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CFAS Monthly Board Meeting Minutes

CFAS Monthly Board Meeting Minutes

March 5, 2008

Attendees:

Paul Kronenwetter

Frank Gutowski

Walt Hamler

Tony Urzi

Derek Demeter

Tom Chitty

Beeler Gausz

Guests: None.

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

The meeting was called to order at 7:10pm.

  1. Secretary's Report

Paul apologized for not fully addressing comments made by the board due to personal commitments. He therefore requested that the board approve last month's minutes via email to be distributed within a few days of the board meeting.

  1. Treasurer's Report

Alan is unavailable and did not provide a report.

  1. Agenda Items

    1. Astrofest 3/7-3/9.

      1. Tom reviewed the assignments, recent additions and cancellations.

      2. We have approximately $2500 worth of gifts for astrofest this year.

  1. Committee Reports

    1. Membership -

      1. No new members joined since the last board meeting.

    1. Programs

      1. March – Dave Tidwell will present “We are Stardust”

      2. April – Messenger Mission to Mercury – Tony Urzi

      3. May – Solar System Toolkit from NNSN

      4. June – History of Solar Exploration

      5. July – Cassini - End of Prime Mission Brefing

      6. August – Cosmic Collisions & something else

      7. September – New Horizons – Passport to Pluto

      8. October – Mars Phoenix Mission

      9. November – NASA's Great Observatory

      10. December – Holiday party at the Robinson Observatory

    1. DSAC/Orlando Science Center

      1. The SCC campus is following suit with the planetarium in “going green.” The SCC publicity representative is working with Derek to promote better lighting.

      2. Derek mentioned that SCC will fuse Earth Day and Astronomy Day to increase interest and participation and hold it on April 26th. This won't interfere with OSC's activity and will allow volunteers to participate in both events.

      3. Derek is still working with the electricians at SCC to fix the full cutoff light near the planetarium.

    1. Publicity

      1. No update provided

    1. Library

      1. No update provided

    1. Board Members at Large

      1. No update provided

    1. Observing

      1. Cub Scout Pack 29 at Moss Park on March 29th. Requesting only a few volunteers with telescopes. Time will probably be 7:30pm.

      2. Harmony Dark Sky Festival - April 5th, 7-11pm.

      3. Kelly Park during the day April 19th. Tony will attend and work an information booth. He's looking for volunteers for the information booth and a solar observing activity.

      4. Campfire USA at Turkey Lake – April 18-20.

      5. Girl Scout Camporee in Wekiva Springs – April 25th. Jason Higley is organizing this event and looking for volunteers.

    1. Education and Outreach

      1. Potential events:

        1. Clarcona Elementary – Date TBD

        2. South Creek Library – Orange County Library System

    1. Robinson

      1. Nate Lust is offering to hold training classes on the new telescope system for CFAS members. This is a welcome offer as it marks a key milestone in the readiness of the telescope to be used by CFAS members, but more importantly for research by the university.

    1. Astrolog Editor

      1. Beeler is set to publish during the last week of March.

    1. Scientific Committee

      1. No update provided

    1. NASA Night Sky Network

      1. No update provided

    1. Webmaster

      1. Paul investigated some software at Dave Tidwell's suggestion for a more interactive website. The e107 application is installed in a directory of the current website. It is available for board members to evaluate. Paul found several pieces of functionality missing compared to the current software used to generate the website but he will continue to explore the capabilities.

      2. Tony asked if we could start a database of contacts for outreach events, etc... Paul will look into this possibility, but it will require some small amount of coding.

  1. Old Business

    1. Revisions to By Laws

      1. Tony would like to get an approved set of changes out to the membership by the April meeting. He requested the board look at it and make suggestions to Paul by the April board meeting.

  1. New Business

    1. Frank suggested that we schedule next year's astrofest in late March or early April. This would probably give us better weather for astrofest than we've experienced over the past few years.

  1. Motion to Adjourn

    1. Walt motioned to adjourn the meeting, Tom seconded. The meeting was adjourned at 7:57pm.

/s/ Paul Kronenwetter – CFAS Secretary