinson)

        • Robinson party

      1. January (SCC)

        • History of the Cosmos (Dr. Costas Efthimiou)


    1. DSAC/Library

      1. Hunter hasn't yet contacted Derek regarding digitizing the library.

      2. UCF lighting project will be addressed in the spring.


    1. Publicity

      1. Oviedo Great Day in the Country is always held the 2nd Saturday in November. Tony gave the organizers his contact information for next year.


    1. Orlando Science Center

      1. No activity on the outreach program but he will be contacting them again this week.


    1. Board Members at Large

      1. No members have contacted BMALs this month.


    1. Observing

      1. Loaner telescopes

      2. Education & Outreach

        1. Volucia county event

          • Wiregrass Prairie Preserve is the location under consideration.

          • ~25 Miles from Oviedo, last section is ~3/4 mile of dirt road across the prairie.

          • Star party planned for January 28th. ~50 people

          • Looking for ~10 people with telescopes.

        1. Sally Ride festival December 3rd. Setup 9am, event starts at 11am. Will end at 2:30pm.

        2. Tosahachee event on December 3rd. Starts at 5:15pm.

        3. English estates elementary school event is slated for February, 2006.

        4. Tom brought examples of the material to distribute to members as observing suggestions.

      2. Harmony Site

        1. Road construction project will probably not start until January.

        2. An alternate site has been identified near the “old” site.

        3. Ray & Walt will investigate the viability of the site one evening and report back.

        4. Ocala national park – “Highway 40 site”

          1. ~60 miles from Winter Springs

      3. SCC Star Range

        1. SCC Star Range will probably be available on February 28th.

      4. Chiefland

        1. UCF Students won several eyepieces that they donated to CFAS. We'll use them for the 12” telescope.

        2. Ray purchased a heater for the 12” telescope.


    1. Robinson

      1. Operational status

        1. RA encoder has been fixed and all is working properly now.

      2. Visitor night

        1. Will start again January 18th.

        2. Need liaison

      3. Training: No training occurred in November.

        1. The training policy should be updated to reflect the new agreement of CFAS training UCF students.

        2. The board discussed a recertification policy for the Robinson observatory. Paul will research and report for the next meeting.


    1. Astrolog Editor

      1. Need deadline for January 2006 submissions

        1. November 30th will be the due date.


    1. Scientific Committee

      1. Inactive


    1. NASA Night Sky Network

      1. Next teleconference is November 30th at 9pm Astronaut Janice Voss will be the speaker.


    1. Webmaster

      1. Changing of CFAS.org email addresses

        1. The board decided to close the observing@cfas.org and president@cfas.org email address due to the quantity of spam and limited use. Paul will contact the ISP.


  1. Old Business

    1. Harmony observatory

      1. On hold waiting for Harmony to build.

    2. Orlando Museum of Art Program

      1. On the back burner.

    3. Tony noted last month that we lost the “greeter” at the entrance to issue name tags when Frank stopped coming to meetings. The board asked Francisco to resume that function.


  1. New Business

    1. Donated Sky & Telescope Magazines

      1. 1968-2004

      2. Walt will take possession of them until our librarian can make the final determination.

    2. Paul will email Derek to obtain the current inventory spreadsheet for the library.

    3. Two loaner telescopes are in Walt's possession that no one likes to use.

        • 6” Dob - Homebuilt

        • 6” Criterion reflector on an equatorial mount.

      1. Ray moved that Walt sell both telescopes for the best price he can fetch for them. Larry seconded the motion and the motion passed unanimously.


  1. Motion to Adjourn

    1. Ray motioned to adjourn the meeting, Francisco seconded. The meeting was adjourned at 8:46pm.


/s/ Paul Kronenwetter